Perhaps the film’s strongest asset is its story. A pre-Dempsey & Makepeace Michael Brandon plays Roberto Tobias, a drummer in a rock band who’s spent the last week being stalked by a mysterious stranger. Confronting the man in an abandoned theatre, Roberto accidentally ends up killing him, and is photographed doing so by a figure wearing a bizarre puppet mask. Roberto flees the scene, but in the coming weeks receives regular reminders of his actions from the photographer, in the form of pictures and other unsettling communications. This is a terrific premise, and Argento milks it for all its paranoid possibilities; in one scene, Roberto is rifling through a pile of records at a party only to discover a photo of himself holding a bloody knife between two LPs. Aside from Roberto’s curiously unsympathetic wife Nina, most of the other characters are ineffectual oddballs, which serves to emphasise his increased isolation and introspection. The world Argento presents is a cold one which yields little in the way of clues; the stark cinematography, which frequently establishes environments by languidly cutting between static shots of locations, drives home how far Roberto’s situation has removed him from home comforts.

There are some brilliant set piece moments as well. The opening sequence, where Roberto is bothered by a fly during band rehearsal, is dazzling. Equally successful is the scene where hapless private investigator Arrioso is pursuing a suspect on the metro; Argento’s economical, unflashy but perfectly framed direction makes this one of the tense high points of the whole movie. Other scenes are less successful; the killer’s pursuit of Roberto’s maid Amelia in the park, for example, is let down by some rather gimmicky jump-cuts that seem out of keeping with the restraint Argento shows elsewhere.

The film’s real problem lies in the rather leaden pacing. At 100 minutes, Four Flies could hardly be considered overlong, but there’s a fair amount of filler material that serves to slow the whole film down without adding much to the overall experience. Godfrey and The Professor are two fairly irritating characters who contribute little, and some of the chat at Roberto’s parties is pretty excruciating. Elsewhere, there’s some rather early-70s attitudes and conventions on display that haven’t exactly aged well; Argento’s portrayal of Arrioso’s homosexuality is fairly embarrassing by modern standards, and the occasional lapses into beatnik dialogue (“Hey man, what’s your trip?”) occasionally add some unintentional hilarity.

In classic Argento style, the story is brought to its endgame by a whacking great plot contrivance that seems at once ludicrous but also fairly in keeping with the bizarre, illogical world he portrays. I won’t blow the twist here, but suffice it to say it involves a hugely unlikely forensic discovery and some of the most revolting jewellery I’ve ever seen in a film. The murder scenes themselves, as well as the climactic final shot, are fairly exciting but feel a little flat compared to the baroque extremes some of Argento’s later films would go to. In many ways, this is Four Flies in a nutshell; like its predecessor, Cat o’ Nine Tails, it’s a solid and entertaining thriller that shows plenty of directorial flair, yet you’re waiting for Argento to slip his leash and show you something extraordinary. Declaring the giallo dead, Argento’s next film was historical comedy The Five Days; but when that bombed in Italy, he returned with Deep Red, which kicked off an astonishing fifteen-year fun of genre defining masterpieces. Four Flies on Grey Velvet isn’t a bad film, but as history proved, Dario Argento was capable of a lot more.

At the heart of this nosedive is 1996′s The Stendhal Syndrome, which remains probably his most divisive film. It’s certainly his most frustrating, a rag-tag mess of a film that contains that at times feels like it’s up there with his best work and at others feels plodding, inept and workmanlike.

Let’s start with the good stuff. The setup is an absolute killer. Argento’s daughter Asia stars as Italian cop Anna Manni, who suffers a rare (real-life) affliction called Stendhal Syndrome which causes her to become overwhelmed by works of art. Her pursuit of Alfredo Grossi, a serial rapist and murderer (played The Pianist’s Thomas Kretschmann), leads her to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence where she falls into a trance and collapses, leaving her in Grossi’s clutches. The opening twenty minutes is absolutely first rate; Argento’s oppressive direction of the Uffizi sequence effectively and economically conveys the impact of Anna’s unusual condition, and the dreamlike shots of her falling in and out of the various paintings are up there with his best visual gimmicks. Anna’s subsequent, traumatised attempts to both overcome her ordeal and rid herself of her affliction through painting are also well handled and visually striking.

