by Spencer Hawken

Created on: February 13, 2009

Few people really understand the influence of Italian cult cinema upon the world of the popular movie, many do not even realise there was a time that Italy knocked out hundreds of movies a year; I recently enlightened a mind when I explained the term Spaghetti Western, leaving the person in question quite surprised as to the roots of this often used phrase. While the movies of Italy focused on what was popular inAmerican cinema and copied it, seldom do you hear the reverse. America however frequently borrows heavily from Italy, Quentin Tarentino reaches into Italian cinema history to steal aspects for his movies, I think I can draw some reference for everyone of his movies that stems from Italy. So inspired is the director that this year we will see a remake of the Italian classic Inglorious Bastards, a movie he frequently raves about. Also this year we will see another Italian classic get the re-make treatment in Suspiria, originally directed by Dario Argento. The Italians realise talent when they see it, and the need to copy ideas that work; this brings me to the latest Shameless release Watch Me When I Kill (Aka il Gatto dagli oochi di giada, The Cats Victims, The Cat With Jade Eyes), this movies writer/director Antonio Bido was clearly so inspired by the Dario Argento movie Deep Red (Profondo Rosso) that the movie mimics it.

Watch Me When I Kill is a rare delight; it's one of those seldom seen movies that is often discussed by fans of the Italian thriller genre. The trouble being that those lesser seen or less popular movies suffer terribly without careful preservation. Apparently the movie rather surprisingly was one of the highest grossing Italian movies of the 70's, but unlike movies like the aforementioned Deep Red was not kept alive by the fans. Shameless Films struggled for months to hunt down the best source material, and get specialists in the field to give the movie some new life. I think this needs some praise as it's a common thought that companies that buy movies to sell on their independent labels are assumed to be literally chucking movies onto discs willy nilly with little thought about quality. It was all the way back last summer that my contact at Shameless told me they were trying to get some better footage... If you want to be taken seriously in the world of DVD production then look to these guys on how to do a job properly, imagine spending half a year preserving a movie before you even know how it will be received?

Onto the movie, about

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