Shot in the same time period as Le amanti del mostro - which is also directed by Sergio Garrone - The Hand That Feeds the Dead combines the ideas of Frankenstein with one of my favorite plots, the intelligent doctor driven to mad things because of love. Also see: Eyes Without a Face, Faceless, Corruption, Mansion of the Doomed and Atom Age Vampire.
Professor Nijinski (Klaus Kinski) was working on skin grafts when a fire in his lab burned the face of his wife Tania (Katia Christine). This inferno also claims the life of the professor's mentor - and Tania's father - Doctor Baron Ivan Rassimov and that name has to be a joke, right?
While the mad scientist is using his hunchback assistant Vanya (Erol Tas) to kill women in the village and then use their skin in super gory - thanks Carlo Rambaldi! - surgical scenes that blew my mind. I mean, there are tubes everywhere, small beakers filled with blood and machinery that is needlessly - and therefore, totally awesome - complicated.
Also staying in the decaying mansion is Sonia (Stella Calderoni), newlyweds Masha and Alex (Katia Christine and Ayhan Isik) and Katja (Marzia Damon), who is looking for her missing sister. Somehow, in the midst of this surgical gore freakout, there's also an extended girl on girl makeout, which may not make sense until you realize that Garrone also made SS Experiment Camp and the most horror-filled Italian Western there has ever been, Django the B******.
This was produced by Turkish Sakir V. Sozen, who cast Ayhan Isik and provided the villa in Istanbul where it was filmed. It was not released in Turkey until 1986 after actor and producer Yilmaz Duru bought it from Sozen and released it as Olumun Nefesi (Bread of Death).
I absolutely went wild for this movie. Yes, it's not the greatest Italian horror movie ever, but man, those surgical scenes look great even today when it comes to practical special effects. As always, I also love seeing Kinski and waiting for him to get worked up.
Warning: Kinski pulls the guts out of a dog. Cubby was enraged.
Professor Nijinski (Klaus Kinski) was working on skin grafts when a fire in his lab burned the face of his wife Tania (Katia Christine). This inferno also claims the life of the professor's mentor - and Tania's father - Doctor Baron Ivan Rassimov and that name has to be a joke, right?
While the mad scientist is using his hunchback assistant Vanya (Erol Tas) to kill women in the village and then use their skin in super gory - thanks Carlo Rambaldi! - surgical scenes that blew my mind. I mean, there are tubes everywhere, small beakers filled with blood and machinery that is needlessly - and therefore, totally awesome - complicated.
Also staying in the decaying mansion is Sonia (Stella Calderoni), newlyweds Masha and Alex (Katia Christine and Ayhan Isik) and Katja (Marzia Damon), who is looking for her missing sister. Somehow, in the midst of this surgical gore freakout, there's also an extended girl on girl makeout, which may not make sense until you realize that Garrone also made SS Experiment Camp and the most horror-filled Italian Western there has ever been, Django the B******.
This was produced by Turkish Sakir V. Sozen, who cast Ayhan Isik and provided the villa in Istanbul where it was filmed. It was not released in Turkey until 1986 after actor and producer Yilmaz Duru bought it from Sozen and released it as Olumun Nefesi (Bread of Death).
I absolutely went wild for this movie. Yes, it's not the greatest Italian horror movie ever, but man, those surgical scenes look great even today when it comes to practical special effects. As always, I also love seeing Kinski and waiting for him to get worked up.
Warning: Kinski pulls the guts out of a dog. Cubby was enraged.