Unfortunately Argento seems to lose interest in the Stendhal Syndrome itself less than an hour into the film – which is baffling, seeing as it is by far and away the most fascinating element. By the halfway point Anna is cured, Grossi is killed and the film seems to turn into a possession film, with Anna’s tormentor continuing to haunt her seemingly from beyond the grave. The ‘twist’ conclusion is blindingly obvious – I won’t spoil it here, but Anna’s sudden decision to wear a blonde wig and the unsubtle HIV test scene signpost it so far in advance that if you don’t work it out yourself you’re probably watching the wrong movie. The second half of the film is not only thunderingly inept, it’s thoroughly boring as well – the whole film clocks in at 118 minutes, which is really half an hour too long, especially given that Argento’s can’t sustain the initial premise for the full length of the film.

The lost potential of the setup is also reflected in Argento’s handling of Grossi himself. The director’s trademark is his suspenseful use of concealed, motif-based killers, yet Grossi’s identity is never in doubt and we see him raping and maiming his victims from the start. Not only is this uncharacteristically unsubtle and route-one for Argento (particularly unpleasant when his own daughter is playing the victim!) but it’s also a hugely missed opportunity; there’s surely much mileage in the idea of an art-obsessed psychopath exploiting a Stendhal Syndrome sufferer, but aside from a passing attempt to mirror Grossi’s smearing of his victims’ blood with Anna’s painting of herself to rid herself of her condition, he ignores this potentially profitable angle, to the film’s detriment.

Asia Argento herself has come in for some criticism over the years, but her performance is fairly serviceable, and she’s particularly effective in both the Syndrome scenes and as the terrified victim. She’s far less engaging in the second half, but given how the script unsubtly calls for her to become an enigmatic mad woman for no real reason until the end, there’s probably not much more she could have done with the material. She is, however, miscast; aged 20 at the time of filming, she looks even younger, which makes the police department’s decision to send her – solo – to another city in pursuit of a serial rapist and murderer even less believable. An older actress with greater presence might have been able to paper over some of the inconsistencies in the script, but instead she leaves the film’s flaws open for all to see.

Technically, the film ranges from good to unremarkable. The much-criticised use of CGI (it was apparently the first Italian film to do so) is indeed wretched, but is thankfully only restricted to a couple of brief shots. Argento continues his move into more naturalistic (i.e. boring) colours and composition, but some of his angles are interesting, particularly in the aforementioned Uffizi sequence, Marie’s murder in the gallery and the bizarre evocation of Alice in Wonderland as a blonde Anna runs around her apartment in a blue dress at the end (this may have been unintentional). Ennio Morricone’s score is pretty good too, wrapped around a looping motif that sounds by turns sinister and comforting depending on the context.

Argento has since claimed that The Stendhal Syndrome has an anti-censorship message, and that it was designed as a riposte to his critics: just as many of his films were cut because of the corrupting influence of their images, so Anna is overwhelmed by pictures on a wall. By a weird coincidence, in the same year Wes Craven, a director who early films were frequently cut to bits by censors, released Scream, a metatextual horror in which the killer has been depraved by horror films. But whereas this self-reflection is evident throughout Scream, it’s nowhere to be found here, and one suspects Argento made this up post-facto. The most maddening aspect of The Stendhal Syndrome is not that it’s simply bad, but that in patches it’s really good. But for the first time, Argento, once the king of leitmotif horror, can’t retain a handle on the fascinating ideas and images he sets up at the start of the film, and once he steps away from the art theme he never once offers anything interesting or developed to replace it, instead offering half-baked twists and tedious procedural drama. Sadly, The Stendhal Syndrome marks a turning point for Argento; after the halfway point he’d never make another good film again. A partially interesting failure, the film stands as both as his last gasp of greatness and the start of the terminal mediocrity that was to follow.

