Shriek Show / Anamorphic Widescreen / Color / 1 disc / 90 minutes

The 1988 Italian made-for-TV flick DEMONS 3: THE OGRE, offers surprisingly jittery, edge-of-your-seat suspense for about 80 minutes — then it falls apart faster than the plot of the latest SAW movie.

Written and directed by Lamberto Bava, son of influential Italian horror maestro Mario Bava (BLACK SUNDAY, EVIL EYE), THE OGRE is essentially an adult version of a fairy tale from the Brothers Grimm.

Virginia Bryant (DEMONS 2) is Cheryl, an American horror novelist. Her character is married to Tom (Paolo Malco) and they live in Italy with their young son Bobby. While on vacation in Tuscany, the family rents an ancient, crumbling villa where Cheryl hopes to finish her latest novel. It’s not long before she is haunted by a childhood nightmare, in which she’s in a basement, running for her life from a hideous beast hatched from a cocoon.

The similarities between her dream and the dark passageways of the vermin-infested Villa Trifiri are unmistakable, and in the cellar she finds her childhood teddy bear along with more evidence that the beast of her dreams may have actually followed her to Italy. Naturally, her insensitive husband attributes her fears to delusions and suggests she is losing her mind.

Residents in the nearby village don’t trust Cheryl, but she manages to befriend a local woman, Anna, and her young sister, Maria, who works as a babysitter. The family is known in the village for growing orchids, which we later learn, according to one of those infuriating “local legends,” are flowers known to attract ogres.

Cheryl continues writing her novel, which, not surprisingly, turns out to be a story about an ogre attacking a village. When the flamboyant monster of her novel suddenly shows up in a true form, she must ultimately confront her inner demons before the horrifying ending of her novel becomes reality.

THE OGRE isn’t a gory or violent film save for two brief scenes of implied rape. We do get very brief shots of Cheryl’s breasts in a bathtub scene, and a profile view of Anna’s heaving rack during a so-called ogre attack, but nothing prurient enough to warrant the film’s R-rating.

This is a film for the ladies, what with talk of flowers, the issue of spousal abuse and the vaguely romantic notion that a foppishly-dressed Ogre “making love” to an orchid-scented woman, may be more satisfying to Cheryl than dealing with her skeptic husband. Simply replace the Ogre with some dim-witted tall, dark and dangerous archetype and put Mare Winningham in the lead role and you have a Lifestyle TV movie.

Tom’s character ultimately turns out to be the bastard of the film. In fact, Cheryl’s occasionally mistakes her husband for the “imaginary” Ogre, such as the scene in the basement in which “the Ogre” pulls her out of the pool, only for her to snap out of her fantasy and find her husband is actually holding her. His masculinity is challenged from the get-go: His wife is the breadwinner, writing novels for a fan base of “6 million Americans … that don’t sleep at night because of her stories.” He gets lost in the woods taking his son for a hike, and sprains his ankle on another romp. He declines to make love to his wife at her request, and like a coward, slaps her for her beliefs in the supernatural. It’s not until the very end, when the Ogre finally shows up, does he believe her, and even then, she is forced to dispatch the creature herself.

The Ogre, would seem to be a metaphor for abuse. During the film’s final confrontation she even asks the creature, “You’ve been waiting for me since I was a child haven’t you?,” implying that perhaps she was sexually abused in her youth, and only now can she confront and end the cycle of violence.

Lamberto’s direction is competent but rough around the edges in THE OGRE. Scenes that produce an incredible build-up of suspense, never achieve the payoff of a shocking release. In other words, it won’t scare the hell out of you like say, the original Japanese version of DARK WATER. Bava allows Cheryl’s character to wander through her scenes sloppily, backing into dark hallways that should contain terror. Tighter editing and better shot selection could have remedied this.

I’m not sure anything could have been done to improve the acting though. Every character recites their lines with the enthusiasm of a loquacious toaster oven. The most convincing line of dialog comes late in the picture when, after hearing Cheryl’s theory on why the Ogre is stalking them, husband Tom balls up a page from her manuscript and flat-out tells her “I think this is a crock of shit.” Consequently, that’s how I reacted to the ending.

Had it been made today, THE OGRE could have likely realized its potential as a psychological thriller. Cheryl would have been the delusional wife who created the Ogre as a coping mechanism to deal with a cycle of abuse. The lovely Italian countryside, the dusty villa and the romance of being a novelist, would have been a fantasy, born in the fevered ordeal of rape. I wanted this scenario to be the ending of THE OGRE, not the trite, retread of 1930s-style horror, where the vampire gets the stake in the chest, Frankenstein’s monster pulls the castle down on himself and the werewolf gets shot with the silver bullet. In this case, the Ogre gets run down by a Jeep Cherokee, disappears, and everyone goes home happy.

I did appreciate THE OGRE’s settings — from the cobweb-draped chiaroscuro interiors of the decrepit villa, to the subtle beauty of the Italian countryside. According to Bava, the villa was found much in the same condition as it was represented on film, and production crews made the most of the available furniture and ancient fixtures within. The result is a grimy, authentic feel.

Bava occasionally offers flashes of his father’s brilliance. The sets are often colorful with hyper-saturated greens, muted cerulean and warm hues of yellow ochre. The villa’s hallways (particularly during Cheryl’s flashbacks to her childhood nightmares) are often suggestive of scenes from say, KILL BABY KILL! or even interiors in “The Wurdalak” segment from BLACK SABBATH.

The Ogre himself is a blackened figure of the Grand Guignol, and somehow resembles the alien from PREDATOR. Costume design for the creature is bizarre at best; he wears the frilly clothing of a European aristocrat, circa 1600. Very strange!

The film features a repetitive, grating synthesized soundtrack by the prolific Simon Boswell, who also composed the award-winning score for 1995’s LORD OF ILLUSIONS. I don’t recommend it for easy listening.

THE OGRE is the second film I have reviewed here in as many weeks, titled to profit on the success of Bava’s DEMONS franchise, the other being DEMONS 3, aka, BLACK DEMONS from 1991. Neither movie is related to the prior films, which Bava made with Dario Argento. Bava himself offers clarity on the issue in an insightful interview in the bonus features, indicating that THE OGRE was always intended as a TV film. An official third entry in the DEMONS series has never been made.

The disc features an anamorphic transfer that has several technical issues. There was at least one moment in which the screen prematurely went black before the movie reappeared. This has been documented on other forums. That issue doesn’t detract from the experience though. Audio is passable, but not great. The DVD includes the aforementioned Bava video interview and a handful of trailers including FLESH FOR THE BEAST, FACELESS, BLOOD FEAST 2 and KILLING BIRDS.

This DVD was part of the three-disc “Demons” set from Shriek Show that also included BLACK DEMONS and THE OTHER HELL, both of which have been reviewed here. For $15 you really can’t go wrong with these boxed sets.

Despite its flaws, I still appreciated THE OGRE as a mild Italian horror film. It gets a somewhat choice 2.5-star rating from me for keeping me on the edge of my seat for much of the picture. Some viewers will no doubt be bored instead of thrilled, and most will cringe at the linear, eventual, uncreative ending, but I think it’s worth a look if you are a fan of Italian horror or Bava’s work. At the very least, you’ll learn something: Ogres like orchids.

Check out a trailer of THE OGRE below: