MACABRE (1980)
Starring Bernice Stegers and Stanko Molnar
Originally released on video in the U.S. as "Frozen Terror," "Macabre" isn't one of Lamberto Bava's best movies, then it also isn't one of his worst. Set in New Orleans, the movie was clearly designed with a U.S. market in mind, but is still poorly dubbed. It wouldn't be the only Italian horror film from the eighties to be shot and set in New Orleans: Fulci's "The Beyond" was also filmed there. "Macabre" (aka "Macabro") was co-written by Pupi Avati, who directed the 1985 zombie film "Zeder."
Stegers stars as a housewife who has an affair. When she's out one day shagging her lover, her jealous daughter goes ballistic, killing her younger brother by drowning him to death in a bathtub. On the way back to her home, Mom gets in a car wreck, and in the process her lover is tragically (and quite graphically) beheaded.
Time passes.
With her son dead, her daughter in a mental institution, and her husband estranged and gone, the slutty mom moves in with a horny blind roommate. Using her feminine wares to manipulate the poor bastard, she is able to get a few favors out of him. He eventually becomes obsessed with the lady, even though he can't see her body. We, naturally, as film viewers get plenty of shots of the disrobed Mrs. Stegers. Strangely, the mother claims she's having a torrid affair with someone. But who could it be? And what is it she's got locked up in the freezer? What could it be?
"Macabre" is pretty talky up until its climax, when we learn what Stegers has been freezing for so long. Especially amusing is the scene when her young daughter finally comes back and confronts Mom on her secret. All in all, "Macabre" is a movie strictly for Bava fans and lovers of cheesy early 1980s Italian horror, and doesn't come close the greatest of the "Demons" films or even "A Blade in the Dark." General viewers won't find much to cheer here. As mentioned earlier, the film came out on video as "Frozen Terror." It would be remastered and re-released to DVD in 2001 by Anchor Bay as "Macabre."
Directed by Lamberto Bava