"Rossa Venezia" is a German movie from 2003, so this one will have its 15th anniversary next year. The writer and director here is Andreas Bethmann and this should already tell you the direction the film is heading. Call it underground or amateur filmmaking if you are gentle, call it unrealistic garbage if you are accurate. This is the story of a woman who catches her husband having sex with another and instantly kills them both. After a decade in a prison where the lesbian warden abuses all the inmates, she is emotionally scarred and gets out to kill one woman during the sex act after the other, occasionally also men if they get in the way. So yeah, don't expect a good story here. But sadly, the acting is probably even worse than the acting and there are some actors and performances in here who are unbearable bad. Is it at least good from a porn perspective? Nope. I am not sure what Bethmann was trying to do with his casting decision, maybe give the film (fake) depth, but I found the lead actress extremely "disengaging". And the younger, supposedly hotter supporting players were with one or two exceptions not particularly nice to look at either. So no matter which perspective you are taking here, the film stays an extremely underwhelming outcome. And the most painful thing is that the uncensored version runs for over 2.5 hours. Heavy stuff here. I suggest you stay far far away. This is a definite contender for Bethmann's worst and this means quite something for sure looking at his body of work. The saddest thing about the film is probably the inclusion of Franco and Romay and while their works were heading in similar directions like Bethmann's, you can impossibly maintain that they have produced anything equally distasteful and of low quality as Bethmann does on a regular basis, even if you are not a fan of them. Back to the film as a whole, imagine the worst horror and worst porn movie you have seen in their lives and imagine them being combined into one film. You get the message. You really wanna miss out here.
4 Reviews
Euro sexploitation horror, if that's your bag
slake0910 February 2005
If you like some sex to go with your horror, check this one out. If you like some horror to go with your sex, this is an even better one for you. If you like a little background horror in the midst of your hardcore porn, yeah, this is your movie.
The plot is basically some kind of slasher running around Venice killing and torturing but that's just a flimsy envelope to hold the sex scenes together. Don't get too much involved in the plot anyway, it'll distract you from the naked chicks and you'll forget why you were watching this to begin with.
There is a lot of sloppily done gore and slashing here and there, but basically it's just a bunch of Euro-skanks getting naked and doing the nasty to pass the time until they are killed. They mostly are skanky, too, with a couple of notable exceptions. Sabine Ironheart (is that an obvious stage name, or what?) has a little something going on as the sadistic voyeur who gets hers in the end. In the meantime, she delivers what has to be the finest on-her-knees scene in any horror movie yet filmed. Then there is Lina Romay, who is way past her prime but still ready to strip down at the merest rumor of a camera in the vicinity. You have to respect a dedicated exhibitionist like that, much less a living legend of exhibitionism like Lina.
The rest of the girls are, I'm afraid, skanky. No way around that, they're just not the kind you'd bring home to meet Mom. Not that you would bring Lina Romay home unless you're the kind of guy who wants to show the parents how their grandkids will be produced. In any case, skanky girls need love, too, and they get lots of it in this film right before they are sliced and diced.
Man, I got too much into this review and burned the bacon I was cooking for BLT sandwiches. I hope my girlfriend doesn't notice it and beat me down. She does that sometimes, when the food isn't just right.
Anyway, back to Rossa Venezia; if you're looking for some very explicit sex scenes strewn randomly but frequently into a sort-of-horror movie, then definitely check this out. If you're looking for some mild horror scenes strewn randomly into a sort-of-sex movie, this is also a good one. If you are looking for serious horror, though, better go somewhere else.
The plot is basically some kind of slasher running around Venice killing and torturing but that's just a flimsy envelope to hold the sex scenes together. Don't get too much involved in the plot anyway, it'll distract you from the naked chicks and you'll forget why you were watching this to begin with.
