NIGHT KILLER (1989) Blu-ray
Director: Claudio Fragasso (as Clyde Anderson) and Bruno Mattei (uncredited)
Severin Films

Before LEATHERFACE, there was another TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 3 over in Italy, and it reaches American shores now as NIGHT KILLER on Blu-ray from Severin Films.

A sadistic killer who rapes and mutilates his victims has been prowling around Norfolk, Virginia. The only surviving victim is writer Melanie Beck (Tara Buckman, SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT) who was attacked in her own home after receiving threatening and obscene phone calls. She is so traumatized by her ordeal that she has not only forgotten the event but also her own name and her young daughter Clarissa (Tova Sardot) who is in the care of family friends Anne and Sherman (Richard Foster) who is out for vengeance after the escaping killer slashed his face. Slipping out of the hospital under the noses of her shrink Dr. Willow (Lee Lively, BLIND VISION) and investigating officer Lieutenant Clark (Mel Davis), Melanie takes to the road is almost immediately harassed by boozing motorist Axel (Peter Hooten, BO DEREK'S FANTASIES) who she teaches a lesson in a public toilet. In spite of his humiliation and anger, Axel stops her from trying to commit suicide by overdosing on medications. Axel's motives, however, are not so pure as he traps Melanie in a motel room and assaults her, keeping her there with the promise that he will kill her in his own time. He disappears from time to time and the killer strikes again and again. When asked if Melanie is still in danger from the killer, Willow rather recklessly surmises on television that she would only be in danger if the killer triggered her memory by forcing her to relive her assault whereupon he would have to kill her, which may be exactly what Melanie wants… or is it?

Opening with a stalk and slash sequence in which a dancer and a choreographer (Gaby Ford, DESIRE) are both gutted by a Freddy Krueger-masked killer with a clawed glove, NIGHT KILLER then veers into thriller territory and then into sexual psychodrama spiked by monotonous kill scenes that all use the same make-up effect. The one-on-one scenes between Buckman and Hooten should be compelling but they lack chemistry. Early attempts at misdirection work in retrospect but Axel is too obviously a red herring, stepping out of the motel room before each murder while the investigation is so lackadaisical and the twist so contrived (although it might have worked better had the scenes between Axel and Melanie had more spark). Shot entirely in sync sound English – some of the supporting performers really should have been dubbed – and mostly on location in Virginia, NIGHT KILLER has the look of a Filmirage production of the period although it was actually the only Franco Gaudenzi (ZOMBI 3, AFTER DEATH)/Flora Film production from this period not lensed in the Philippines, and director Claudio Fragasso tries something different but the execution is too muddled (although nowhere near as quirky as TROLL 2). Gaudenzi and executive producer Mimmo Scavia (ROBOWAR) – Flora Film's regular art director – apparently hated the film and insisted that editor Bruno Mattei (HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD) add more violence to the film. Franco Di Girolamo (NEW YORK RIPPER) is credited with make-up effects while brothers Francesco and Gaetano Paolocci (SHOCKING DARK) are credited with special effects so it is uncertain which is responsible for the Freddy mask and original make-up effects and who did the film's bad prosthetic insert effects. The inserts are all the more obvious because the killer does a bit of groping before the killing in spite of the news reporter's descriptions of the killings as rapes and mutilations.

Unreleased in the United States theatrically or on video and hard to see in English outside of a Portuguese-subtitled VHS, NIGHT KILLER comes to Blu-ray in a 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen encode from a 4K scan of the original camera negative which is both good and bad. The clash between the Fragasso and Mattei footage is immediately apparent, with original cinematographer Antonio Maccoppi (NUDE FOR SATAN) favoring long takes and a degree of diffusion while the Mattei footage looks crisper but also rather hurried and composed of shorter shots. The footage under the opening and ending credits looks fine but the overlayed credits seem out of register and strain the eyes. The HD resolution does the film's make-up effects no favors with the claw glove looking as rubbery as the mask and the gore inserts looking worse. English and Italian DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono tracks are offered with the dialogue sounding louder than the music in some cases on the former and the reverse on the latter. This is not such a bad thing as the library tracks – credited to Variety Film although likely the work of Carlo Maria Cordio (BODY PUZZLE) who gets credit on IMDb although his name does not appear on the feature presentation – are a mishmash of choices that generally sound overemphatic. Separate English SDH subtitles for the English dub and English subtitles for the Italian track are offered. The Italian track may not retain any of the actor voices but it does play a bit more seriously.

While Severin's other Fragasso/Mattei Blu-rays have included cast interviews, it is perhaps not so surprising that none of the cast was on hand here; less so when we get the full story from the two included interview subjects. In "The Virginia Claw Massacre" (24:46), director Fragasso recalls being tired of horror and seeing himself as an "underappreciated auteur." He mounted NIGHT KILLER with the intention of fooling Gaudenzi into believing he was doing a standard thriller but was aiming for something more psychological with a more European art film style. He recalls that Hooten and Buckman disliked one another and that the Virginia locations were so cold that his back seized up on more than one occasion. He was not aware of the footage added by Mattei at the insistence of the producers until he was on location in Louisiana shooting BEYOND DARKNESS/LA CASA 5 for Joe D'Amato's Filmirage and it lead to the breakup of their collaborative filmmaking partnership. At the time he felt that Mattei's additions ruined the film and it was compounded by the Italian title NON APRITE QUELLA PORTA 3 which suggested it was a third installment in the TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE series. In retrospect, he feels that his approach did not work and that the added bits were necessary to sell the film.

Just as informative is "Mindfuck" (14:33), an interview with Fragasso's wife screenwriter Rossella Drudi (ROBOWAR) who recalls that the film was inspired by a true case in England of a rape victim tormented for years after the event by someone who may or may not have been her attacker, explaining the meaning of the killer telling Melanie he wants to "fuck your brain." She discusses the research she did on rape and recovery, putting herself in the shoes of the protagonist and Fragasso's attempt to do something different with the film. She recalls that Fragasso was shooting LA CASA 5 and that Gaudenzi tried to keep her out of the editing room, and also that Mattei was not proud of the additions – including the seven minute opening sequence – but that he was under contract while she and Fragasso were freelancing. She also reveals that mask was part of her original concept because it was meant to be set during Mardi Gras but that the claws were not only not her idea but were part of the inserts added to existing scenes. A short theatrical trailer (0:50) is also included. Also available in the Night Killer Bundle with enamel pin and sticker. (Eric Cotenas)

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