About half way through Phantom of Death last night, I almost gave up and turned it off. Much of the first act seemed so schizophrenic to me. What I thought was going to be a straight forward giallo ended up being anything but. I'm glad I stuck around. It's not great, but Phantom of Death provides a rather unique twist on the giallo that fans ought to check out. Robert Dominici (Michael York) is a 35 year-old concert pianist with the world at his fingertips. However, he is stricken with a rare disease that makes him age at an alarmingly rapid pace. He goes through bouts of uncontrollable, murderous rage. His target (as with most all gialli) – beautiful young women. Inspector Datti (Donald Pleasence) is tasked with putting a stop to the killings. For the aging Dominici, it becomes a cat and mouse game as he taunts Datti at every opportunity. The rapidly aging plot device is used very effectively in Phantom of Death. The police aren't sure who they're after. Physical evidence suggests the killer might be in his 30s or in his 50s or even in his 70s. It's a nice twist. And York does a phenomenal job with the aging Dominici. His performance here is much better than I ever expected to find in a film like this. Even though he's a ruthless killer, York is actually able to make the audience feel sympathy for Dominici and his situation. This is especially true in the film's finale. It's really remarkable. The make-up here is also fantastic. With hair falling out, teeth rotting, and other age related transformations, York really appears much older than he is. Nice job.As is the usual case and as my rating indicates, there are some issues I had with Phantom of Death. I love Edwige Fenech, but she's horribly underutilized as Dominici's love interest. Her role is such that I'm in the fourth paragraph of this and I am just now mentioning her. I don't think Pleasance gives one of his better performances. He often looks tired and lost. He's not helped by a script that makes him and the rest of the police look incompetent. How they didn't catch Dominici earlier is a mystery that can only be answered by one of the film's writers. One of my biggest complaints is with the editing. There are several occasions where a scene will jarringly end and switch to something completely different. A monkey on speed could make smoother transitions. Finally, the pacing is off kilter at the start of the film. As I wrote previously, it felt schizophrenic.

This is fine, its just that it could so easily have been a lot better. The trouble is that the intriguing central theme that makes life so difficult for Donald Pleasence as the police chief, also makes for plot difficulties. Michael York plays a youngish concert pianist who has an ageing illness and an added problem is that in reality the star has already lost some of his boyish charm. He nevertheless deals well with his role and indeed seems more effective as the film proceeds. Unfortunately though the film itself starts fast and well it slows almost to a halt and when we know exactly who did what the only interest is the progress of a badly ageing (really!) Pleasence. Edwige Fenech is as lovely as ever and we fans of hers can only regret she keeps her clothes on, but not everyone does and what with som gore, this giallo like thriller certainly has its moments.

Unusual giallo, directed by one of Italy's finest horror filmmakers, and revolving on a truly ingenious and original topic, namely a murderer who commits his crimes because he can't accept the extremely rare disease that is destroying him physically and emotionally. Robert Dominici is a genius pianist, also practicing an eminent oriental fighting sport, suddenly stricken with a terrible illness that causes him to age rapidly. Leaving a trail of frustrated and extremely gore murders in the city, inspector Tati (Donald Pleasance pretending to be Italian, again!) has tremendous difficulties, as the forensic lab tests indicate a gradually older culprit each time. "Phantom of Death" is not Deodato's best film (that honor unquestionably goes to "Cannibal Holocaust") but it's a well-made and occasionally very tense thriller with good special effects and loads of streaming red liquid. It wouldn't be an Italian flick if the murders weren't extraordinary gross, right? We've got a couple of slit throats and one poor girl is violently thrown through a window. The acting performances are rather impressive, with Michael York being the personification of pure agony. Even more impressive are Edwige Fenech's looks! This giallo was made 18 years after her initial successes in the genre ("All the Colors of the Dark", "The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh"), but she still looks exactly as gorgeous as she did back then. I guess she's definitely NOT suffering from the rapid-ageing virus...

Ruggero Deodato's Un Delitto poco comune aka Off Balance (1987) is an Italian thriller about a wealthy and happy pianist (Michael York) whose life turns upside down after the doctors find a very rare and lethal disease inside him. He starts to grow older very fast, having only few months to live or so and things turn even darker for him as someone starts to viciously murder those close to him. The plot follows police agent Donald Pleasance's attempts to find the killer before it's too late as well as the pianist's own efforts to return a some kind of balance to his life.Film maker Ruggero Deodato has made one of the most challenging and important films of all time, Cannibal Holocaust (1979) which tells about rotten media violence and the animal species that consumes it. The film is notorious for its unspeakable acts of carnal violence but none of it is in vain or gratuitous which is way too much for some viewers to understand and admit as most of them can't face themselves on the screen. Deodato has also made pure exploitation trash like the 1980 La Casa sperduta nel parco aka The House at the Edge of the Park or Inferno in diretta aka Cut & Run (1985) both of which are mostly just extremely gratuitously violent but also have at least some thoughts and themes to make them more interesting than other nasty and gory Italian films of the period.Off Balance is written by Gianfranco Clerici whose other credits include the mentioned masterpiece Cannibal Holocaust with Deodato as well as The House at the Edge of the Park but also Lucio Fulci's sadistic and misogynistic terror tale Lo Squartatore di New York aka The New York Ripper (1982) the last two of which are perfect opposites to the firstly mentioned and its subject matter. Off Balance is easily among their weakest works but, fortunately, has some brain too in addition to blood.The film has a very promising beginning with the first murder scene taking place during the credits inter-cutting to calm scenes depicting the protagonist play piano in his concert. The film moves fastly from the beginning and the characters and their relations get introduced well too. But ultimately, after the first half or so the film loses its fire and becomes slower with plenty of talk and things that don't make too much sense, mostly involving the killer and his (absent) motives for his vicious acts. I can't name one single explanation for his acts and that is rather frustrating once one has realized that. The things that are discussed in the second part are also interesting and important but they are presented with too much contrast with the more lively first half.The film's theme about aging and living one's life while it's offered and on hand is of course important and surprisingly well-concentrated on in the script and practically the whole last part is about this and not about the killings anymore. The film tries to make the audience understand how important it is not to let your life pass by without living it, as there may come times in the future that you start regretting it as life after all would have offered something interesting and worth living. It definitely doesn't say life or youth ends when your hair go off but it says that some things should be understood not by experience but for example by other people around us or art depicting these things.The film works also as a pure giallo thriller as it has its moments of suspense and mystery and of course the graphic blood letting. There are few nasty murders in the film, both at the very beginning and they are definitely very "Italian like" with the huge amount of red color sprayed over the screen. The second one is very close to Dario Argento's style but serves not any other purpose than itself, unlike the great usage of similar effect in Argento's Tenebre (1982) for example. The effects are pretty good and the aging character becomes all the more tragic as we see the horrible face mutations of his in so little time. York does a believable role and never over-acts at all.Off Balance is more promising and potential than some other films of the giallo/slasher genre and since it's Italian, it could've been so much more than it now is. Deodato and Clerici have once proved to be a very efficient couple but it seems they're ambitions are either not supported by the producers anymore or have just changed a little bit in themselves. 3/10