sausage fingers.

Got a huge pile (ooeer) of brand spanking new movies to watch for 31 days of horror so have spent days (well hours) pouring over what to watch first.

Unfortunately my autie-ness and fear of all things new kicked in so to calm myself down I ended up picking this old favourite.

Enjoy.

The Wax Mask (AKA M.D.C. - Maschera di cera, Gaston Leroux's The Wax Mask. 1997).
Dir: Sergio Stivaletti.
Cast: Robert Hossien, Romina Mondello, Riccardo Serventi Longhi, Daniele Auber, Umberto Balli, Gianni Franco and Gabriella Giorgelli.

It's the romantic city of Paris in the year 1900 and a portly, middle aged couple have just been bludgeoned to death in their beds by a cloaked, top-hatted fella with a groovy metal hand.

There are limbs and various bodily parts everywhere and the sheets are ruined leaving the local police at a loss as to who or what could have done such a thing.

After a few minutes heated discussion they all agree that it definitely wasn't the wee girl they found hiding under the bed.

Pretty good job they weren't Police Scotland tho' seeing as they'd have probably charged her with a hate crime for mentioning his metal hand then confiscated her teddy bear as a weapon before throwing the poor sod in a river.

Needle in mah neck!

Anyway our story quickly jumps (via the groovy world of dissolves) from blood stained sheets to semen stained slappers as it's now twelve years later and the action has moved from gay Paris to ia brothel in Rome where the besuited and bookish boys are enjoying the company of the prettiest (and cleanest looking) whores since Jeune & Jolie.

Or since watching Channel 5's Milkshake this morning obviously.

Anyway, between the shagging of ladies and the drinking of tea the conversation turns to a brand new wax museum that's soon to open across town, no-one has seen it yet but rumour has it that the place is frankly terrifying with the scariest waxworks ever (yes, even scarier than this one) and it's not long before the weaselly whore-shagger and gambling addict Marcel McBeardo has accepted a £5 bet to spend the night in the place.

Waved (as opposed to wracked) off by his favourite and particularly bouncy blonde prostitute (imagine a rouge lipped, corseted and even more council estate Baby Spice and you're partway there) he heads inside to find a quiet place to sleep between the spooky wax figures.

Baby Spice: What you really, really want. Allegedly.

Wandering between the exhibits he comes across a door leading to a basement room and being a nosy bugger heads down to investigate.

Bad move seeing as the basement is full of bottled babies, body parts and jars labeled 'bad things'.

Oh and a spooky hooded man busy working away on something not nice.

The sight is so horrific that poor Marcel can't help poohing himself a little bit, the smell of which attracts the attentions of the aforementioned hooded man who gives chase, easily catching the by now whiffy fella and killing him.

To death.

"Is that a leaky biro in your pocket
or have you cum in your pants?"

When Marcel doesn't turn up for work the following Monday the police soon begin an Investigation into his disappearance, quickly discovering that he was last seen approaching the waxwork where upon a closer inspection they soon find Marcel's shite stained body curled up in a corner just behind the Harry and Megan tableaux.

Due to the smell the coroner decides that he died of fear.

Enter Boris Volkoff (well as played by the very old yet still very sexy Hossein - you'd not think twice), the owner of the waxwork who, of course knows nothing about the aforementioned death.

Aye right.

And with the set up out of the way it's time to meet our heroine for the next 90 minutes in the petite form of the young, fresh faced wannabe fashion designer Sonia Lafont (button nosed pixie perfection Mondello) who has just applied for a job making costumes at the wax museum.

Unfortunately Alex (Balli from the cult Bobby Rhodes starrer Tre), Volkoff's lanky, pretty lipped and pudding bowled assistant despises her hairstyle and eels she'd be rubbish at sowing but Boris on the other (non metal) hand, finds young Sonia 'fascinating' and hires her on the spot.
Bless.
This is the first bit of good fortune Sonia has had in years seeing as her parents were butchered by a madman and that she's had to spend the last twelve years living with her vastly overweight and blind auntie Francesca (cinema legend and ex-model for the Sadistik photo-comic Giorgelli) .

But wait!

Does this mean that she's the wee girl from the start of the film?

And more importantly is it still OK to fancy her?*

Mondello: Fag.

