Amuck! (1978)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

This thing ... Much better titled "Hot Bed of Sex" than anything is championed along with Amadio's other effort "Smile before Death" and the truly awful "Top Sensation" as prime giallos ... Well they aren't ... They really are just very lame sex films that the director hangs a thriller plot on to try and grab both audiences ... Unfortunately neither Amadio nor Allessi could pull off a second of tension if their lives depended on it ... There is no style ... No ingenious deaths ... The sort of plot twists that you see coming from a mile off ... And basically these films are just bad OK Rosalba gets her kit off as usual ... But so what ... A bad film is a bad film and these are just limp badly directed fodder that was thrown out by the bucketload A great giallo is a great film full stop ... So just because this aims for the same genre and has a bit of skin in it, don't hype it up guys ... Its Dross

This is one of the better-known giallo titles, if mainly for the presence of two of the more luscious "Euro-Cult" starlets – blonde Barbara Bouchet (whom I saw, still looking good, quite a few times at the Italian B-movie retrospective held during the 2004 Venice Film Festival!) and brunette Rosalba Neri – in perhaps their role of greatest significance; it goes without saying, then, that the film's piece de resistance is their celebrated slow-motion love scene (which actually occurs very early into the proceedings)! With a generic if definitely attention-grabbing moniker that has no direct bearing on the plot, the movie has been given many an alternate title – such as MURDER MANSION and HOT BED OF SEX, depending on which aspect the respective distributors chose to spotlight (for the record, the Italian original translates to IN THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE); incidentally, the English-dubbed and regrettably panned-and-scanned VHS-sourced copy (as a result proving soft and occasionally battered) I watched boasted no credits apart from the names of the picture itself, Bouchet and leading man Farley Granger! By the way, the film marked the second of three giallos the American star appeared in back-to-back (I watched the others, which I quite liked, only a few days ago) but, though I felt he delivered surprisingly committed performances in all of them, once again this one afforded him the meatiest characterization. Having said that, it makes for a good transition between SOMETHING CREEPING IN THE DARK (1971) and SO SWEET, SO DEAD (1972) – featuring elements from each, specifically the old dark house setting and a high sleaze factor respectively! The premise is simple enough, with heroine Bouchet insinuating herself into the Venetian household of renowned novelist Granger and his much younger wife Neri, in order (unbeknownst to them) to probe into the disappearance of their secretary – her colleague/flatmate/lover!; it transpires that the outwardly respectable wealthy couple leads a libertine existence, given to stag parties fuelled by drug-taking and the exhibition of snuff movies: starting to involve a dim-witted brute in their exploits, one day things turn sour and it is the secretary who gets the short end of the stick (no pun intended)! The local Police are aware of Bouchet's undercover 'mission' but, soon enough, she realizes that her employer is too – since the plot of his new novel begins to parallel the events that had taken place in the house and, more importantly, indicate what her own fate will be (a blackmailing servant is similarly gotten out of the way)! To further muddle the waters, Granger pretends to fall for Bouchet (thus getting a piece of the action himself for once!) – in fact, two of the film's highlights involve the depictions (via flashback confessions) of the former secretary's death and the disposing of the body; another – this time around a recollection by Bouchet – is a skinny-dipping episode (which goes a bit beyond that) involving her and the murdered girl, and yet one memorable sequence is the climax (planned to be a reprise of the secretary's unlucky demise, the tables are smoothly turned on the perpetrators: Bouchet had met the couple's unwitting associate during a chance but cringe-inducing encounter where he, a fisherman, had nonchalantly flayed a live eel in front of her and she even treated his injured finger!). As was often the case with the "Euro-Cult" style, one of the lasting ingredients here is Teo Usuelli's score which is versatile enough to suit the film's many changes of mood.

Basically, you only require two main reasons to make this "Amuck!" priority viewing, namely the starring of both female leads Bouchet and Neri, so all the cool story lines, nifty camera-work and bizarre sense of humor are just welcome bonuses. But let's focus on the sexuality aspects some more, first! The very first lesbian sequence involving both aforementioned beauties is so HOT that it nearly burnt holes in the screen of the TV. It's redundant eroticism, but extremely elegant and pictured quite tastefully. Bizarre sexual tendencies and decadence are the most prominent themes in this early 70's giallo (at least, I assume it qualifies as a giallo) and fans that like to see explicit sleaze combined with gory murders will be sorely disappointed since there isn't any of that. Young Greta travels to Venice to work as a secretary for the famous novelist Richard Stuart but her main mission is to personally investigate what happened to her vanished lesbian lover Sally. She was previously employed by Richard and Greta suspects that she had become too much of a burden in the sex-parties that involve all of the writer's acquaintances. Richard knows what Greta is looking for and messes with her mind by making the story of his new book suspiciously sound like Sally's presumable fate. The story is compelling enough to keep you interested, but some sequences, like the swamp-hunting, feel a bit overlong and tedious. A bit of gore would have been nice too, though. Still, this is a very enchanting film, professionally directed by Silvio Amadio and benefiting a great deal from the charisma of its two lead lead actresses.

A tacky low-budget (un)dress rehearsal for Paul Schrader's sublime The Comfort of Strangers. A couple of jaded swingers live in a crumbling Venetian palazzo. Having little else to do, they lure unwary strangers into their web of kinky games. Alas, any comparison with Schrader's masterwork ends with the plot. Amuck! is one of those sad films that constantly threaten to intrigue us, but never quite do.The heroine of this mess is a pert but stupefyingly dull blonde secretary played by Barbara Bouchet. (She looks like a cross between Jerry Hall and Elaine from Ally McBeal.) Hot on the trail of her vanished best friend, she gets a job with that girl's one-time employers. A voyeuristic American writer (Farley Granger) and his bisexual nympho wife (Rosalba Neri).The key to the mystery is gratingly obvious from the start. The direction is flat and the acting is abysmal, apart from Granger. Incredibly, the camerawork in this film makes even Venice look and drab and stale. No mean feat.Amuck! does offer some surprisingly full-on lesbian lovemaking between Neri and Bouchet. Also a porno home-movie version of Little Red Riding Hood - good for a giggle in the right circles. Unless either of these sets your pulse a-racing, this is one Venice movie you should cross a thousand canals...to avoid.David Melville