UBALDO TERZANI HORROR SHOW

Alessio Rinaldi is a twenty-five-year-old director working on the screenplay of a horror film. His producer, however, does not approve of the splatter direction he wants to give the story, so he advises Alessio to write the screenplay with Ubaldo Terzani, a famous best-selling horror author, to create a film that focuses more on atmosphere. The director contacts Terzani and moves into his house near Turin for a full immersion in the screenplay. The charisma and unsettling determination of Ubaldo Terzani drag Alessio into a spiral of nightmares and madness where reality blends with fantasy... a fantasy stained with blood and atrocious murders. We had left Gabriele Albanesi with the families of deformed cannibalistic people that populated "Il bosco fuori", his debut film from 2006, and now we find him dealing with a sadistic writer in a film that does not hide autobiographical undertones. "Ubaldo Terzani Horror Show", also known by its working title "Nelle fauci di Ubaldo Terzani", confirms Albanesi's unconditional love for genre cinema by immersing the viewer from the start in a crowd of more or less evident citations of which one ends up losing count. Among vintage posters that wink at Fernando Di Leo and Dario Argento, images taken directly from "Quando Alice ruppe lo specchio" by Fulci, book titles that recall the spaghetti thrillers of the '70s, and themed t-shirts, there is really a lot to enjoy. In the end, a film that carries the name Ubaldo Terzani in its title is already a statement of intent, given that a Ubaldo Terzano (with an "o") is a dear figure to Italian genre cinema, as an operator and cinematographer in many films by Mario Bava as well as for Fulci and Argento. "Ubaldo Terzani Horror Show" is a bit like the "Kill Bill" of Italian horror, with citations galore and a demonstration of culture and affection for the genre by the author. But it must be made clear immediately that Albanesi's film is not just a citational divertissement for its own sake; rather, it attempts to launch an attack with an intelligent and original story. This already indicates a radical departure from the previous "Il bosco fuori", an excellent survival horror that nevertheless had to pay tribute to existing works. With "Ubaldo Terzani Horror Show", we move instead into original territories that seek to expose the Italian cinematic production situation, where what matters is television. The producer Curreri (Antonio Iuorio) does not want splatter, otherwise he cannot sell the film to TV, just as the director Orsello (Stefano Fregni) has turned to directing fiction because "that's the only way he can eat". A depressing situation presented with lucidly satirical intentions and representing the spark for the story. We mentioned that there is something autobiographical in "Ubaldo Terzani Horror Show", and it is precisely in these production dynamics that steer Italian horror towards independence that we can read some glimpses of Albanesi's own working life, who, by the way, has declared that the Alessio Rinaldi, the film's main character, is none other than his alter ego. After such interesting premises that use the cinematic medium to reflect on the current state of the Italian film industry - which, by the way, is no longer really an industry - "Ubaldo Terzani Horror Show" gets a bit lost along the way. The central part of the film, dedicated to showing the relationship that develops between Alessio and his mentor Ubaldo, seems a bit too static and unnecessarily stretched out (the scene at the party, for example, is too long), created in function of the final action. And indeed, the ending, which gives us some moments of superb splatter (which, by the way, do not even lack intermittently during the film), serves to close the circle in support of the viewer (and the author himself) who says "NO" to the Italian anesthetized television system. Want a film of atmosphere to sell to TV? Instead, you get severed legs, mutilated bodies, and torn-out hearts; the fiercely truculent cinema that pleases fans and also the director wins. Despite this solution to the extradiegetic conflict that becomes intradiegetic, "Ubaldo Terzani Horror Show" has a development that is far too linear, culminating in a somewhat telegraphed ending, where perhaps an additional narrative twist would have been useful. Kudos to the cast, in which stand out the talented Giuseppe Soleri ("Piano 17"; "L'Ispettore Coliandro"), who plays the protagonist Alessio Rinaldi, and Paolo Sassanelli ("Non pensarci"; "Figli delle stelle"), who embodies Ubaldo Terzani, a perfect "bastard" who will surely be remembered. Also worth mentioning is the beautiful Laura Gigante ("Albakiara"; "Fantasmi"), who is building a career as a perfect tricolor "scream queen". In cameos or as extras, Antonio Tentori, Luigi Pastore, G-Max, Marco Manetti, and Albanesi himself. Absolutely worth mentioning are the special effects by Sergio Stivaletti, here in one of his best performances in recent years. View the interview with Gabriele Albanesi by Luigi Pastore