Leaving the waxwork museum with a spring in her step and a heaving bosom Sonia is startled by the young news pup Andrea Conversi (Longhi, star of I tre volti del terrore and some other stuff) sneakily taking photo's of her.

After first wanting to slap him, Andrea's smooth movies and easy good looks soon have her, if not eating out of his hand at least sucking his fingers on a promise of a McDonalds and a movie.

Result.

But seeing as we're in an Italian horror movie it's no surprise that whilst all this mushy (and fairly sticky) stuff is going down, the mad bloke with the cloak, top hat and metal hand is skulking about the local parks buying a wee urchin's candy floss before sticking a huge syringe into his neck, stripping him down to his undies and filling him with warm sickly liquids.

Which reminds me, how is your uncle Peter doing?

Too late Ted Cruz discovered he'd
left his special wanking hand on the shelf.

Whilst all these murders are going on, Andrea comes to the conclusion that they may be related in some way to the wax museum.

Sonia tho' is too busy to care seeing as she's being romantically pursued by Boris (who gives her a really classy pearl necklace) as well as wondering if the metal hand murders could be in any way related to her parents deaths.

Hmmmmm......a hard one that.

Meanwhile Baby Spice has been kidnapped, stripped to a pair of (leather) undies and injected with stuff before being placed in a display featuring Jack The Ripper.

As a whore.

Oh the irony.

"Laugh now!"

Andrea with his patented sweet talking and even sweeter cock (possibly), manages to 'talk' Sonia into letting him into the wax museum after hours to take pictures of the exhibits before heading off for tea at Aunt Francesca's house.

The conversation turns to Sonia's childhood and Francesca tells the sad story of Sonia's mother, Gayle who was unhappily married to a weird bloke named Boris who did bad things with candles.

Finding solace in the arms of a nice (non mental) man named Victor, Gayle began a torrid affair but as is the way in these things, Boris caught them red handed (and sore arsed).

Being slightly upset at finding his wife spreadeagled across the bed like a common strumpet Boris leapt at Victor and some serious bitch-slapping ensued culminating with Boris falling arse over tit into a huge vat of boiling hot wax that just happened to be bubbling away in the living room.

Ouch.

The patented Melania Trump mooth shite-in chair,
only £19.99 from Paliwank industries.

Andrea begins to suspect that Sonia's dad maybe the same Boris that now runs the wax museum and heads back to over there, leaving Sonia just enough time to get herself kidnapped and threatened with being fed to some hungry pigs.

Rescued by Boris before any hot pig on pretty lady action can take place (booo!) Sonia is taken to the museum (rather than being taken up the casino which is what Boris would rather do, you can tell by the look in his eyes), dragged down to the secret laboratory and stripped and forced into another pair of leather undies (I hope they're clean) ready for embalming.

Mondello: Any excuse.

But don't fear (oh go on then, fear a wee bit) because the ultimate crime solving force of Andrea and the blind Francesca are hot on Boris' trail and determined to rescue our sweaty and trussed up like a turkey heroine.

Will they find Sonia before her dad fills her with his special liquid?

Will there be any more unnecessary close-ups of her glistening breasts?

And will a giant, steam powered Terminator style robot turn up for no reason?

Co-written by the late, great Lucio Fulci and the hardly ever late but still great Dario Argento with effects genius Sergio Stivaletti behind the camera how could a movie like Wax Mask fail to entertain?

Throwing caution, logic and budgetary constraints to the wind (but keeping hold of those handy red filters), Stivaletti has crafted a stylishly saucy slice of pure cinematic gold that's as cheesy as it is chilling, tho' whether the cheesiness is intentional is up for debate.

I for one don't care when a movie is as enjoyable as this.

Often cruelly slated by 'proper' fans of the genre, there's lots to love about Wax Mask if you're willing to let yourself go with the flow, not least the wonderful production values, the vivid deep colours, the lush score and lastly but by no means least, the yummy Romina Mondello strapped to a steampunk style operating table wearing nowt but some leather briefs and a layer of shimmering sweat.

Even the cack handed dubbing (the worst I've ever heard) courtesy of distributors Film 2000 can't detract from the movie's overall greatest, if anything it adds another unique dimension to the proceedings, as if the dialogue was being presented thru' some kind of bio-mechanical drunken trumpet.

And there aren't many films you can say that about.

