Cross of the Seven Jewels
Marco Sartori (Marco Andolfi) is a young man who returns to Rome for work after an absence of over twenty years. No sooner has he arrived, though, than he’s mugged by a bunch of hoodlums, who steal his necklace, a jewelled cross of considerable emotional value. Things become increasingly strange: he’s met by a long lost cousin at the station, who later turns out to be an imposter, then kidnapped by some gangsters who want some confidential business information from him. Through all of this, he seems peculiarly preoccupied with getting his necklace back, so he enlists the help of a nightclub worker, Maria (Annie Belle), who has good connections in the criminal underworld.
It soon becomes clear that he has good reason for wanting his property returned. He’s actually a werewolf, and the necklace is the only thing that prevents him from transforming into a murderous beast. He’s left with no option but to track it down, and soon finds out that it’s been sold on to a fence, who has in turn pawned it on to a Mafioso called Esposito, who works for a Godfather called ‘The Senator’ (Giorgio Ardisson). ‘The Senator’ is convinced that he’s some kind of secret agent, sent to dig out information about the organisation, and injects him full of truth serum to try and find out more. All this does is trigger a transformation, and Marco manages to kill just about everybody (although he remembers nothing about it when he wakes up).
Gradually, Marco begins revealing more about his childhood to Maria. His mother had been a Satanist who had mated with a hairy devil called Abonym during a black mass. After giving birth to Marco, Abonym’s son, she had realised exactly what she’d done and had created the cross as a way of protecting him from his own demonic genes. Meanwhile, the leader of the occult group she had belonged to (Gordon Mitchell) is lurking around in the background, and seems to have a vested interest in ensuring the protective necklace remains lost.
Where to start? Firstly, perhaps, with one huge mitigating factor; that this is a low, low budget film that was obviously put together with someone’s spare change, and it certainly feels like it. The production values are all but non-existent, and it all looks like it was made on a level which could only be described as barely amateur, let alone professional. The photography is murky, acting dreadful, direction leaden and action sequences woefully unexciting. There are awful special effects, which actually make the average Paul Naschy film look like the epitome of high tech. The werewolf make up is simply laughable: a guy in an oversized wig that seems to have slipped down to beneath his nose and, impressively, a hairy mirkin to cover his pubic area. Given that he’s so ludicrous, it’s good that he has the additional ability to melt his victims – or, rather, one victim, more would obviously have cost too much – a protracted sequence in which the unfortunate character is obviously replaced with a waxwork figure. This is all desperate enough, but what makes it much, much worse is that everything takes so long: each transformation, each ‘meltdown’ lasts for about five, terminal minutes.
However, even the lack of budget can’t be blamed for the script. The plot itself is a bizarre combination of the insane and the inane, which at the same time manages to also be really rather dull. The dialogue is just ludicrous, mostly being composed of irrelevant non-sequitors or discussions about assorted trivia and things that have already taken place. Things are also needlessly confused by sledgehammer editing, wherein sequences are endlessly repeated in an obvious attempt to pad out the running time to an acceptable level. Furthermore, there are numerous sub-plots that simply fizzle out into nothing: exactly who was the ‘false’ cousin? What happens to the policemen investigating the whole mess? Who on earth is the corrupt politician and what does he have to do with anything? Who are the drug dealers who hang around on the beach? Do professional mediums really encourage their clients to procure their sexual favours as well?
It all leaves you wondering just who exactly this was aimed at? Even in the 80s, the average horror fan was far too sophisticated for this kind of rubbish, and it’s most logical market – kids – are inevitably excluded by the juvenile but adult content. Fortunately, perhaps, it did find a certain following among cult aficionados; and certainly if accompanied by alcohol and taken on its own merits it’s not without its idiotic charms. However, it really doesn’t have the cult appeal of, say, Jungle Master, for one simple reason: it’s actually rather boring. Crap, yes, but generally dull crap.
Giorgio Ardisson and Gordon Mitchell, both of whom were not above appearing in this kind of dismal tosh, have glorified cameo roles, and the only other performer with much of an acting career worth mentioning was Annie Belle, a French starlet who acted in a number of films between 1974 and 1989. She was briefly famous for her performances in erotica such as Laure (76) and The End of Innocence (76), and some reports suggest that she actually worked as a high class prostitute in tandem with her film career. It’s probably fair to say that she’s acted better elsewhere. Zaira Zoccheddu was a former Miss Italy who appeared in a handful of no-budget productions (Achtung! The Desert Tigers (77), Escape from Hell (80)), generally without much in the way of clothing on, and Guilio Massimini, who plays a corrupt minister, popped in a number of films after Fury of the Pagans (La furia dei barbari, 60). Apart from that, it’s hard to believe that anyone involved had a proper career in cinema.
The key figure behind it all, though, is undoubtedly Marco Antonio Andolfi, who has been described as the Ed Wood of Italian cinema. Not content with starring and directing, Andolfi also wrote the script, did the editing and the special effects; quite impressive for someone with no perceptible talent whatsoever. Quite why Andolfi figured he’d be able to make a film – considering he appears to have had absolutely no other industry experience – is a matter of conjecture, and it’s probably not too wild a guess to assume that he was also the person who financed it all, as it’s hard to believe that anyone else would be willing to take so wild a punt.