I Tre Volti del Terrore starts as hypnotist Professor Peter Price (John Phillip Law) sits down in a train carriage, he introduces himself to the other three passengers sat there, after the other three become interested in the Professor's work he decides to give them a demonstration in which he will use the power of hypnotism to reveal past events...
First up is Marco (Riccardo Serventi Longhi) who becomes the star of a story called 'The Ring of the Moon' involving tomb robbing & an ancient silver ring that has the power to turn it's wearer into a Werewolf...
Next up it's Sandra (Ambre Even) featuring in a story called 'A Perfect Face' in which she & her best friend Barbara (Elisabetta Rocchetti) visit renowned plastic surgeon Dr. Fisher who decides to take Barbara's request rather to literally...
Finally Carlo (Emiliano Reggente) gets the hypnotism treatment & finds himself in a story called 'The Lake Keeper' where he & two friends decide to stay the night at a lake but discover unspeakable horrors lurking within the depths...
This Italian production is widely known to English speaking audiences as The Three Faces of Terror & was co-written, produced & directed by Sergio Stivaletti who also makes a brief cameo appearance. The Italian film industry was well known for it's cheap gore laden horror films of the 70's & early 80's but it's output has dried up over the last couple of decades apart from the odd Dario Argento flick although occasionally we get the odd dismal offering such as I Tre Volti del Terrore. The horror anthology was one particular sub-genre that the Italians never really exploited, it was British studios such as Amicus with excellent films like The House that Dripped Blood (1971), Tales from the Crypt (1972), Asylum (1972), From Beyond the Grave (1973) & The Vault of Horror (1973) that specialised in this type of thing & I Tre Volti del Terrore ends up looking pretty poor by comparison. In my opinion these anthology stories need to quick, fast paced horror material with a nice dark twist ending & that's ultimately where I Tre Volti del Terrore fails & lets the audience down. The three stories are generally quite poor, they make little sense (how did that Werewolf hunter guy know where the Werewolf would be at the end? What was that plastic surgeon keeping people frozen for? What reason did he have to do what he did? How could a six foot man & a fifty foot tall sea monster be brother's?) & to top it off the wraparound story set on a train is a direct rip-off of the Amicus horror anthology Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965) & features exactly the same twist before a bizarre ending in which we see a young boy in pyjama's sitting at a desk floating in outer space orbiting the Earth drawing pictures! I kid you not, try to work that one out because I sure as hell can't. I usually like horror anthologies but this is just poor with three really weak stories that make no sense although the way each story cuts off just before the end & then the endings are finally shown one after the other at the end is quite novel but I am not sure most will make it that far.
Director Stivaletti includes a clip of his directorial debut Wax Mask (1997). Although clearly shot on video at least there's none of that hand-held shaky camcorder look or feel about it which is good & it's reasonably well made. Although short on actual gore there are one or two decent special effects scenes like a fairly impressive Werewolf transformation, someone's face being removed, there's a severed arm & a fun stop-motion animated sea monster. Amazingly this apparently got a theatrical release in Italy. The English dubbing is poor & the awkward broken English dialogue just sounds daft, distinguished late actor John Phillip Law is the only member of the cast I recognised & he deserves better than this.
I Tre Volti del Terrore is a poor attempt a British styled horror anthology film by those Italians, they should stick to the zombies & cannibals. Not recommended & let down in particular by three weak stories.
First up is Marco (Riccardo Serventi Longhi) who becomes the star of a story called 'The Ring of the Moon' involving tomb robbing & an ancient silver ring that has the power to turn it's wearer into a Werewolf...
Next up it's Sandra (Ambre Even) featuring in a story called 'A Perfect Face' in which she & her best friend Barbara (Elisabetta Rocchetti) visit renowned plastic surgeon Dr. Fisher who decides to take Barbara's request rather to literally...
Finally Carlo (Emiliano Reggente) gets the hypnotism treatment & finds himself in a story called 'The Lake Keeper' where he & two friends decide to stay the night at a lake but discover unspeakable horrors lurking within the depths...
This Italian production is widely known to English speaking audiences as The Three Faces of Terror & was co-written, produced & directed by Sergio Stivaletti who also makes a brief cameo appearance. The Italian film industry was well known for it's cheap gore laden horror films of the 70's & early 80's but it's output has dried up over the last couple of decades apart from the odd Dario Argento flick although occasionally we get the odd dismal offering such as I Tre Volti del Terrore. The horror anthology was one particular sub-genre that the Italians never really exploited, it was British studios such as Amicus with excellent films like The House that Dripped Blood (1971), Tales from the Crypt (1972), Asylum (1972), From Beyond the Grave (1973) & The Vault of Horror (1973) that specialised in this type of thing & I Tre Volti del Terrore ends up looking pretty poor by comparison. In my opinion these anthology stories need to quick, fast paced horror material with a nice dark twist ending & that's ultimately where I Tre Volti del Terrore fails & lets the audience down. The three stories are generally quite poor, they make little sense (how did that Werewolf hunter guy know where the Werewolf would be at the end? What was that plastic surgeon keeping people frozen for? What reason did he have to do what he did? How could a six foot man & a fifty foot tall sea monster be brother's?) & to top it off the wraparound story set on a train is a direct rip-off of the Amicus horror anthology Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965) & features exactly the same twist before a bizarre ending in which we see a young boy in pyjama's sitting at a desk floating in outer space orbiting the Earth drawing pictures! I kid you not, try to work that one out because I sure as hell can't. I usually like horror anthologies but this is just poor with three really weak stories that make no sense although the way each story cuts off just before the end & then the endings are finally shown one after the other at the end is quite novel but I am not sure most will make it that far.
Director Stivaletti includes a clip of his directorial debut Wax Mask (1997). Although clearly shot on video at least there's none of that hand-held shaky camcorder look or feel about it which is good & it's reasonably well made. Although short on actual gore there are one or two decent special effects scenes like a fairly impressive Werewolf transformation, someone's face being removed, there's a severed arm & a fun stop-motion animated sea monster. Amazingly this apparently got a theatrical release in Italy. The English dubbing is poor & the awkward broken English dialogue just sounds daft, distinguished late actor John Phillip Law is the only member of the cast I recognised & he deserves better than this.
I Tre Volti del Terrore is a poor attempt a British styled horror anthology film by those Italians, they should stick to the zombies & cannibals. Not recommended & let down in particular by three weak stories.
