Michele Soavi | |
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 Michele Soavi in 2011 | |
| Born | 3 July 1957 |
| Occupation(s) | Film director, actor |
| Years active | 1978 – present |
Michele Soavi, sometimes known as Michael Soavi (born 3 July 1957) [1] is an Italian filmmaker, actor, and screenwriter best known for his work in the horror film genre, working alongside directors like Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci.
Michele Soavi was born in Milan. As a teenager, Soavi enrolled in creative arts classes and worked at becoming an actor. He took acting lessons at Milan's Fersen Studios, and also served as a cameraman. [2] Soavi's directorial career began when he was offered an assistant director job by Marco Modugno after appearing as an extra in Modugno's 1979 film Bambule. [2] Soavi continued to act in films such as Alien 2: On Earth and Lucio Fulci's City of the Living Dead , and served as an assistant director to Aristide Massacessi (Joe D'Amato), and occasionally appeared in bit parts in some of D'Amato's films. Soavi later came into his own when he started his collaboration with famed Italian horror director Dario Argento, who used him as second assistant director on the film Tenebrae . [2] Soavi continued to work with Argento for several years; with his first credit as director being the documentary Dario Argento's World of Horror , followed by a pop promo for Bill Wyman. [2] He directed his first feature film with 1987's Stage Fright for producer Joe D'Amato. [3] He worked as assistant director to Terry Gilliam on The Adventures of Baron Munchausen in 1988, and followed this with his second feature film as director, 1989's La Chiesa ( The Church ). His third feature, The Sect (a.k.a. "The Devil's Daughter"), followed in 1990. [2]
Soavi has been credited as continuing the traditions of Italian horror in the 1990s, directing the zombie love story Dellamorte Dellamore (a.k.a. Cemetery Man). [2] The film was based on Tiziano Sclavi's novel of the same name, and the author was also known for being the creator of the Italian comic book Dylan Dog . "Dellamorte Dellamore" also starred Rupert Everett in the lead role. [1] Soavi retreated from the film industry in the mid-1990s to care for his ailing son, before returning to work in Italian television. [2] In 2008, it was announced that Soavi was working on a new feature film, The Catacombs Club.
Soavi makes cameos in almost all the films he directed and assistant directed prior to 2000, Cemetery Man being an example of a movie he did have a part in. He has also acted, usually uncredited, in numerous films from other Italian horror directors.
Dario Argento is an Italian film director, screenwriter and producer. His influential work in the horror and giallo genres during the 1970s and 1980s has led him to being referred to as the "Master of the Thrill" and the "Master of Horror".
Lucio Fulci was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor. Although he worked in a wide array of genres through a career spanning nearly five decades, including comedies and spaghetti Westerns, he garnered an international cult following for his giallo and horror films.
In Italian cinema, giallo is a genre of murder mystery fiction that often contains slasher, thriller, psychological horror, psychological thriller, sexploitation, and, less frequently, supernatural horror elements.
Lamberto Bava is an Italian film director. Born in Rome, Bava began working as an assistant director for his director father Mario Bava. Lamberto co-directed the 1979 television film La Venere d'Ille with his father and in 1980 directed his first solo feature film Macabre.
Cemetery Man is a 1994 comedy horror film directed by Michele Soavi and starring Rupert Everett, François Hadji-Lazaro and Anna Falchi. It was produced by Tilde Corsi, Gianni Romoli and Soavi and based on the novel Dellamorte Dellamore by Tiziano Sclavi. Everett plays a beleaguered caretaker of a small Italian cemetery, who searches for love while defending himself from dead people who keep rising again. It is an international co-production between Italy, France, and Germany.
Demons is a 1985 Italian supernatural horror film directed by Lamberto Bava, produced by Dario Argento, and starring Urbano Barberini and Natasha Hovey. The plot follows two female university students who, along with a number of random people, are given complimentary tickets to a mysterious movie screening, where they soon find themselves trapped in the theater with a horde of ravenous demons.
Claudio Simonetti is an Italian musician and film composer. The keyboardist of the progressive rock band Goblin, Simonetti has specialized in the scores for Italian and American horror films since the 1970s.
Tenebrae is a 1982 Italian giallo film written and directed by Dario Argento. The film stars Anthony Franciosa as American author Peter Neal, who – while in Rome promoting his latest murder-mystery novel – becomes embroiled in the search for a serial killer who may have been inspired to kill by his novel. John Saxon and Daria Nicolodi co-star as Neal's agent and assistant respectively, while Giuliano Gemma and Carola Stagnaro appear as detectives investigating the murders. John Steiner, Veronica Lario, and Mirella D'Angelo also feature in minor roles. The film has been described as exploring themes of dualism and sexual aberration, and has strong metafictional elements; some commentators consider Tenebrae to be a direct reaction by Argento to criticism of his previous work, most especially his depictions of murders of women.
