Murder Obsession

L'OSSESSIONE CHE UCCIDE

UNCONSCIOUS aka FEAR aka THE WAILING

Director: Riccardo Freda. Sc: Riccardo Freda, Antonio Corti,

Fabio Piccioni. Music: Franco Mannino. Cast: Stefano Patrizi, Anita Strindberg, John Richardson, Laura Gemser, Martine Brochard, Silvia Dionisio.

Michael Stanford is an actor who decides to return home and visit dear old Mom. He brings along his girlfriend Deborah (Silvia Dionisio) and invites his director Hans, lead actress Beryl (Laura Gemser) and assistant director Shirley (Martine Brochard). Upon arriving, they meet creepy Oliver (John Richardson) and of course, Mother (Anita Strindberg, still looking good and proving that silicon implants do hold up over the years). Almost immediately strange things start to happen as Beryl is strangled in her bath and Deborah dreams of Black Magic rituals. When people start dying (in very graphic, bloody fashion) it's made to look like Michael has gone off the deep end (he supposedly killed his father when he was younger). Michael finally discovers that his Mother and her lover Oliver, were behind the murders. In fact, Oliver is so disgusted with it all, he commits suicide. Deborah turns up at the end just in time to discover that Mom has killed Michael and she too is trapped and about to become the next victim.

This film definitely takes the kitchen sink approach to plot elements. It features a little bit of everything, from a traditional stalk and slash killer to a Mother only Norman Bates could love to Black Mass and mind control. All that plus large amounts of nudity and gore show that Freda was far from over the hill when he made this film. Freda must have been in a bad mood when he made this one as no one survives to the end except Strindberg, giving the performance of her career as the Mom from Hell. Pulchritude is at an all time high in this one especially Silvia Dionisio (who looks like Olivia-Newton John). The U.S. video version edits out her second dream/Black Mass sequence, either because a real chicken gets beheaded or because there's an embarrassingly fake spider that makes the ones in MESA OF LOST WOMAN look terrific by comparison. The film telegraphs its shock sequences such as when a character is seen cutting wood with a chainsaw, you just know that implement will make a return appearance with far more gruesome results. Franco Mannino's score veers from grandiose orchestral themes to sleazy synthesizer beeps that ruin whatever mood he was trying to maintain.