User Reviews

Also known as Angel: Black Angel, this is one of the sleaziest giallo that I've come across. Seeing as how I've watched Play Motel, Strip Nude for Your Killer, Giallo In Venice and own multiple copies of The New York Ripper, that's saying something.

Director Stelvio Massi was the cinematographer or director of photography for plenty of great movies like The Case of the Bloody Iris, Sartana's Here...Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin and Giovannona Long-Thigh. He knows how to make things look gorgeous, particularly in the way he shoots women, which comes in more than handy here.

Arabella is a woman obsessed with the carnal act. Sadly, her husband has been rendered impotent and confined to a wheelchair ever since he wrecked his car while she was dirty facetiming him (he was driving, because the opposite is impossible) won their wedding day. She's filled his role with trips to brothels, including one that gets raided while she's assaulted by a cop. She gets back at him by inviting him back to her place and while he's yodeling in the valley, she bops him upset the head with a hammer. Her cucked husband is watching and finally feels the blood flow down below, which means that he has to keep setting up his wife to kill off more and more people. He also finally gets back the urge to write and they start to fall in love again, but of course, he has to keep watching her make love to other people.

Also: lots of genital mutilation.

Ida Galli plays the mother-in-law. You'll remember her from The Sweet Body of Deborah and Fulci's The Psychic. Rena Niehaus, who is in the absolutely baffling strange film Damned In Venice, is also on hand.

The problem for our heroine is that everyone she makes loves to dies, including a cowboy who gets his member sliced clean off. The next day, as the cops are gathering evidence, one of them is so upset that he can't stop eating his sandwich. The world of this movie is insane, because there's a photo of the mutilation on the cover of the newspaper.

There's also a scene in the Freak Boy Zone, as Arabelle cruises all the gay men and picks one to take home. This entire scene is absolutely insane, as the homosexual side of town feels like it came out of an Enzo G. Castellari movie.

This movie looks grubby, makes little to no sense and will offend pretty much everyone that watches it. That means that you're definitely going to want to watch it.

(1989) Arabella- Black Angel/ Arabella l'angelo nero DUBBED HORROR/ THRILLER

The set up is nonsense, but it is the result of Giallo making so many of these slasher movies before, basically rehashing and recycling the same material over using different actresses. It has Tinì Cansino as the title character, "Arabella" arriving at a strange "bordello" with a photographer following her tail for the intentions of taking snapshots of her. There's an admission to get in or participate in these somewhat bizarre make out sessions, and it's at random. And the photog follows her for her make out session with two other guys, until it was interrupted by the Italian police. Capturing most people with Arabella attempting to escape by getting into her car and drive away. Except that a police captain not in uniform stops her. She tells him she is not like those other girls, but he slaps the handcuffs on her anyway, and takes the liberty to assault her as he appears to be the only guy around, except for the photog hidden in the bushes who continues to snap pictures of her. The sleazy police captain then decides to let her go and drive away after he finishes his way with her. Already gone, he picks up her purse she dropped to the ground which is an indication he intends to see her again. It is not long before the sleazy police captain becomes our first victim, as soon as he returns her purse, and he is astonished by the expensive house she lives in. And before his arrival we find out that Arabella lives with a renown novelist, Francesco (Francesco Casale) confined to a wheelchair, living with them is his mother, Martha (Evelyn Stewart) And he was put in that position because after he married Arabella, she gave him a blow job while he was driving and it was at this point he took his eyes off the road, with the accident leaving him to be impotent. Which explains the reason Arabella goes off searching for other means to get laid. Anyways, as the sleazy police captain returns her purse right at the gate, he yet again makes attempts to go back to his old ways and seduce her, and she gives in telling and dragging him to a backyard shed. When Francisco notices this, he follows her while in a wheelchair, and as soon as she starts notices her impotent husband watching her through a slightly opened door, she hits and kills the sleazy captain with a tool. And at that point, Francesco becomes even more impressed with her, which can make viewers to speculate perhaps that is how it may sparkle up their marriage.

One of the inconsistencies is that although, the first victim was killed by Arabella with her husband being the accessory/ accomplice for the murder by buried by him. Viewers are never shown who did the murders after that one, making viewers speculate that it must be Anabella when it was the novelist's mother, Martha all along. Which the reason it was done that way is so that the viewing public can be caught off guard. And if viewers ever wondered whether or she was ever punished for that one murder of that sleazeball police captain then the answer is "no".

At this point at the year of 1989, viewers should be able to determine that majority of those nude scenes as of late is nothing more but silicone. And if anyone had not guessed it yet, it was the mother who's been doing all the killings this time, in which the last person she had killed was her only son she had no idea it was him as he had his back toward her.

