{"id":2166,"date":"2010-08-19T13:51:09","date_gmt":"2010-08-19T13:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2166"},"modified":"2010-08-19T13:53:25","modified_gmt":"2010-08-19T13:53:25","slug":"darkness-surrounds-roberta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/latest-news\/darkness-surrounds-roberta\/","title":{"rendered":"Darkness Surrounds Roberta"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Darkness<\/a>
Darkness Surrounds Roberta<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

US \/ Italy
\n2008
\nDirector: Giovanni Pianigiani
\nStory & screenplay: Bruno Di Marcello, Giovanni Pianigiani
\nProduced by Joe Zaso for\u00a0 Cinema Image Productions, Gothic Produzioni, Rosecalypse
\nMusic: Marco Werba
\nCinematography: Alex Birrell
\nProduction Design: Oriana D’Urso
\nArt Direction: Antonio Laino
\nCast: Yassmin Pucci (Roberta Parenti<\/em>), Fabrizio Croci, Leandro Guerrini (Sandro<\/em>), Raine Brown (Dora Miller<\/em>), Joe Zaso (Derek<\/em>), Riccardo Calvanese, Alfredo Arciero (the Inspector<\/em>), Eileen Daly (Elanor Maynard<\/em>), Timo Rose (Roberta’s attacker<\/em>), Valeria De Vivo (Anna<\/em>), Iacopo Di Girolamo (Mark Miller<\/em>), Bruno Di Marcello (the Professor<\/em>), Antonio Orlando (a barman)<\/p>\n

Darkness Surrounds Roberta <\/strong>is an Italian and American co-production, shot in 2008 in Italy, which attempts to revive the moribund giallo genre.\u00a0 Unfortunately \u2013 and despite the fact that a number of reviews on the internet seem to be suspiciously positive – it doesn\u2019t remotely succeed.<\/p>\n

The script is a hodge-podge of borrowings from previous giallo movies.\u00a0 Sandro (Leandro Guerrini) is a Roman cop who is investigating a series of brutal murders along with his blind, partner Derek (Joe Zaso), an American detective who has some experience in dealing with serial killers (as well as super-sensitive hearing and smell, natch).\u00a0 Meanwhile, another psycopath also seems to be at work in the city, kidnapping women with some kind of special talent \u2013 a writer, a ballerina etc. etc. \u2013 holding them prisoner and then killing them.\u00a0 Could the two cases be connected?\u00a0 Well, you\u2019d be dumb to bet against it.<\/p>\n

The central character in the narrative is Roberta (Yasmin Pucci), a lauded artist who had given up painting after being raped by a couple of angry life models (!?!)\u00a0 Now she\u2019s trapped in a loveless marriage with her wannabe politician husband (Fabrizio Croci) and \u2013 traumatised and bored \u2013 gets her kicks from occasionally working, along with her good-time-girl friend Dora (Raine Brown), as a prostitute and thief.\u00a0 As if she hadn\u2019t got enough issues to deal with, in the course of events she becomes the latest target of both <\/em>killers.<\/p>\n

\"Yassmin<\/a>
Yassmin Pucci in Darkness Surrounds Roberta<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is an extremely low budget production, shot on DVD, and it certainly looks it.\u00a0 In terms of production values, it\u2019s only just a step up from a home movie and, despite the cameraman\u2019s attempts to throw in some interesting visual compositions, it looks flat and generally shoddy.\u00a0 The script is utterly ludicrous, making even less sense than some of Dario Argento\u2019s recent films (which is saying something).\u00a0 The characters are almost entirely unbelievable, the dialogue cranky and the acting is generally laughable.<\/p>\n

This was made by Cinema Image Productions, an American company who specialise in zero-budget, straight to DVD releases shot in Europe.\u00a0 Way back in 1996 they made another homage to Italian thrillers, 5 Dead on the Crimson Canvas<\/strong>, and other releases include Barricade <\/strong>(2007, shot in Germany), Red Midnight <\/strong>(2005, shot in Italy) and Nikos the Impaler <\/strong>(2003, Germany again).\u00a0 Cinema Image Productions were actually founded by Joe Zaso, an Italo-American who also acts (badly) in most of their films, and other performers featured here \u2013 the remarkably talentless Raine Brown, Eileen Daly, Pucci \u2013 are also regular performers for the company.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to be more positive about this film, and am all too willing to give Zaso merit for being a truly independent modern day producer of low budget films, a kind of modern day Fred Olen Ray or Charles Band.\u00a0 But, unfortunately, Darkness Surrounds Roberta<\/strong> is no Death Steps in the Dark<\/strong>, let alone a Tenebrae<\/strong> or Deep Red<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Here’s the trailer:<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Darkness Surrounds Roberta is an Italian and American co-production, shot in 2008 in Italy, which attempts to revive the moribund giallo genre. Unfortunately \u2013 and despite the fact that a number of reviews on the internet seem to be suspiciously positive – it doesn\u2019t remotely succeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[828,827],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2166"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2166"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2170,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2166\/revisions\/2170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}