Apart from the bizarro sound mix used on the Warner two disc release of the Peter Cushing Dalek movies back in the early nineties.

At once a celebration of the best (and worse) excesses of Italian horror cinema, Wax Mask deserves to be re-evaluated and smothered with the love, attention and sticky kisses it so richly deserves.

Do it now.

*Yes and yes.

mattei son.

Reviewed the first film last October so thought I'd do the second one this year.

Enjoy.

Zombies: the Beginning (AKA Zombi: La creazione. 2007).
Dir: Bruno Mattei (as Vincent Dawn).
Cast: Yvette Yzon, Gerald Acho, Alvin Anson, Dyane Craystan, Jim Gaines, Paul Holme, B.B. Johnson, James Gregory Paolleli and Mike Vergel.

Discovered floating on a makeshift raft somewhere off the coast of Saltcoats, the lone survivor of the good ship Dark Star, Sharon ( Yzon, back for more) is taken to a local hospital by a group of hunky yet spookily dubbed medics where, unlike the previous films ending, she doesn't die and return as a zombie but just has bad dreams about rising from the dead instead.

What a cheat!

If that wasn't bad enough, the insurance company seem hell bent on blaming her for the loss of the ship/death of the crew rather than believe her tale of marauding zombies, creepy Conquistadors and flamenco dancing demons inhabiting an island that can't be found on any nautical map.

I mean, who'd make that shit up?

"I never done it!": Yzon, Shot to fuck but
still fitter than your mum.

Whilst the fat cats tut loudly Sharon is forced to swear at an old woman and knock a glass of water over before stomping off in a huff to live in a monastery.

As one would if you'd been pulled up at work accused of killing your workmates.

And writing off the delivery van.

No, it's not a pearl necklace nor did I give it to here.

Skip forward a year and Shazza is still in the monastery, sleeping on the floor, having flashbacks to the last movie (on a plus side tho' the monks outfit and slicked back hair makes her look hotly exotic), fetching water and other stuff that monks do when, out of the blue (well, out of a car but you know what I mean) one Mr. Barker (Holme), representative of an important pharmaceutical company The Tyler Company (that is no way related to The Umbrella Corporation or even the Trojan Tunnel Company) turns up to see her.

Seems that six months earlier his company sent a scientific team to the very same island to capture a few undead specimens to transport to a secret lab to experiment on.

All contact with the team has been lost so Barker wants Sharon to head up a rescue mission, consisting of a squad of tough marines, one of which looks like a down at heel, heroin addled stripper (yes, I'm talking about you Craystan), the aforementioned Barker and a geeky scientist to the island to discover what's happened.

Hang on, this plot sounds very familiar.

"I can see your house from here Yvonne!"

Arriving at the secret island research centre (in reality a couple of lean to sheds and a disused tennis court) via a model submarine filmed against a fish tank our happy go lucky marines head towards some stock footage of a gas works in the vain hope of unraveling the mystery of the disappearing scientists.

Hint: zombies may be involved.

Setting up camp in a disused lab the team are horrified (well I think the reaction is horror, it may be mild apathy) to discover row upon row of strange, coffin-like glass containers housing all manner of bizarre, genetically altered humans (oh, and a few Tiny Tears dolls painted green) and a wall of steel cages containing a dozen or so very dead (and very naked) Filipino extras.

Suddenly and without warning (well, if you discount the slightly scary music building to a crescendo and monsters eye view of the scene) a hideously deformed, split stomached woman lunges out of the shadows towards a terrified Barker.

Luckily studly marine Taylor (Anson) is on hand to shoot her in the face whilst grimacing badly.

Deciding that it'd probably be a good idea if they had a wee look around and secured the area (rather than all vying to get into shot whilst trying to look the most scared), tough guy Thompson (loud voiced Acho...bless you) leads the squad into what looks like a post rave warehouse to look for any survivors.

After what seems like an eternity of Thompson shouting orders whilst lard arse Private Ludman (Vergel) quotes entire pages of Hudson's dialogue from Aliens the eventual gloom and deathly silence is abruptly broken by the 'ping ping' of the teams motion detectors.

Someone (or something) is approaching...

Could it be a vile mutant thing?

An undead horde?

A giant chicken perhaps?

no.

