The Sister of Ursula (1978)

Severin Films presents an infamous slice of EuroSleaze that repeatedly thrusts at the abyss of bad taste. In the wake of their father's death, two beautiful sisters - sensitive Ursula (Barbara Magnolfi of SUSPIRIA) and promiscuous Dagmar (Stefania D'Amario of ZOMBIE) - come to a seaside resort for a relaxing vacation. But their idyllic getaway will soon become a depraved nightmare of kinky exhibitionists, dope-sick lotharios, lust-crazed lesbians and a psychotic killer who tears women to pieces with - no kidding - a phallus of massive proportion. Marc Porel (THE PSYCHIC) co-stars in this eye-popping combination of delectable sexploitation and vicious giallo, now fully restored from original vault elements and presented uncut and uncensored for the first time ever in America.

EXTRAS:
"The Father Of Ursula" - Interview with Director Enzo Milioni
Theatrical Trailer

sexploitation giallo thriller with a sense of doom

In the late 1970's the Italian brand of thriller the Giallo began to be made in much smaller numbers
and they are still made to this day all over the world but in Italy the number was much smaller in the 1980's and trailed off to very few since 1992 to barely any. In 1978 the sexploitation movie was really sweeping to the top in Italy , (only to be replaced at the top in the early 1980's by straight horror in a great horror explosion of that decade, many sexploitation movies had violence in them too.
This is a giallo and a sexploitation movie with softcore sex scenes that are very long. The standard giallo didn't have these , they had nudity sometimes but not long sex scenes. The violence is done off screen here but is still terrible to it's victims. Severin films is up there with blue underground and no shame films in the quality of the prints they release. They clean up the movies and do a damn good job of putting rare flicks out with style. The movies does have a sense of doom about it and the acting is fine but this sense of doom carried over into real life
as the lead actor marc porel died soon after making this movie because of his drug addiction, the hotel they used in this movie was never opened and they allowed the filmakers to use it for free. the two leading ladies dropped out of movie making suddenly and the directors next movie was a disaster as his producers put porn into that one ruining it and slowing down his career. Giallos are still around but this movie showed where the money was going to be made in italian movies mainly until the horror boon took over. I hope severin keeps finding more giallos and hopefully some from the golden age 1970-77. although their were many fine giallos to come still. This is mixture giallo that does not show bloddy killings but the aftermath, other giallos did that too sometimes, but it remains sexploitative even if the killer uses a huge phallus to kill people with. If you like giallos and thrillers then you will like this one but it's not as straight forward as many others are , the acting is very good though so that helps. November 9, 2008

Got wood?

Two sisters from Austria, Ursula (Barbara Magnolfi) and Dagmar (Stefania D'Amario) check into a lavish seaside hotel in Italy. Still grieving the loss of their recently deceased father, they are warmly welcomed by the hotel's owner and manager (Vanni Materassi) who invites them to check out the adjoining nightclub. They are introduced to the hilariously awful singer Stella Shining (Yvette Harlow) and the suave and debonair closet junkie Filippo (Marc Porel). It would all be deadly dull if it wasn't for a mad unseen killer who's going around raping and murdering the local women with a giant wooden dildo! A subplot involving a drug ring and lots of near hardcore sex fails to spice up things any further.

The Sister of Ursula is an exceptionally minor giallo, cited as being one of the last in a rapidly expiring genre. Other than a killer in a trench coat and gory deaths, most of the elements typical to this type of film are conspicuously absent. In lieu of an atmosphere of brooding Gothic horror, the beachside setting is beautiful and drenched in sunshine. As in most giallos, the identity of the killer is apparent from the get go, and the many disparate plot elements just don't gel and are independent from each other.

The film does benefit immensely by its DVD presentation as the included 30-minute interview with director Enzo Milioni is a good deal more entertaining than the feature! Milioni has a fascinating story to tell about the production that unfortunately didn't translate into a worthwhile plotline for the film. From Milioni we learn that Ursula was a personal project, and that the phallic murder weapon was a long treasured family knick knack! We also learn that longtime Eurotrash regular Marc Porel was a real life junkie who died shortly after the film was completed; that the massively untalented Yvette Harlow claimed to be related to screen legend Jean Harlow; and that the hotel that served as the chief setting was under construction during shooting -- and then never opened.

Milioni waxes eloquent about the haunting Barbara Magnolfi, an actress whose main cult film role was in Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977), who left the screen and was allegedly never heard from again. Early on Magnolfi delivers a wistful monologue to a shattered statue of Christ, in a scene that stands out like a proverbial giant wooden dildo in a film whose main reason for existing is lots of semi-explicit sex. (The indignant Milioni also states that a version played Italian theaters with stapled-in hardcore inserts until he took proper legal action.)

To its credit, Sister of Ursula has beautiful photography, great locations and a cast of European cult favorites. But you can find countless other films with these attributes without the aforementioned giant wooden dildo.
April 10, 2008

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