Fatal Frames (1996)

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  (102 ratings)

Trumpeted as the return of the classic Italian thriller, this inexplicably prize-winning giallo nuovo concerns an American director named Alex Ritt (Rick Gianasi) who is brought to Rome by his friend Daniel (Leo Daniel) to direct a music video featuring hot starlet Stefania Stella (Stefania Stella… More Trumpeted as the return of the classic Italian thriller, this inexplicably prize-winning giallo nuovo concerns an American director named Alex Ritt (Rick Gianasi) who is brought to Rome by his friend Daniel (Leo Daniel) to direct a music video featuring hot starlet Stefania Stella (Stefania Stella di Giandomenico). Ritt's wife was killed in New York as part of a series of five machete-murders videotaped by a black-gloved assassin, and as soon as he arrives in Rome, the killings begin anew, with Alex a helpless witness to all of them and the prime suspect. There's also a subplot involving occultists led by a creepy blind Countess (Alida Valli from Suspiria), and pretty soon a parapsychologist (scream queen Linnea Quigley) gets involved as well. The middle of the film consists primarily of an interminably tedious police procedural which drags the film out to an ungodly 137 minutes, but viewers are advised not to fall asleep before the film's mind-boggling conclusion, which must be seen to be believed. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi