My Review of Macabre (1980)

 

Written by Pupi Avati And Roberto Gandus And Lamberto Bava And Antonio Avati

Directed by Lamberto Bava And John Gayford

Opening Title Card: "Inspired by a series of actual events that took place in New Orleans a few years ago..."

Prior to yesterday evening, I didn't even know this movie was even a thing. Funny that. Anyways, I'll say that it's title though turned out to be rather justified, so points for that.

In this movie, you've got Bernice Stegers as the rather dissatisfied housewife Jane Baker. Despite living in a nice house with a seemingly nice husband, Leslie (Fernando Pannullo) and two kids, she's been sleeping with a man named Fred Kellerman (Roberto Posse) at a boarding house, owned by a nice woman named Mrs. Duval (Elisa Kadigia Bove) and her blind son, Robert (Stanko Molnar).

Anyways, Jane's affair was on the verge of being exposed by her bratty daughter, Lucy (Veronica Zinny) and the death of her son, Michael pretty much ended her marriage. There was also her affair being exposed and her lover dying in a grisly accident that she managed to survive.

The majority had Jane living with Robert at the boarding house as Robert's mother died off screen. Jane had been mostly distant with Robert until she tried one attempt of seduction. Then there's also how she coped with Fred's death. She didn't deal with it at all.

Nope, she dedicated a shrine to her dead lover and keeping with the macabre side of things, she kept his head. Worse than that, she often cavorted with it as well in some genuinely sickening to watch scenes. It also didn't long for both Robert and Lucy to discover this, though how they dealt with this information differed.

I knew there was something off about Lucy and felt vindicated when she confessed to killing her brother. Trying to trick Jane into eating Fred's earlobe was gross and Jane's reaction certainly pushed things into very dark territory. The ending with poor Robert. That man really suffered having to deal with that mother and daughter duo.

- John Gayford directed the English version. It's an Italian movie despite not being set in Italy.

- Lucy drowned Michael and Jane ended up doing the same to her. Robert got attacked by Fred's head, which came to life.

- Standout music: Norberto Gil Ventura's Jane In Love.

- Chronology: A year happened during the New Orleans set movie.

Macabre (1980) definitely lived up to it's title. It's definitely a rather messed up movie with some truly unhinged moments. Robert aside, I wouldn't say it's a movie with many sympathetic characters but isn't it amazing how awful both Jane and Lucy were? 

Rating: 7 out of 10