There is a lot of sloppily done gore and slashing here and there, but basically it's just a bunch of Euro-skanks getting naked and doing the nasty to pass the time until they are killed. They mostly are skanky, too, with a couple of notable exceptions. Sabine Ironheart (is that an obvious stage name, or what?) has a little something going on as the sadistic voyeur who gets hers in the end. In the meantime, she delivers what has to be the finest on-her-knees scene in any horror movie yet filmed. Then there is Lina Romay, who is way past her prime but still ready to strip down at the merest rumor of a camera in the vicinity. You have to respect a dedicated exhibitionist like that, much less a living legend of exhibitionism like Lina.
The rest of the girls are, I'm afraid, skanky. No way around that, they're just not the kind you'd bring home to meet Mom. Not that you would bring Lina Romay home unless you're the kind of guy who wants to show the parents how their grandkids will be produced. In any case, skanky girls need love, too, and they get lots of it in this film right before they are sliced and diced.
Man, I got too much into this review and burned the bacon I was cooking for BLT sandwiches. I hope my girlfriend doesn't notice it and beat me down. She does that sometimes, when the food isn't just right.
Anyway, back to Rossa Venezia; if you're looking for some very explicit sex scenes strewn randomly but frequently into a sort-of-horror movie, then definitely check this out. If you're looking for some mild horror scenes strewn randomly into a sort-of-sex movie, this is also a good one. If you are looking for serious horror, though, better go somewhere else.
dreadful porn horror
callmesweeper16 February 2006
Villa Maledetta, 13. Stay away from this address, where a psychotic woman has killed her husband, caught in the act together with a prostitute. Today, the deranged lunatic keeps herself in shape contacting other assorted call girls and giving them a lesson in bondage and fake gore. A pitiable ultra-pathetic Italian commissioner investigates, whilst a coroner cuts plastic bodies in a sort of a garage dispatched for a morgue. Venice is the unaware background for this dreadful, unwatchable video garbage, directed (if "direction" is a word I can use) by Andreas Bethmann, alias the leader of German DVD distribution X Rated. The video (I can't call "film" what's shot with a camcorder), based on a non-existent screenplay, is full of boring, gratuitous hardcore sex, awful SPFX, ludicrous dialogues. Special spice of the dish is the stressing, endless length ! I wasted 2hrs 30mns of my life to watch this dull abomination...sorry, that's the sensation ! In the effort to emulate his "spiritual master", Jess Franco, Andreas has recruited him in the cast together with his lovely wife Lina. It's useless Andreas, you're not the heir of Jess, rather just a copycat ! Avoid it !
Jaded
tedg18 August 2009
It seems impossible these days to have a western horror movie that does not leverage one of our fabricated ideas that we package around the sex act. Sex in many of its dimensions is our most cinematic quality and seems especially pliable in the service of fear.
This film is in the tradition of Jess Franco, and indeed it even features him and his increasingly less interesting wife. Depending on your point of view, it is a serious film, an amalgam of scary tropes from then recent thriller movies with sex interspersed or a simple porn film with window dressing. I think it is the former and deserves to be judged that way.
Naturally it fails spectacularly and that is rather puzzling.
What if you had a talented filmmaker who decided to both not hide sex in the story, and who was willing to exploit it more fully in the service of the film. "Trouble Every Day" - which I saw with this — went halfway but stopped at explicit cannibalism and sex, and not because offscreen implication was more powerful.
Jess Franco was our explorer in this. Cheap, fast movies. Lynchian offhandedness in the narrative. But real cinematic adventure. It seems to have ended around here.
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
This film is in the tradition of Jess Franco, and indeed it even features him and his increasingly less interesting wife. Depending on your point of view, it is a serious film, an amalgam of scary tropes from then recent thriller movies with sex interspersed or a simple porn film with window dressing. I think it is the former and deserves to be judged that way.
Naturally it fails spectacularly and that is rather puzzling.
What if you had a talented filmmaker who decided to both not hide sex in the story, and who was willing to exploit it more fully in the service of the film. "Trouble Every Day" - which I saw with this — went halfway but stopped at explicit cannibalism and sex, and not because offscreen implication was more powerful.
Jess Franco was our explorer in this. Cheap, fast movies. Lynchian offhandedness in the narrative. But real cinematic adventure. It seems to have ended around here.
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
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