Le ombre roventi (1970)

User Rating:

6.2/10   

Director:

Mario Caiano

Writers:

Fabio Piccioni (screenplay)
Fabio Piccioni (story)

Release Date:

1 January 1970 (Italy)

Genre:

Horror

Cast

William Berger	...	Caleb
Daniela Giordano	...	Gail Bland
Krista Nell
Antonio Cantafora
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Giancarlo Bastianoni
Carol Lobravico
Enzo Maggio
Mirella Pamphili

Also Known As:

Shadow of Illusion (USA) (informal title)

Runtime:

88 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Egypt

Company:

Liger

A lot of cheesecake/diabetics should probably avoid

It's kind of hard to describe this thing, but here goes: an Italian model (Daniela Giordana)has been lured to Egypt for a fashion shoot. It turns out though that she has caught the interest of a strange cult who believe that she is the reincarnation of the goddess Isis. The cult is led by a strange and possibly incestuous brother and sister (the latter played by Krista Nell). Much nudity and ooga-booga nonsense ensues, including a lesbian scene between Giordano and Nell where the evil sister tries to bring out the fashion model's inner-goddess, and a truly bizarre fog-machine saturated finale which involves Giordano splayed out naked on a fake rock for about ten minutes while the entire cult dances around in ritual sacrifice (why they wanted to sacrifice the reincarnation of the goddess Isis frankly eluded me).

Mario Caino was a decent director most famous for "Nightmare Castle" with Barbara Steele, although his best film was probably the early, pop-Freudian giallo "Eye in the Labyrinth". He directed this somewhere between those too, and his direction is pretty serviceable I guess. Obviously, the raison d'etre of this whole thing is female nudity. Daniela Giordana was one of several Miss Italys (or Miss Teen Italys) to end up in European "adult" films of the era (although she was not nearly as ubiquitous as Gloria Guida and didn't end up in hardcore like Lili Karati). Krista Nell was an alluring and mysterious Austrian actress who died young in a car crash. Her work was very consistent at least--I've yet to see here keep her clothes on for an entire movie.

But does this movie have much appeal beyond cheesecake? Well, no, but if you're in the mood for cheesecake...