Simon Andreu Movies

This plodding and pretentious feature from Spain is based on an ancient Roman myth. Acteon watches as the Diana the goddess of hunting bathes in the nude. This is the second feature directed by Jorge Grau, who would later make his mark in horror films. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

When Massa (Robert Hossein) is released from prison, he's sure that Luciano (Simon Andreu), an old freind, is responsible for his incarceration. Massa proceeds to keep watch on Luciano, who has been living with Massa's beloved sister Maria (Marie-France Pisier). Feeling doubly betrayed because of his unhealthy adoration for Maria, Massa is determined to get back at Luciano and ends up in a deadly game of roulette. Hossein also directed and co-wrote this gangster feature, while photography was in the capable hands of Jean Boffety--who would go on to photograph more successful films such as Robert Altman's Thieves Like Us and Claude Sautet's Mado. ~ Kristie Hassen, Rovi

Like his more famous La Morte Accarezza a Mezzanotte (1972), this delirious Italian-Spanish co-production from filmmaker Luciano Ercoli is a star vehicle for his wife, Nieves Navarro, who appeared in several giallo thrillers (among other genre roles) under the name Susan Scott. Navarro plays Nicole, a famous French stripper whose father is stabbed to death on a late-night train. The police question her about some missing diamonds, she begins receiving threatening phone calls, and the poor woman is even assaulted in her own bedroom by a masked maniac with frighteningly blue eyes. Nicole's personal life is hardly less complicated, as she runs off to the seashore with a British eye surgeon (Frank Wolff), causing her insanely jealous boyfriend (Simon Andreu) -- who happens to own a pair of blue contact lenses -- to follow in a murderous rage. The loopy Ernesto Gastaldi screenplay is loaded with some outrageously contrived set pieces, and bears more than a passing resemblance to another one of his scripts, Lo Strano Vizio Della Signora Wardh (1970), in its concluding intrigue. The similarity is notable precisely because that film starred Edwige Fenech, whom Navarro was doing her best to unseat as the queen of giallo heroines at the time, as the lady in distress. She does a fairly good job here, burdened as she is with a demented screenplay and her husband's often overreaching direction. The overall effect isn't likely to win much crossover viewership, particularly in light of an avalanche of the genre's more noteworthy examples on DVD in the early 2000s. Giallo devotees, however, are likely to enjoy the film for its very artifice, as well as a nice score by Stelvio Cipriani and a cast including genre regulars Jorge Rigaud, Jose Manuel Martin, and Luciano Rossi. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

Sheridan LaFanu's classic vampire tale Carmilla has been filmed (faithfully or otherwise) as Vampyr and Blood and Roses. The 1972 Spanish production Till Death Do Us Part is the most recent adaptation of the LaFanu original. This time, Maribel Martin plays the virginal young bride who falls under the influence of a seductive female vampire (Alexandra Bastedo). The lesbian subtext of Carmilla is handled with reasonable taste, though more blatantly than in earlier filmizations. Simon Andreu and Dean Selmier costar. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A favorite among fans of outrageously bad films, this bloody, convoluted thriller deals with a model named Val (Nieves Navarro), whose tabloid-reporter boyfriend, Gio (Simon Andreu), talks her into experimenting with drugs. While she hallucinates, Val looks out the window and sees a man in dark glasses smashing a spiked iron glove into a woman's head until blood splashes into the camera lens. When Gio publishes the story, Val gets fired and is stalked by a psychopath. Before it's all over, there are trips to mental hospitals and graveyards, as many as four different killers taking part in three separate frame-ups, a cat with a slashed throat, and a ludicrous rooftop fight scene featuring choreography rarely seen outside of bad Asian karate films. The high point has a hitman (who laughs like a hyena) throwing a knife between two buildings only to have Gio catch it in a shovel-handle. Most of the film consists of people calling Val crazy or stupid, only to have Val slap them or knee them in the groin, spitting "Go to Hell!" before marching out of the room. The remaining scenes have Val herself being slapped around, followed by all the men she previously told to go to Hell smashing each other through skylights and pushing each other's faces into bags of quicklime. The screenplay (by Ernesto Gastaldi, Sergio Corbucci, and others) makes very little sense, but is such laughably camp fun that it doesn't matter. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

Feline-women with a lust for human blood lure innocent young women to their jungle lair in this horror film. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The real star of this police action/adventure is the "Guardia Civil" or Spanish national police force. In the story, a robber who consistently eludes capture by the police by crossing over the border into France, taunting the lawmen mercilessly, is cornered in a border farmhouse and receives his just desserts. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

An Israeli doctor (Helmut Griem) is working with guerrillas at an enclave when the Palestinians attempt to blow up a dance-hall. The doctor is stunned to discover an old friend among the terrorist dead. ~ John Bush, Rovi