Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

The first must-see film of the year.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Caca Brute in Italian translates into "really stinky poop." This movie is a mess. It doesn't know what it wants to be, love story, giallo, thriller,soft core, etc. It might be that is was a joint Italian-French production that adds to it's dichotomy. I really found nothing in this film to recommend it to anyone interested in the Italian giallo genre or Freda's work in general. I was watching a fairly good print of the film and still found it extremely dark and/or poorly lit (so much so that I had to strain to make sure of whom I was seeing). The "plot" is threadbare and you can spot the killer almost from their introduction into the movie. The effects are shoddy, the dubbing is shoddy, even the music is shoddy. Skip this one. You really haven't missed a thing.

Sometimes you just realize straight away when an opening sequence is too good to be true. In case of "Murder Obsession", the film takes off with THE Laura Gemser ("Black Emanuelle") opening the balcony curtain and standing face to face with a sinister bloke who promptly tears her nightgown to shreds and attempts to strangle her. Such excitement in the first minute simply can't be real and, oh yeah, it rapidly turns out to be a typical "Film-in-Film" situation. Still, even in spite of the transparent red herring, "Murder Obsession" raises some fairly high expectations, as the plot develops itself as a mixture between Giallo (Italian slasher), Gothic horror and occult movie. We've got prototypic Giallo-murders committed by an individual wearing black gloves, a Victorian mansion setting and multiple nightmare/hallucination sequences hinting at the involvement of black magic rites. And, quite frankly, "Murder Obsession" is entertaining and undemanding horror fodder, at least for as long as the events don't require any form of explanation. Riccardo Freda blends together so many crazy ideas and far-fetched twists that, by the time the denouement is due, he has no clue what to do with them all. Especially near the last 20 minutes of the movie, the script doesn't make a lick of sense, but what do you expect when dealing with childhood traumas, psychic powers, Oedipus complexes, oppressed homicidal tendencies, adultery, black masses and good old-fashioned perverted killers. "Murder Obsession" features not one, not two, but at least three climaxes and they're all equally implausible. Implausible and, moreover, unimaginably ridiculous. Professional actor Michael Stanford is lured back to his parental house, where his ill mother and the uncanny butler lived all alone since Michael's father died under mysterious circumstances. Mother Glenda, who actually more resembles to a slightly older and hot sister, later also welcomes a trio of Michael's film crew colleagues and soon after the eeriness kicks in. Michael's girlfriend has nightmares, the luscious actress nearly drowns in her bathtub and the cocky director notices that the curious butler doesn't like his picture taken. Glenda then reveals that Michael killed his father at young age, and maybe his homecoming brought back his desire to kill? The murders are quite graphical, but the make-up/special effects are incredibly tacky and the total opposite of shocking. This was the first job of Italian effects-wizard Sergio Stivaletti, but he definitely still had a lot to learn at that time. When one character has the head smashed in with an axe, the stand-in dummy clearly doesn't even remotely resemble the original character. Anita Strindberg and Laura Gemser are fabulous eye-candy and, as usual, not too prudish to take their clothes off, but their characters are empty-headed and their dialogs are pathetic. Strindberg even retired from film-making after this movie, perhaps because she felt insulted for having to depict a grandmother at the age of 36. Riccardo Freda always was one of Italy's most uneven and unreliable horror directors and, to me personally, he ranks really low on the list of that nation's filmmakers. I'm a huge fan of "I, Vampire", but apparently Mario Bava directed most of that film and the other Freda movies I watched ("The Ghost", "Tragic Ceremony") left me rather cold.

Michael, a successful actor with a secret in his past, returns to his family estate after a long absence.He arrives with his girlfriend in tow and he greeted by his mother who seems a bit too attentive to her son and distancing to the girlfriend. It isn't long before some more friends arrive for both business and pleasure. However ghosts of the past are reawakened and it isn't long before strange things begin happening and people begin dying.This is Italian horror at its most silly. The film starts off interesting enough with Michael going home to a house full of eerie people and occurrences. There is a nice tension to the proceedings, however things begin to sputter a bit when the girlfriend has one of the funniest "scary" dreams ever put on film after 1965. It comes complete with fake spider web and rubber spider and is impossible to take seriously. From there things begin to move unevenly as bodies begin to pile up and the number of suspects begin to diminish. The film completely falls apart as it tries to explain and re-explain whats really going on and who these people are. Its a mess and I found myself giggling through the final 20 minutes or so.I was disappointed. The early scenes created a nice tension that was lost when things started to become silly and illogical (I know one should not always look for reason and logic in Italian horror). It gets points for keeping me watching to the end, but that was because I kept hoping it would shift gears into reverse and go back to being the decent little thriller at the start.4 out of 10. Disappointing thriller is probably worth watching if you stumble across it late at night and find there is nothing better on. Those who like Italian horror and giallo films can probably add a couple of points.

A group of filmmakers travel to the family home of the lead actor to scout locations. They are greeted by his disturbed mother and her sinister servant.Maestro Freda's last feature is a baroque masterwork which indeed forms a kind of review of the entire Italian horror tradition from BLACK SUNDAY on. BLACK SUNDAY lead actor John Richardson appears as the servant in a possible nod to former Freda collaborator Mario Bava.The story contains many elements from other horror films: PSYCHO, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, DEEP RED, but Freda tells the tale in an ornate style referencing classical art and music in his imagery and on the soundtrack. The acting is mediocre, but the carefully composed imagery makes up for it. Such hallucinatory visions as a clutch of bleeding skulls, a giant spider and black mass which resembles both a Dali painting and a Michaelangelo sculpture are indelible. Highly recommended for Italian horror and Freda fans. A very underrated film which shows the director still at the apex of his creative powers.