It's a naked dwarf, covered from head to (tiny) toes in green house paint wearing a pair of joke shop Austin Powers-esque teeth and a paper mache headpiece with a ping pong ball eye stuck to the top.

Dribbling.

Taking a minute to compose themselves (and no doubt a filming break to dry their eyes), our macho mob do what any self respecting person would (no, they don't pick the wee fella up and give him a hug).

They torch the freaky fucker with a flamethrower.

...Iggle Piggle's not in bed....

Legging it back to the lab like a pack of terrified Brownies escaping from a tent with a spider in it, Ludman spends the next ten minutes complaining that 'We're not equipped for this shit!' (what? how can you not be equipped for setting fire to dwarfs?) and trying to convince a by now almost sonic booming Thompson that they should all go home.

Just when it looks like they may just pack up and call it a night (which had me worried cos it means I'd have to pick another movie to watch and I've only got Black Sun- The Nanking Massacre, a compilation of Doctor Who fan films and Bloody Beast within reach at this point), the stripper points out that she's found the location of the missing members of the scientific crew. It seems that each one has a special tattoo that works a bit like a car alarm or something which means that the mission is back on (much to Ludman's delight).

Everyone gets suited and booted for a quick trip to the bases underground power core to grab the scientists and head home in time for tea.

"Rrrrrrrraaaaaauuughhhhhhhh Rrrrroooowwww!"

Leaving Barker, Shazza, specky Brit science guy and man in charge Lt. Gorman (well, this movies equivalent) behind to watch the teams progress on teevee the squad sneak across the car park, behind the bins and into the (wooden doored) power station.

Moving deeper and deeper into the complex they come across a vast (well, I say vast, it's about the size of a small kitchen) storeroom filled with plastic wrapped bodies suspended from hooks, slime oozing from the walls and an unnatural and thoroughly evil eggy smell emanating from a large vent in the wall.

And if that wasn't enough, on a large table in front of them lies a frighteningly pregnant woman with oozing excema and really bad dentures.

Kramer (still shit faced on cheap crack), being the lady of the group, goes over to comfort this poor wreck, who can only mumble "kill me" before her stomach erupts in a shower of grue revealing a melted doll covered in syrup.

Cue the flame thrower (well they have paid thru' the nose to hire it).

Exotic sweaty girls with machine guns....
what all cinema should be about.

Whilst all this is happening, Private Soontodie nervously peers thru' the hole (probably looking for biscuits) just as a horde of unwashed homeless extras crawl out, moaning and shuffling like a band of Glasgow neds on a Saturday night out.

The soldiers panic and start firing off indiscriminately before legging it back to the school bus (sorry, armoured personnel carrier) parked outside.

Shazza, stuck behind a teevee monitor watching a bunch of highly trained fighting machines running screaming thru' dingy corridors whilst piss stained tramps try to bite their arses, decides it's time to act (no, I'll resist the temptation to comment), grabbing a big gun and charging to the rescue whilst Barker stands around stroking his beard and Gorman repeatedly takes off his hat and rubs his head in a kind of 'what the fuck have I agreed to be in?' manner.

"It's Cccccccchhhhhrrrrriiiissstttmmmaaassss!!!!!!"

After an explosive shoot out and subsequent rescue that would make a gang of five year olds playing soldiers proud the survivors regroup in a nearby kiddies playhouse to plan their next move.

And it's not looking good for our heroes.

The submarines not due back for a fortnight, they're almost out of ammo and it looks like there's a traitor in their midst.

Kramer as it turns out, is the teams electronics expert (everything else I can accept but this is a leap too far) and volunteers to go out and fix the antennae array (from the state of her I wouldn't trust her to fix her own make-up) whilst the others sit about and sweat.

Everything seems to be going to plan until Barker tries to kill Sharon (yup, he's a bad guy, trying to sneak zombies back to the mainland to help cure cancer or something), Kramer gets ripped in half by a gorilla (no, really) and the undead break thru' the cardboard lab doors hungry for flesh (and by the way they look at Taylor a wee bit of tanned manass too).

Inside Peter Tatchell 's mind.

The retreat is short and bloody leaving only Taylor and Sharon alive and stuck in the back of a van surrounded by the undead (and unwashed).