Connelly is probably the film’s best asset, giving an appealing and spirited performance as Jennifer Corvino, the sleepwalking daughter of a film star who discovers she has an affinity with insects. She forms quite a compelling double-act with Donald Pleasance as the wheelchair-bound Dr McGregor, who helps her investigate a string of murders in the posh Swiss finishing school where she is a pupil. Phenomena was the first film where Argento recorded sync sound rather than adding all dialogue during post-production, which really helps the performances breathe in a more naturalistic way than one normally expects from an Argento movie – even if Pleasance’s Scottish accent is decidedly odd. Sadly, this treatment was only lavished on the two leads; for all the other actors it was business as usual, which makes the traditional dubbing seem even more stilted than normal. Argento regular (and one-time partner) Daria Nicolodi fares particularly badly in this respect; her opening scene in the car with Connelly is hellish, although matters improve further into the film.

Stylistically, Argento basically throws in everything but the kitchen sink. There are nods to the giallo – particularly in the opening beheading of a lost tourist – but generally the murder sequences are less audaciously stylised than before, relying more on shocks and scares and thus pushing the film more into the territory of a supernatural thriller. Even the climax (involving a monkey and a razor blade, no less) feels muted compared to the lingering nightmares of previous films. Equally uncharacteristic is how the look of the film is defined by its exterior shots. Argento is a master of colour, but usually allows each film’s palette to emerge through carefully controlled interiors. Phenomena, on the other hand, is flavoured by the cool blues and greens of the lush Swiss countryside, which infused some of the films most successful sequences, such as Jennifer’s first sleepwalk, her pursuit of the firefly or her escape on the water from the killer’s lair. Conversely, this means some of the interior sequences (such as the killer’s pit of decaying bodies) feel more drab than they should do. But despite these deviations, Phenomena is still a very attractive film, with more than its fair share of blissful moments – most notably the dazzling scene in which Jennifer, taunted by her classmates, summons a swarm of flies which crowd the windows of the school.

The music – another key weapon in Argento’s arsenal – also suffers from some bizarre creative decisions. His house band, Italian prog rockers Goblin, were by this point down to one member, Claudio Simonetti, whose cues make up the bulk of the score. By the mid 80s, Simonetti was operating in full-blown electro-pop territory rather than the more organic textures that make up the classic Goblin sound, but there’s some great stuff here including the memorable main title theme, an epic soprano and drum machine blow-out (although oddly, I don’t remember hearing my favourite cue from the soundtrack album, “Jennifer’s Friends”, on the actual film). Unfortunately, many of the important action scenes are accompanied by heavy metal tracks from the likes of Motorhead and Iron Maiden rather than original material. Argento’s use of contemporary-sounding music has always been bombastic to say the least; part of the appeal of his best films is how key sequences are framed almost like music videos (such as the razor blade through the light bulb in Tenebrae) but the use of fully-blown songs here feels like self-parody rather than a step forward, with the lyrics detracting from the action rather than complementing it.

But the prevailing problem with the film is that it’s simply too long. Tellingly, when it was released in the USA (under the ridiculous title of Creepers) around 20 minutes was cut from it to improve the pacing. Much of the first hour is given over to scene-setting, with the story only really kicking into overdrive around the 45 minute mark. Thankfully, things speed up a little in the second half, and the final chase through the killer’s hideout is brilliantly tense, if more than a little reminiscent of Don’t Look Now.

Ultimately, Phenomena isn’t exactly top-tier Argento but it certainly doesn’t deserve the pasting it has received over the years from some quarters. Its flaws generally arise from a surfeit of ambition rather than a lack of it, and he throws enough ideas and techniques against the wall to ensure that every misfire is matched by several successes. Yes it’s long, yes the music’s occasionally a bit rubbish, but it’s still an enjoyable and at times very exciting film – plus it’s hard not to look fondly on a film which ends with Jennifer Connelly hugging a monkey holding a blood-stained blade. Definitely worth a look.