If the idea of a sex Giallo appeals to you, you'll probably enjoy this. Tina Cansino is quite hot and they don't waste any time with her quickly being raped by a corrupt cop. It's not exactly a light comedy but if you like the darker perverse side of cinema, here you go. I'm so glad Vinegar Syndrome is restoring movies like these and putting them out uncut for all to see. I'd watch this one again. I wish they still made films like this. A lot of the plot is a blur to me now and I just recently saw this but I doubt many people are watching this for the plot if you know what I mean (and I think you do).

An attractive woman (the VERY voluptuous Tini Cansino) visits a bizarre brothel. The police raid the place and in very kinky scene (which violates both political correctness and, one would hope, standard police operating procedures in Italy) a male cop handcuffs her, bends her over the hood of his squad car, and rapes her. The next day she returns to her respectable middle-class home where she lives with her husband, who is in a wheelchair (the result of an unfortunate session of oral sex while driving), and his domineering mother (Ida Galli). The same cop shows up wanting more sex. She accommodates him but then hits him over the head with a mallet, killing him. Later a journalist who was at the raid and videotaped the rape tries to blackmail her, but he is killed with a pair of scissors. The "scissor murderer" then kills another of the unfaithful wife's lovers. Then the action inexplicably shifts to the lesbian police inspector investigating the murders and her conniving assistant/lover (Rena Niehaus).

This latter-day Italian giallo suffers from a lot of the same problems as the American "erotic thrillers" of that same era. The acting is absolutely terrible (with the exception of genre veterans Galli and Niehaus), and overlong softcore sex scenes set to horrid sub-Kenny G. jazz music periodically bring the action to a screeching halt. Fortunately though, it's much more sleazy and entertaining than it's American cousins. It has several ridiculous plot twists, each more a little ridiculous than the last. Unfortunately, some of these really distract from the initial perversity of the plot (potential spoiler ahead). For instance, it's revealed that the crippled husband is actually ENCOURAGING his wife's infidelities as part of a book he's writing called "The Dark Angel". While this is an unexpected twist, it really takes away from the whole "guilt ridden suburban wife with a secret life" plot that gives the movie a lot of its early kink (end of spoilers).

The sudden shift away from the couple to the lesbian police inspector is also pretty awkward, but not entirely unwelcome since Cansino is a really lousy actress, and even the thrill of seeing her naked eventually wears thin. The ending/revelation of the killer is pretty good, but there's a bizarre coda after that I didn't know quite what to make of. If you consider this an "erotic thriller", it's top notch, but as a giallo it's much more mediocre.

By day, Deborah (Tini Cansino) lives a very comfortable life with her paralyzed husband, best-selling author Mike Veronese (Francesco Casale) and his doting mother, Martha (Evelyn Stewart), but by night she's an insatiable nymphomaniac who prowls the clubs for casual sex. Deborah is followed and photographed one evening visiting a raunchy sex club where she's raped by a cop during a raid before being let go. The next day the detective pays a call at the Veronese home and coerces Deborah into sex; surprised in the act by her husband, she kills her rapist and together they bury the body. Very sympathetic to Deborah's urges once she confesses her double life, Mike finds inspiration to overcome his writer's block and even encourages his wife's nocturnal forays -moreso when a trail of scissor stabbings and sexual mutilation follow in her wake. Meanwhile, a beautiful lesbian detective (Valentina Visconti) assigned to the case feels there may be a connection between her own troubled past and the current murders just before her lover becomes the killer's next victim...

A throwback to the Golden Age Of The Giallo, ARABELLA, THE BLACK ANGEL has more than enough sex and savagery to please even the most jaded aficionado. The very clever script contains non-stop twists, turns, and shocks from the exotic, near-surreal opening sequence to the full-circle ending. Beautiful Tini Cansino (who bears a resemblance to her aunt, Hollywood's Rita Hayworth) gives Deborah an appealing vulnerability as she unwittingly becomes inspiration for her husband's new book: "Black Angel", the libidinous tale of an oversexed murderess. Two unusual plot-lines connect as the story progresses and even the red herrings converge at the end for a satisfyingly ironic and erotic conclusion. The killer not only comes as a bit of a surprise but is surprisingly of secondary importance. Once described as "the very essence of Eurotrash", this ANGEL is giallo heaven and not to be missed!

It was released in the U.S. as BLACK ANGEL and was heavily censored but the VHS I have splices in the missing footage using an uncut Italian print. Dubbed in English with Japanese subtitles and some non-essential Italian dialog during the reinserted sex scenes. Music by Serfran.