But it's not all doom and gloom, luckily Kramer's sacrifice (oh, OK, stupidity in not seeing a bloody great gorilla) wasn't in vain, she managed to send an SOS to the sub and it'll be on site in an hour or so.

Giving Sharon just enough time to head into the bowels of the base to confront the real horror behind the zombie menace....

Mattei had a hard job ahead of him if he was going to match the all round shoddiness and ineptitude of Island of The Living Dead when he decided to film this nail biting sequel - luckily he managed to not only match it but in some ways even surpass the unbelievable levels of incompetence achieved previously.

The plot (and much of the dialogue) is borrowed wholesale from Aliens - as well as the director's own Shocking Dark - with the climax of the Luigi Cozzi classic Contamination thrown in for good measure, all held together by the largest collection of non actors ever assembled in one room, every one of the bravely and with surprising straightness, uttering the most clichéd and banal dialogue ever committed to celluloid.

And frankly it's a joy to behold.

Yvonne contemplates the stuffed crust.

Throughout the rot there are shots that echo the greatness of Bava and Argento, reminding you of Mattei's early career as a film editor and whilst none of his films ever live up to there basic premise, his unwavering belief in and love for horror cinema coupled with his willingness to embrace new technologies and ideas enabling him to carry on working well after most of his contemporaries had thrown in the hat.

Never anything less than totally entertaining, Mattei's gore soaked swansong is the perfect end to an illustrious career in zombie cinema.

cotten eyed joe.

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colour me giallo/the american scream.

 

 Here for your Halloween party pleasure are the weird and wonderful mixes of Euro-centric and cult American cinema soundtracks that I curated for Blue Azure's rather marvelous monthly music show a few months back.

Click to download and enjoy!

Colour Me Giallo

 

The American Scream

And for true music connoisseurs you can hear the full shows here and here. 

maiden manhattan.

Finally got around to seeing Lee Cronin's The Mummy last week and was actually really impressed by it which was nice seeing as I absolutely hated Evil Dead Rise (or Evil Dead Rubbish as it's call round here), suffice to say it's well worth a watch and made me think how great it'd been to see the whole Universal Monsters franchise re-imagined via the Lucio Fulci back catalogue because let's be honest it did bear more than a passing resemblance to this.....

 

Manhattan Baby (AKA L' Occhio del male, Eye of the Evil Dead, Evil Eye, The Possessed. 1982).
Dir: Lucio Fulci.
Cast: Christopher Connelly, Laura Lenzi, Brigitta Boccoli, Carlo De Mejo, Giovanni Frezza and Cinzia de Ponti.

"You can take my life with stuffed birds,
but you shall not take my immortal soul!"

Somewhere in the deserts of Egypt the dashing professor of old foreign stuff, George Hackett (son of Jennifer and star of Peyton Place, Connelly) is busy collecting deadly scorpion's to give to his daughter as a gift.

Is she that annoying?

His Egyptian helper Alan is a wee bit concerned by this, pointing out that in his culture the scorpion is a symbol of evil and the like.

Thinking this over George, deciding that the information is a bit scary for a nine year old, paints the poor thing yellow before sprinkling some glitter over it and telling her that it's a new kind of Pokemon instead.

Fathers eh?, you gotta love them.

But not in a sneaking into your room and taking photo's of you with an infra-red camera kinda way obviously.

Now there's a mooth made for a shite-in.

And who is this lucky child?

Well, it's the precocious, tomb toothed blonde poppet Susie (former child star turned topless circus entertainer Boccoli), who's spending her time clothes shopping with her tussle haired mum Emily (freckled beauty and Uber-MiLF Lenzi).

Unfortunately mum has mistaken an old dilapidated building for one of those modern supermarkets and the only other person around is a blind eyed old hag who smells of vinegar.

A bit like Anniesland shops on a Tuesday then.

Whilst Emily is off taking photo's of the locals holding slightly malnourished babies in an attempt to look caring (or at least give her something to chat about over lunch at the hotel), the old blind tramp approaches Susie before uttering the words “Tombs are for the dead” and handing her a huge gold amulet with a big (boss) eye in the middle of it.

Eye son.

Meanwhile Indiana Dad is busy excavating the lost tomb of King Habibabsomething but the locals have warned him, the tomb holds a terrible curse.

A curse.....OF DEATH!