I don’t normally mention DVD extras in these reviews, but Contamination comes packaged a pretty engaging 20 minute interview in which Cozzi, clearly on the defensive, explains how pretty much every aspect of the film is a product of compromise, commercial considerations and interference from the producer. It was the producer who wanted “an ugly woman” to play Colonel Stella Holmes, hence the casting of Louise Marleau, which seems slightly uncharitable. The production company was based in the office next to the company who made Zombie Flesh Eaters, and hearing how much money that film made, they decided to get the same cast – to find that only English thesp Ian McCulloch was available. Budgetary constraints meant that huge chunks of the film were made in a studio in Rome, which explains why it boasts some laboratory sets that even the 60s Batman series would wince at.

Cozzi – or Lewis Coates as he is credited – is keen to give the impression that as an artist, his main motivation was to pay tribute to the science fiction films he loved, particularly Alien. In practice, he achieves this by liberally helping himself to much of Scott’s iconography. The chest bursting scene is present and correct – replayed a dozen times, in fact – as are the green eggs, which vary between being close-ups of olives and something resembling a rubber bath toy. The massive alien Cyclops, meanwhile, harks back to the B-movies of the fifties in both design and direction, whilst the opening ten minutes are pretty much identical to the opening ten minutes of Zombie Flesh Eaters.

So far, so derivative, but is Contamination entertaining? It is to start with. The first forty minutes are pretty good fun as long as you’re prepared to look past the appalling scripting, wooden acting and flaccid direction. I’m not normally of the ‘so bad it’s good’ school – you either like it or you don’t – but it’s hard not to admire the gall of writing lines like “call it intuition – but I think they were going to put those eggs in the sewers!!” as late as 1980. The early scenes try to feel so epic – complete with budget-busting helicopter shots of New York, to desperately try and sell the idea that the whole film was made there – that it’s hard not to get swept along, and your patience is rewarded by an exploding man less than 12 minutes in. The music (by Italian horror stalwarts Goblin) is great too, all farting synths and funky bass guitars.

Unfortunately it all falls apart at the halfway point, where Contamination turns into a terrible James Bond ripoff, complete with sabotage sub-plots and a secret base on a coffee plantation. Cozzi claims that this turnabout was forced upon him, but it’s pretty clear that he must shoulder the blame for some extraordinarily leaden pacing. The film almost grinds to a halt, and although McCulloch – brilliant as ever – does his utmost to lend some much-needed grit to proceedings, Louise Marleau and Marino Mase sleepwalk through their parts, including possibly the least convincing romantic subplot ever seen on screen.

All of which means that when the alien Cyclops does arrive, it’s a blessed relief – partly because it means the end is in sight, partly because it reduces the amount of inert acting we have to sit through. In keeping with everything else in Contamination, the Cyclops is a bit rubbish; apparently designed as a hugely expensive mechanical prop, it failed to operate on the day, meaning Cozzi had to film it in 100 different shots to cover the fact that it was being operated by hand. Suffice it to say that Mase’s death more resembles a terrible accident with a vacuum cleaner than it does consumption by an evil alien.

In light of these real failings, it seems churlish to criticise the script’s brave lack of logic – Marleau’s character in particular seems to alternate between making jaw-dropping leaps of logic to missing clues that are bleeding obvious – because if these were the film’s only problems it would still be a fun, ropey piece of trash cinema. Unfortunately, Contamination’s main crime is that it simply becomes rather boring, which is ultimately Cozzi’s fault. Apparently he now runs a film memorabilia store, which seems a far more apt way of paying tribute to his beloved sci-fi movies than this brave but ultimately unsatisfying effort.

On paper, it doesn’t look good – a Spanish-Italian co-production, set in rural England, and dubbed within an inch of its life. Certainly, the dubbing is the film’s weakest aspect, with the incredibly bizarre array of accents rendering key scenes more comical than dramatic. Most characters speak with rather plummy upper class diction, which is acceptable enough, as is George’s Eric Idle-ish cockney yelp. Things unravel somewhat with the Scottish petrol pump attendant, get downright silly with the Indian doctor in the hospital and culimate with Sergeant McCormick’s frankly astonishing Irish brogue. Aside from the unlikely suggestion that this remote country village should be such a hive of multiculturalism, the lame approximation of various accents and dialects does little to disguise the functional nature of the film’s dialogue. It’s all made even weirder by the swarthy, Mediterranean-looking cast, who couldn’t look more foreign if you tried.

