Fatal Frames - 1996 - Movie review

Hello Youtube! My name is Torstein and today I felt in the mood for to give an unknown Italian thriller from 1996 a chance. I was expecting a late entry to the giallo genre, but that's not exactly what I got. The movie is called Fatal Frames and here is my review of it. In Fatal Frames we meet the highly successful music video director Alex Ritt. While still mourning the *** of his wife, he takes some time out to visiting Rome in Italy to do a music video for the popular Italian artist Stefania. Shortly after he has arrived and gotten himself settled, he becomes the witness of the brutal *** of a young woman. This *** makes the local authorities question if Ritt might have something to do with it, and when more women attached to the music video production ends up being murdered, Ritt himself has to try to figure out what is going on before he himself is put face to face with the serial killer. So... I expected a giallo, and I guess I got a giallo inspired film as the serial killer is dressed up like the classic giallo serial killer. And there is an attempt at using colors, especially red and blue, but... sorry to say, Fatal Frames is an awful, boring piece of film. First off, this is a simple *** mystery story, yet they had the idea that stretching it out over two hours was a good choice. Most of the scenes are incredibly boring dialogue scenes with different characters popping in and out to discuss the murders. That's all the movie is. Dialogue scene after dialogue scene talking about the murders instead of spending time to set up the characters so we might give a *** when the *** scenes actually occur on the screen. And even with all the exposition going on, the plot still makes very little sense. It also didn't help that the English dub for this film was horrendous. It is a shame that it turned out to be such a borefest as the cast of the film is quite interesting. The leading man Alex Ritt is played by Rick Gianasi, who played Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD a few years earlier. He has a Michael Bolton look to him here, making him look more like a lead in a romantic television drama cathering to 50 year old women. Stefania Stella plays... herself for some reason? At least she has the same name as she has in real life, even if I can find nothing about her being a real singer. And judging by the music clips they have in this film, I doubt I would believe it even if I were to find any albums of hers online. And it doesn't matter much either, as even though you would think she would have a huge part in the film, she is only seen very sporadically. She also served as a producer on this film, which might tell you why she was cast in this part. The rest of the cast is filled with people we love from horror and exploitation genres. You have David Warbeck from The Last Hunter and The Beyond, Alida Valli who popped up in both Suspiria and Inferno, Linnea Quigley surprisingly shows up for a minor part, and her ex-husband Steve Johnson also handled some of the not so special effects. Angus Schrimm is here for a minute or two and they even had Donald Pleasence in what turned out to be his final on screen appearance before he passed away on February 2nd, 1995. It's obvious that they weren't able to film all his scene, so they have a sweet and weird scene where someone else is playing him and he is leaving Italy because an old case of his has reopened in the States. While that is being said, there suddenly is the Halloween theme song being played. Even though some of the scenes are shot in very beautiful locations in Rome, it still just looks bland and amateurish. There is this softcore feel to the entire production and it should not be of any surprise that the scene that are handled the best is the one sex scene in the film. From what I've read, this was apparantly a troubled production so I guess all blame can't be put on director Al Festa, who had only done one film before this, a Turkish romance movie. I might also be overthinking this, but from what I got, the movie actually ended with a scene basically saying that seeing violent imagery as a child might turn you into a violent person yourself. Yeah... Fatal Frames is a misery of an experience to sit through. I am sorry that I have to be so negative towards this film, but I honestly can't find anything positive to say about it except that it has an impressive cast. Unless you want to torture yourself and try to have some fun with a film that are absolutely terrible, then this is not a film you need to check out. Fatal Frames only gets a 1 out of 5. Has anyone else sat through Fatal Frames? If so, why did you do it and did you dislike it as much as I did? Any recent Italian horror or thrillers that you have seen and want to recommend? Let me know about it in the comment section below. Although this is a Spanish film and not Italian, I would recommend that you check out my review for the excellent film The Glass Coffin from 2016. Hope you enjoyed this video, even though it was a negative one, and I hope you'll want to hear my voice again on future reviews here on Cinema Terror.