TULPA - DEMON OF DESIRE

Lisa is a career woman with a double life: by day, a manager at an important Roman company, by night, a frequent visitor to nightclubs where she meets and sleeps with men and women. In particular, Lisa is used to frequenting the Tulpa, an exotic-themed venue where she has met all her recent lovers. But the men and women with whom Lisa has recently slept begin to be killed one by one in extremely violent ways by a mysterious assassin dressed in black. Since the woman fears being involved in the investigations and losing her image, she begins to investigate on her own the identity of the person who is killing her lovers. One of the greatest traditions of Italian genre cinema, close to the western, peplum, poliziottesco, and of course comedy, has been the giallo, or as it has been called more often abroad, the spaghetti-thriller. We have had celebrated masters recognized worldwide to increase the number of films in this genre, from the initiator Mario Bava to the one who consecrated it, Dario Argento, passing through the fundamental Umberto Lenzi and Sergio Martino, as well as a myriad of other directors who have even once tried their hand at serial killers clad in black leather raincoats, gloves, and hats of the same color and armed with the indispensable knife. The spaghetti-thriller reached the peak of its productive splendor in the first half of the 1970s, then dragging itself through the rest of the decade and extending its life into the 1980s thanks mainly to Argento's titles and little else. A tradition that has often been at the center of revival attempts, and if the same Dario Argento has repeatedly tried to repeat himself with more or less successful results, both in Italy and abroad, there have been several attempts to remake the spaghetti-thriller that over the years has received many ex post consents. We remember the excellent "Crystal Eyes" by Eros Puglielli, the disastrous "Under the Dress Nothing – The Last Parade" by Carlo Vanzina, or the recent mediocre "Infinite Black" by Giorgio Bruno, or the experimental and beautiful "Amour Fou" by Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani and "Masks" by Andreas Marschall to testify that this genre has struck not only the public's imagination but also that of many filmmakers eager to retrace the themes and stylistic elements of a genre that has made history. Today, Federico Zampaglione also tries his hand at making an Italian giallo and brings to cinemas "Tulpa – Mortal Sins," a heartfelt and definitely successful homage to a very difficult film genre to update because it is often strongly contextualized in an era. The intelligence and cunning of Zampaglione lies in not wanting to fall into the nostalgia effect, in the vintage operation as often happens when you want to pay homage to a genre that was popular in the past. Rather, the musician and director crafts with "Tulpa" a 100% modern film, anchored in our era and with well-known faces from the current cinematic landscape, but at the same time manages to immerse the film in an atmosphere that screams 1970s spaghetti-thriller. And it is clear in every shot and every narrative and stylistic choice that the director knows that cinema perfectly because, especially in the construction of the elaborate murders, one breathes in full lungs that cinema of Dario Argento or Sergio Martino, starting from the ferocity and fantasy of the deaths, the mixture with eroticism and the use of music (composed by Federico and Francesco Zampaglione with the collaboration of Andrea Moscianese) that underlines in an obsessive and functional way the tension scenes. If the highlight of "Tulpa" are precisely the murder scenes, choreographed in an Argento-like manner and often pushed to levels of really extreme violence, no less is the erotic component that is found right at the base of the story, a story of sex (often perverse) that drives everything. And it must be said that Zampaglione had fun staging some hot sequences involving the beautiful forty-year-old protagonist (and his partner in life) Claudia Gerini who will surely be remembered by her fans, like the scene first sapphic and then a threesome involving the young actress Crisula Stafida. What instead is the great limit of "Tulpa" is the screenplay, written by Zampaglione himself with Giacomo Gensini and based on a subject by the expert Dardano Sacchetti, which shows little interest in the deepening of all the characters and manages in a somewhat clumsy, almost disinterested way, the investigation of the protagonist, culminating in a finale certainly effective but a bit too hurried in showing motives and solutions. "Tulpa" therefore convinces and, to date, can be considered one of the best attempts to revive the Italian giallo genre of 40 years ago. Certainly, it is a film that will appeal more to enthusiasts and connoisseurs of certain genre cinema, but it is not excluded that it may lead the younger generation to discover the magnificent Italian thriller tradition of the past. Add half a pumpkin.