It’s a shame that so many of the film’s problems lie in its dodgy post-production, as otherwise director Jorge Grau rarely puts a foot wrong. In a bid to break away from the rather linear plots of his peers, he sets up a rather nice double jeopardy for George and Edna, as they have to not only avoid being munched by zombies but also prove their innocence – or at least escape from – the local police. Grau’s characterisation is not up to much, but he gives the police some interesting socio-political motivation; McCormick is instantly suspicious of George with his “faggot clothes, long hair, sex, drugs and every other kind of filth” and is contemptuous of Londoners are their “permissive rot”. Essentially, the authorities play the same role here as they always do – blind scepticism, which gives way to realisation only when it’s too late – but it’s a worthwhile twist to suggested that they’re blinkered by prejuce rather than simply being a bit thick.

Grau’s direction is superb, making full use of both the gorgeous countryside and the rather more gothic trappings of the church crypt and the country hospital. There’s also some morbidly thrilling, if economical, gore from the team who would later go on to provide make up effects for Fulci’s Zombie Flesh Eaters. And if the plot contains one too many coincidences to really ring true (it’s not enough for George to keep being found with a pile of dismembered corpses, he had to be a dealer in Satanic paraphernalia as well! No wonder the police take notice…) there’s at least a satisfyingly ironic conclusion that feels genuinely climactic.

If you can resist the urge to snigger at the accents and moronic pseudo-science, then there’s a lot to like here. Let Sleeping Corpses Lie is a punchy little film that more than deserves its place near the top of the non-Romero zombie pack.

That McColl is so enjoyable to watch is pretty essential, as the main problem with City of the Living Dead is how seriously it takes itself. I criticised the mystical angle of The Beyond as being a bit ropey, and unfortunately the same is true here. McColl plays Mary, a spiritual medium who sees a vision of a priest hanging himself in the town of Dunwich, set on the gates of Hell. Mary and her journalist friend Peter have until All Saints Day to close the gates or else… erm, yes. If you’ve got the faintest idea what any of this means, please reply below, as frankly the whole thing was a complete mystery to me. One of the best aspects of George Romero’s zombie movies is that the whole zombie thing just happens, no explanation, and everyone has to deal with it. Fulci, on the other hand, is clearly fascinated by what might cause the dead to return to life and attack the living, and unfortunately his explanation is all to do with Lovecraft and the Book of Enoch (or something). That the central premise is so impenetrable ultimately cripples the movie, as it’s fundamentally unclear what the threat is or what the characters need to achieve. Zombie Flesh Eaters was far more economical, simply using the term “voodoo” to account for any supernatural goings-on and concentrating on a highly enjoyable escape narrative. But because City’s mysticism is so intrinsically tied in with the zombie threat, the zombies themselves just appear and disappear throughout the story, with little menace.

City makes it clear that narrative and plot aren’t really Fulci’s strong point, but I’d still rate him as a director for his knack with an arresting image. Most of these are pretty gory, but he knows how to make something compellingly disgusting; there’s no eye mutilation here, but plenty of intestine-vomiting, head-drilling and, bizarrely a maggot storm, in which the cast have buckets of live maggot thrown at them through a giant fan. Oddly enough, this scene seems to bear no relation to the plot, but the film’s a richer one for the shot where Carlo de Mejo brushes a pile of maggots of a phone so that he can take a call. The scene’s in the priest’s tomb are good, too, but again were hampered by the fact that I was more confused than suspenseful at this point.

Ultimately, City of the Living Dead is a mixed bag. It’s got some great gore, some great music by Fabio Frizzi and a great performance from McColl, but the story is an unfocused, confusing mess. The Beyond, although flawed, is a much more rounded attempt at telling the same sort of story, as the mythology is significantly less brain-bending and the shocks and suspense take centre stage. Neither film surpasses Zombie Flesh Eaters, but all credit to Fulci for trying something a bit different, even if he doesn’t really pull it off.

