The Christine character is the most repulsive and loathsome beast I've seen in a long while in a film. She is entitled, narcissistic, rude, icy, smug, and her every word to anyone is replete with insults and demeaning little flourishes. To her blind brother she says "Now you're deaf as well as blind" when he forgets something, and when he has a vision and takes a few steps she scolds him mercilessly "Why are you always wandering off? You know you only get lost." She has not a single kind word for him. He would be better off ditching her and finding a human being to take care of him! Sadly, that's not going to happen, not in this film. I like the Venetian scenery, and the hair and clothes are what you want from a 70s giallo/horror mishmash. I like this film, and I like it all the more for how much I hate Christine.

My third Ugo Liberamore film and it seems unlikely I'll get the chance to see any more. These three, The Sex Of Angels, May Morning and this were hard enough to get hold of but all very much worth a search. If this Venice set horror is not quite up to the other two, it isn't far off and I enjoyed it. My print was pretty degraded and the film shot in Venice in the winter but I still reckon this could be the best looking Venice on film. Creepy and unsettling with moments of true horror, this intrigues from the very start with the blind boy being led down the narrow alleyways and across the tiny bridges. The music helps keep things from becoming too ordinary and Playboy 'playmate', Rena Niehaus a welcome distraction from some of the more grisly terrors. I've seen this described as a giallo, which it is not and moreover, I have to say, it doesn't crack along like some wild thriller but with Rosemary's Baby and Don't Look Now merely as undertones this is a very different vision of satanism.

This film is often considered to be a rip off of The Omen and/or Rosemary's Baby; however, I think it's unfair to label it as such as while it does focus on similar themes and both films may well have been an influence; if you were to consider this film a rip off, then you'd pretty much have to consider every film about the birth of the anti-Christ to be a rip off of The Omen and/or Rosemary's Baby. That being said, I don't want to give Damned in Venice too much credit; as while it has some ideas of it's own, they're mostly not very good ones! As the title suggests, the film is set in Venice; although this doesn't really have a lot of influence on the plot, but it is always a nice setting. The film focuses on Mark; a blind boy who begins having strange visions that seem to point to a looming disaster. Naturally, nobody believes him; including his sister who also happens to be his carer. Even when people start dying the kid is not believed, but things take a turn for the worse again when the man from his visions turns up and impregnates his sister...This film features a very odd brother and sister relationship, which is even worse considering the brother is blind. The brother is extremely vulnerable, and the sister (his carer) not only seems not to care, but it appears as if just spending time in the same room with this poor kid is a chore! Not that I can blame her though...he is seriously irritating. Some of the acting actually isn't bad; but the film does really suffer from some extremely poor dubbing. The brother and sister's voices especially are very irritating and it makes them difficult to care about. The main problem with the film is that it's rather boring. There certainly are some good ideas on display, but it's just too slow and the first hour especially is boring. Thankfully, the film starts to pick up a bit in the final third; although by then it is just a tad too late. We do get treated to a few good death scenes, however (one in particular that really stands out) and the final twist is fairly clever. Overall, this is not a great film by any means; it has a few good moments but not enough to warrant tracking it down.

Ugo Liberatore's Italian giallo thriller NERO VENEZIANO (aka: Damned in Venice, 1977) is a very satisfying "Italian Omen" with great and young cast who can act, too. A young blind boy Mark sees some horrible visions involving some satanic goings on, characters and other menacing things that concern him very much. His sister doesn't believe him at all but soon she'll learn they are much more than just nightmares. Naturally the film takes place in Venice and also has some nice and moody photography and settings.The visions Mark gets are shot in bright color with more effects added in the soundtrack and they work effectively and become as sudden as the terrors themselves. The nightmare images are really gross in the tradition of the dark Shaw Brothers horror films in Hong Kong in the 70's and 80's. They include worms and other nasty creatures coming from places you wouldn't dare to expect, and the less the viewer knows before seeing the gross they feel once they come.Also a remarkable effect lies in the story about the Satan's son and him being born on Earth from a human mother. The devil baby gets born and also goes through one of the most brutal "attempted murders" committed to a child I've seen in silver screen, but unfortunately the Devil (and the son) isn't too vulnerable once they get born.The film has some nudity and gore as it was the style in the 70's and it also produced some very extreme efforts, like Lucio Fulci's LO SQUARTATORE DI NEW YORK (1982), which tried to be all the more extreme and graphic than the previous ones, but fortunately that didn't affect the talent and ambition of the noteworthy filmmakers and directors.The music is by Pino Donaggio who has composed many films like CARRIE (1977) and PIRANHA (1978). NERO VENEZIANO is very great (and sadly pretty obscure) Italian giallo (which means a murder mystery, Italian style!) from the years they were made at high speed. Some of them are bad, some mediocre and some masterpieces and VENEZIANO easily manages near the latter category. 7/10