''Madness'' ( it, Gli occhi dentro Occhi senza volto) is a 1994 Italian ''
giallo
In Italian cinema, ''Giallo'' (; plural ''gialli'', from ''giallo'', Italian for yellow) is a genre of mystery fiction and thrillers that often contains slasher, crime fiction, psychological thriller, psychological horror, sexploitation, and, ...
'' film directed by
Bruno Mattei
Bruno Mattei (30 July 1931 – 21 May 2007) was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and editor who directed exploitation films in many genres, including women in prison, nunsploitation, zombie, mondo, cannibal, and Nazisploitation films. Ma ...
.
[Lupi, Gordiano; Gazzarrini, Ivo (2013). Bruno Mattei: L'ultimo artigiano (in Italian). Il foglio. ISBN 978-8876064609.] The film is about Giovanna Dei (Monica Carpanese) who is the creator of the comic series ''Doctor Dark'', a character with a split personality. After a series of murders begin to happen in a similar fashion to how Doctor Dark's fictional murders. Dei defends herself against any criticism of the violence in her comics and later finds that the murderer is leaving the eyeballs of her victims in her apartment.
''Madness'' was a low budget production shot for foreign audiences. The version released to home video in Italy differs from the original film market screenings, where it borrows murder scenes from ''
A Blade in the Dark
''A Blade in the Dark'' ( it, La casa con la scala nel buio, lit=The House with the Dark Staircase) is a 1983 Italian ''giallo'' film directed by Lamberto Bava. Originally planned for television, the film was made as a nearly two hour piece split ...
''. Only the English-dubbed version was released internationally under the title ''Madness;'' it was released in Italy as ''Gli occhi dentro''. Film historians Roberto Curti and Troy Howarth commented negatively on the film on their retrospective reviews of the film.
Cast
* Monica Carpanese as Giovanna Dei
* Gabriele Gori as Nico Manelli
* Emy Valentino as Emy
* Antonio Zequila as Amedeo Callistrati
* Achille Brugnini as Marzio Mannino
* Fausto Lombardi as Lorenzo Calligari
Production
As with the film's director
Bruno Mattei
Bruno Mattei (30 July 1931 – 21 May 2007) was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and editor who directed exploitation films in many genres, including women in prison, nunsploitation, zombie, mondo, cannibal, and Nazisploitation films. Ma ...
made in the early 1990s, ''Madness'' was a low-budget effort aimed primarily at foreign sales. Screenplay author Lorenzo De Luca stated the scenario and script were written in one week and that Mattei "left me plenty of room to do what I wanted, as long as the movie did not cost too much and there were not too many characters. I had lots of fun, although being a low-budget film, I was paid very little."
''Madness'' was shot with the same film crew who had previously shot Mattei's erotic thriller ''
Dangerous Attraction''. The film's music is credited to Flipper music, which is
library music
Production music (also known as stock music or library music) is recorded music that can be licensed to customers for use in film, television, radio and other media. Often, the music is produced and owned by production music libraries.
Background ...
as well as borrowing from film scores of films like ''
Lady Frankenstein
''Lady Frankenstein'' is a 1971 Italian horror film directed by Mel Welles and written by Edward di Lorenzo. It stars Rosalba Neri (under the pseudonym Sara Bey), Joseph Cotten, Mickey Hargitay and Paul Müller.
Plot
Somewhere in Western-Cent ...
''.
Release
''Madness'' was released in 1994 as ''Gli occhi dentro''. The version released to home video in Italy had large portions of the film re-edited from its original screenings at film markets. This included taking two murder scenes from
Lamberto Bava
Lamberto Bava (born 3 April 1944) is an Italian film director. Born in Rome, Bava began working as an assistant director for his director father Mario Bava. Lamberto co-directed the 1979 television film ''La Venere d'Ille'' with his father and in ...
's film ''
A Blade in the Dark
''A Blade in the Dark'' ( it, La casa con la scala nel buio, lit=The House with the Dark Staircase) is a 1983 Italian ''giallo'' film directed by Lamberto Bava. Originally planned for television, the film was made as a nearly two hour piece split ...
'' (1983) which replace two murder scenes shot by Mattei. This version also loses scenes where a character finds the murder victims' eyes in an apartment and the epilogue with a coast guard boat approaching a yacht. The English-dubbed video was released internationally as ''Madness''.
Reception
From retrospective reviews, Troy Howarth in his book on Italian ''
giallo
In Italian cinema, ''Giallo'' (; plural ''gialli'', from ''giallo'', Italian for yellow) is a genre of mystery fiction and thrillers that often contains slasher, crime fiction, psychological thriller, psychological horror, sexploitation, and, ...
'' films opined that ''Madness''s screenplay "contains seeds of promise, but the film is so poorly made and acted that it ends up making no impression whatsoever". Howarth also commented on the slow pacing, cinematography that was "flat and ugly", and actors who "overact like mad or are so wooden that they seem to disappear into the scenery."
References
Footnotes
Sources
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External links
{{Bruno Mattei
1994 films
1990s Italian films
Films directed by Bruno Mattei
Giallo films
Films about comics
1990s Italian-language films