Okay, so maybe one doesn’t watch a Fulci film for its artistry, but his directorial style, whilst a essentially a refinement of what he was doing in Zombie Flesh Eaters, has come along in leaps and bounds, and is at times quite beautiful. Whilst the earlier film was ragged but with some brilliant composition and reveals, here he pulls out all the stops, with focus zooms, unusual angles and extreme close-ups which add up to give The Beyond an almost dreamlike ambience. In particular, a scene with a little girl being menaced by some red ooze in a hospital morgue is masterful, and the sepia tinged opening sets up the action well. Surprisingly, the acting isn’t half bad either, and whilst the redubbing of some of the lesser characters’ dialogue is a little stilted and odd-looking, Katherine McColl as Liza is a great lead who more than compensates. Only Sarah Keller lets the side down by over-egging her performance as the blind Emily; her excessive enunciation exposes how ropey the whole mystical Book of Eibon aspect of the story is.

In fact, the only thing that hinders The Beyond is the sloppy script, which is incredibly careless in its introduction and disposal of the various characters. Martha’s death would have significantly more impact if we knew who she was or why she was so suspicious of the hotel’s basement, and a number of other characters are set up with no real resolution – who is the mad guy living in the hotel? Why does the bookseller laugh so much? And what’s with the blindness? These are too clumsily handled to be effective red herrings, and end up making the plot more confusing than enigmatic.

In any case, there’s plenty of gore to stop you feeling short-changed. In particular, Fulci seems to have a thing about eyes; the stake in the eye was Zombie Flesh Eaters’ most notorious “yuk” moment, and here we have eyes being poked out, squished and eaten left, right and centre. An attack by some hungry tarantulas is particularly effective, compensating for some rather limp zombie scenes around the middle of the film that lack any real menace. The final showdown is great, making me think I’d like to see more zombie movies set in hospitals (suggestions below please). Fabio Frizzi’s music is brilliant, if a little more melodious than his previous work, and really adds to the atmosphere. It’s just that script that stops it being a classic; ultimately, The Beyond is a good movie, but could have been so much more.

Set almost entirely on a remote island, the film’s concern with voodoo seems like a nod to the 1932 Bela Lugosi classic White Zombie, but unlike the earlier film there’s a satisfying amount of uncontrollable zombie carnage. The gore here is far better realised than in Dawn of the Dead; there are several fantastic shots of maggot-ridden corpses bursting out of their graves, and the shots of the dead feasting on the living are suitably repulsive. The film has two notorious set-piece moments: one, in which a woman gets a nasty splint of wood stuck in her eye, is pretty wince-inducing; the other, in which a zombie wrestles with a shark (!!) is astonishing. Although it’s pretty clear that the stuntman is fighting a much smaller shark that the one that appears in long shots, it’s still a real shark, and it really seems to bite his arms off while he’s biting chunks out of its belly.

The characters and dialogue are pretty paper-thin, but this isn’t so much of a problem as there’s enough action and tension to hold the attention. The actors aren’t bad, but the real joy of the movie is in its cinematography, which is great; at times it’s appropriately raw and ragged, but then there’ll be a majestic sweep round for some great revelation. In particular, the revelation of the fate of the doctor’s wife is superbly handled. Fabio Frizzi’s music, a bone of contention for some, sounds great to my ears, which some absolutely bonkers synth work and a thudding main theme that keeps and atmosphere of dread going (even if my TV speakers strained at some of the more extreme moments of the score).

One slight niggle: I got the Vipco Screamtime Collection edition (£2.99 in the HMV sale, folks), and the dialogue sometimes doesn’t quite synch with the actors’ lip movements. I really don’t know if this is due to overdubbing in the film or if the DVD’s been badly authored. However, it doesn’t detract from a highly enjoyable film, and one which I’d recommend to any horror fan who’s not looking for anything of momentous depth.