Curious George doesn't care tho' and prepares to go down with (but not on I hasten to add) his assistant into the undisturbed resting place of a once glorious king.

Stumbling and fumbling around in the dark cavernous chamber Alan discovers a stone tablet placed in the far wall which, on further inspection fires deadly cobra's across the room like slinky green Arrows.

Luckily George is a professional sharp shooter and manages to kill the snakes (for real, I mean this is 1980's Italian cinema after all) before taking a well deserved rest and leaning against an innocuous leaver marked 'do not press'.

Oops.

"Touch my ring".

A gaping hole appears in the dirt covered stone floor and our unlucky pair suddenly find themselves plummeting into a stinky cobweb covered pit of death.

Luckily Alan's fall is broken by some rather large pointy spikes, enabling George to bounce of his companions ample arse and onto the relative safety of the crypt floor.

But our intrepid archaeologist barely has time to dust himself off before two supernaturally spooky blue laser beams fire out of the crypt wall and hit him square in the eyes (son).

And all this before breakfast.

Pa pa papa pa pa pa.....X Men!

Back home in New York, George is told that the blindness caused by the mysterious rays should only last a year or so and in the meantime he should go about his daily business with two Kotex sanitary pads taped to his face and held in position by a pair of Su Pollard's glasses.

Tho' why he should need glasses when he can't see shit is never explained.

Anyway life goes on as normal for George  - well as normal as it can be seeing as he has to carefully totter around his house looking like a twat in glasses George A Romero would knock back for being too large - Emily is busy juggling her photojournalist career with typing up her hubbies notes whilst shapely child-minder Jamie Lee (the yumsome de Ponti from The New York Ripper) looks after the ungodly Susie and her little brother Tommy (the legendary Frezza).

I did a Google search for Cinzia de Ponti,
this is the only pic that came up.
Frankly I don't even think it's her
but the scenery looks nice.

Everything seems to be going fine, until one day when out in the park Susie gets a Polaroid picture taken and, rather than a cute looking girl appearing on the photograph the amulet appears in her place.

Thinking it's a faulty film Jamie Lee chucks it away and takes the kids home for a quick game of hide and seek before tea.

With the kids running around and jumping into cupboards Jamie Lee takes time out to relax with the latest Skorpio magazine but just as she gets to the article on the love woes of Antonello Fassari the whole house is suddenly engulfed in shit scary noises.

Which is unusual to say the least.

But obviously not as unusual as the fact that there are snakes emerging from the fridge whilst a spooky light and fog starts to emanate from the pantry.

Who ya gonna call?

The concierge (unfortunately not played by Bobby Rhodes or Fred Williamson) obviously.

Beard.

No sooner has she hung up the intercom that the kids re-appear and everything returns to normal.

Bizarre and chilling too.

Pity then that she forgets to tell Jeff Security who, even as we speak (well even as I type and you read or something but you get the gist) is slowly waddling his portly arse into the lift.

Munching on a bagel and jabbing the buttons with his chubby sausage fingers, Jeff hasn't even time to swallow (unlike your mum) before the spooky noises start up and the floor gives way causing the poor sod to fall to his death.

He leaves no immediate family but does leave a cupboard full of crisps and cake.

Jeff, we'll miss you buddy.

Other publications are available.

Meanwhile back at the plot some unknown woman approaches Emily (the hot mum, remember?) and hands her the Polaroid of the amulet from earlier in the movie.

Examining it closely she notices the name Adrian Marcato (not this one) written on it.

Being a girl and only knowing about shoes and make-up she gives it to her husband to examine but then remembers that he's blind (but not as blind as he was - it's getting better) so he in turn gives it to his pal professor Wiler to take a look at.

After much humming and aahing the professor confirms that the symbol is the crest of the great god Habibabsomething.

Coincidence or creepy craftiness?

"Look at me....I'm from Partick!"

Back at home things are going from bad to very bad via Spooksville City Arizona as not only does wee Susie keeps going missing all the time but doors are mysteriously locking themselves and Tommy spends all day trying to convince anyone who'll listen that there's a time/space portal that leads to Egypt in his toy cupboard.

Scratch very bad and make that very, very bad.

Being a caring mum Emily decides to ring an expert in such matters for help.

Ghostbusters?

The Pope?

Danny Robins?

