I was sent a preview disc of Rossa Venezia several years ago. It's bloody awful.
Well summed up, Marc! AVOID at all costs if you value your free time!
I reviewd this a while back on ABUK.
Rossa Venezia
With critics (and fans) lamenting about the so-called wave of "horror porn" in the recent genre cinema, they should really get a load of this German sleazefest to learn about the real thing.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: The German censorship is widely responsible for garbage like "Rossa Venezia" happening in the first place.
When the "youth protection laws" are basically terminating the chances of any credible genre product ever getting made (and funded) for the local (and international) mass market, when widely respected classics like the original TCM and "Dawn of the Dead" remain banned in their uncut form and mainstream fare like "Scream" can be only legally obtained uncensored in "Adult's Only" video stores, which place their horror section next to the porn shelves, it's no wonder that the German independent/underground scene is so overly obsessed with sex and violence to the degree that their output is only fit for consumption for a very limited section of the hardcore-horror-fanbase.
"Shoot it as depraved as possible. It'll get banned anyway!", seems to be the credo there- sadly.
And to think that horror movies were once "born" in Germany by the likes of Murnau and Lang....
"Rossa Venezia" is an (believe it or not!) 154 mins exercise in hc sex and amateurish gore fx, mixed with enough misogynistic ways of disposing its female cast members, it doesn't really help a bit that it's a woman committing those gruesome acts.
Jess Franco and Lina Romay show up for a cameo as concerend parents of one of the victims, that's about the only thing noteworthy about this filth.
The acting is of the rock-bottom kind of calibre and the ongoing monologues of the female maniac beg the question if they were actually intended to sound so overly pretentious, or if they only serve the purpose of inflicting pain even on the most hardened of viewers.
I have no issues with hc sex used in movies, but in this case it just feels very much out of place, not to say in real, real bad taste.
Let's just say a drill gets used in a way I never want to see in any movie again
Director Andreas Bethmann has done a fine job in the past with his "X Rated" DVD releases and I'd just wish for him to stick to that in the future...
As a proper movie: *
As an exploitation curiosity. **