Demons 2 is a 1986 Italian horror film directed by Lamberto Bava and produced by Dario Argento. It is a sequel to Bava's 1985 film Demons and stars David Knight, Nancy Brilli, Coralina Cataldi Tassoni, as well as Argento's youngest daughter, Asia Argento, in her debut film performance at age 10. In the film, demons invade the real world through a television broadcast, turning the residents of an apartment building into bloodthirsty monsters.
Opera is a 1987 Italian giallo directed and co-written by Dario Argento and starring Cristina Marsillach, Urbano Barberini, Daria Nicolodi, and Ian Charleson. The film's plot focuses on a young soprano (Marsillach) who becomes involved in a series of murders being committed inside an opera house by a masked assailant. The film features music composed and performed by Brian Eno, Claudio Simonetti, and Bill Wyman.
Noite Maldita - Demoni 3 is a 1991 Italian horror film directed by Umberto Lenzi. It was written by Lenzi and his wife Olga Pehar, and the zombie makeup fx were handled by Franco Casagni. Lenzi said in later interviews that this was one of his favorite films, but he felt it was ruined by the low budget.
Tiziano Sclavi is an Italian comic book author, journalist and writer of several novels. Sclavi is most famous as creator of the comic book Dylan Dog in 1986, for Italian publishing house Sergio Bonelli Editore. More than 300 issues have appeared in the series, which has sold millions of copies. It has been in collaboration with several artists, including Claudio Villa, Corrado Roi, Gustavo Trigo, Carlo Ambrosini, Luigi Piccatto, Angelo Stano, Mike Mignola, Andrea Venturi, Giampiero Casertano and Bruno Brindisi.
Spaghetti Nightmares is a reference book on Italian horror films by Luca M. Palmerini and Gaetano Mistretta. The book consists mainly of interviews with major genre icons. The book was published in 1996.
Ator, the Fighting Eagle is a 1982 Italian adventure-fantasy film directed by Joe D'Amato. It stars Miles O'Keeffe, Sabrina Siani, Ritza Brown, and Edmund Purdom. The story follows the eponymous warrior setting out on a journey to bring his wife Sandra home after her kidnapping by the Spider Cult. It was followed by the sequels Ator 2 – L'invincibile Orion, Iron Warrior, and Quest for the Mighty Sword.
Killing Birds is a 1988 Italian horror film starring Lara Wendel and Robert Vaughn. The film is set in Louisiana where Fred Brown returns from the Vietnam War to find his wife in bed with her lover and slaughters the whole family sparing the newborn son. After the massacre, he is attacked and blinded by a falcon. Twenty years later a group of students led by Steve and Anne meet Brown, and begin their search for a nearly extinct breed of woodpecker and come across grisly occurrences including boys being killed by vengeful zombies.
The Church is a 1989 Italian supernatural horror film co-written and directed by Michele Soavi, and produced by Dario Argento with Mario Cecchi Gori and Vittorio Cecchi Gori. It stars Hugh Quarshie, Tomas Arana, Barbara Cupisti, Asia Argento, Feodor Chaliapin, Jr. and Giovanni Lombardo Radice.
Luigi Cozzi is an Italian film director and screenwriter. At a young age, Cozzi became a fan of science fiction and began his career as an overseas correspondent for Western film magazines. After directing his first film The Tunnel Under the World, Cozzi befriended director Dario Argento and began working with him in film and television as well as directing his own features including Hercules as well as continuing work with Argento. In the 2010s, he returned to directing with the film Blood on Méliès' Moon.
Sabrina Siani is an Italian film actress. She also used pseudonyms such as Sabrina Sellers and Sabrina Syan. She starred in numerous films, mostly violent cannibal films and sexy barbarian "sword-and-sandal" movies, and most of her films were made in a three-year period between the ages of 17 and 20. Siani retired from acting entirely in 1989, at age 26.
Ania Pieroni is an Italian former actress, who is best known for The House by the Cemetery (1981), Tenebrae (1982) and Inferno (1980).
Alan Jones is a film critic, broadcaster, and reporter primarily focused on movies in production, especially in the horror fantasy genre. His first assignment was on Star Wars in 1977, after which he became the London correspondent for Cinefantastique magazine from 1977 to 2002 and reviewed for the British magazine Starburst from 1980 until 2008. A film critic for Film Review and Radio Times, he has made contributions to the Radio Times Guide to Films, the Radio Times Guide to Science Fiction, and Halliwell's Film Guide. He has also been a film critic for BBC News 24, Front Row on BBC Radio 4, and Sky News programme Sunrise. He has worked for Empire, Première, and Total Film. An article of his in the latter coined the term for the Splat Pack.
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