Nope, she calls he children's entertainer cum magician friend Luke (City of The Living Dead star and professional sexy beard De Mejo) to pop over and try to look in the toy cupboard mystery.

Arriving in his best suit and top hat Luke entertains the little uns with a few card tricks before heading up to the bedroom, standing in front of the cupboard door and with a chant of "Izzy whizzy let's get busy!" opening it.

Only to be zapped by a huge blue fireball before disappearing.

"Tonight Matthew I'm going to be Chris De Burgh!"

Hearing the commotion (and recognizing the acrid stench of fried magician) Emily bounds upstairs and opens the bedroom door only to find that the room stinks of camel shit and is covered in sand.

This is the final straw for Poor old Jamie Lee who sits in the corner weeing herself as Tommy recounts another tale of his trips to Egypt whilst Susie and her mum desperately try to get the scorpions out of the sock drawer before dad gets home.

George, now with working eyes arrives back at the apartment with a plan.

Yup, it's time to go visit Adrian Marcato, professional antique dealer, collector of stuffed birds and part-time warlock.

Luckily Marcato is well versed in the dark arts and recognises straight away that the amulet is actually the fabled the eye of evil and is using Susie as it's portal to our dimension.

Thinking on this for a minute and taking all the facts into consideration, George decides that it's all bollocks and that Susie is just jealous because her lips aren't as pretty as her brothers but Marcato is adamant (it's the white stripe across his nose and bouts of depression that give him away) that he's correct and offers, free of charge to come over and fix everything.

Including hopefully the lift floor.

Agreeing to this our intrepid trio head back to the Hackett apartment, the race is on to save not only poor Susie's soul (tho' looking at her dead eyes I'm pretty sure she never had one) but the family a huge amount in dry cleaning bills.

Wired for sound.

Armed with only his wits and a sexy beard, Marcato begins his exorcism ceremony as the movie transforms into a blur of eyes and silence, broken only by close-ups of Tommy's pouting lips as he whispers "punish me!" to anyone who'll listen.

Scary as hell does not do this justice.

With a cry of "Birds of darkness! consume me!" Marcato suddenly rolls to the floor, sexily writhing and wriggling like your nan after a stroke and talking in Susie's voice whilst the missing Jamie Lee (well her corpse) bursts out of the wall.

With Marcato inside Susie's body (but obviously not in that way, that would just be wrong) the curse is broken and Susie returns to normal leaving our psychic pal to re-enter his hairy frame and inform George that he must take the amulet and put it in the bin as only then will the family be safe.

And with that Marcato heads home for a small Sherry, a tearful wank and a well deserved Pot Noodle.

Phew.

Without further ado, George grabs the deadly piece of jewellery, legs it out of the house (being careful to use the stars) and throws it into a nearby reservoir leaving it to sink to the bottom.

Double phew.

Watch out, watch out...John Leslie's about.

With everything back to normal George can get back to digging up dead foreigners and the lovely Emily takes a break from her photography to interview a new nanny (but not before removing the last one from between the cavity insulation mind) whilst the heroic Mercato takes a well deserved break, tidying and dusting his collection of stuffed birds.

Stuffed that is until they all come alive and murder him!

Meanwhile back in Egypt, the boss eyed woman is handing the amulet to another small girl....

Unfortunately Susie doesn't sport
anything this sexy in the movie.

Mad, bad and dangerous to view (but only if you're sitting directly under the TV and it's on a rickety shelf obviously), Manhattan Baby is a loving homage by a master film-maker to movies as far afield as of The Exorcist, Poltergeist, Rosemary's Baby and the Charlton Heston snoozefest The Awakening, all mixed up with that patented Fulci edge we all know and love and with a cast that seem to totally get what's expected of them.

And if there are any accusations of plagiarism to be aimed at the movie, they can surely be blamed on the frankly bonkers script by regular collaborators Elisa Briganti and the legendary Dardano Sacchetti that takes in not only the movies mentioned above but also The Birds and The Omen for good measure.

So obviously when you put this in the hands of a director whose main concern is to make everything look nice rather than building a conventional narrative coherence you can see how some (less educated) viewers could mistake it for a rambling mess rather than for the terrifying vision of bodily possession that it really is.

Or even the "terrible movie" its director accused it of being.

Go on, you know you want to.

If you haven't already that is.