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Anazapta [2001] A murky, mediaeval effort from Alberto Sciamma, auteur of Killer Tongue, which draws on The Seventh Seal, The Masque of the Red Death and The Baby of Macon as well as the mud-and-rags-and-rotten-teeth feel of Hour of the Pig or Jabberwocky. In 1328, Matilda [Lena Headey], shackled into a chastity belt, is irked when her husband's kinsman [Jason Flemyng] returns from warring in France with a mysterious hostage [David LaHaye] but not the husband [Jon Finch]. The whole estate is due to be gobbled up by an obese and worldly Bishop [Ian McNeice] who displays pornographic woodcuts to indicate what further tribute he intends to exact from Matilda, and the plague first appears on those who have returned – striking especially at those around the village who were involved in the mysterious death of the lord's first wife, who was [it turns out] gang-raped on her husband's orders when caught in adultery. The hostage is a semi-supernatural avenger, the murdered baby of the dead woman, grown up and come back to life as an instrument of justice, carving the prayer 'anazapta' into victims and letting the malady spread [an end caption reveals it killed half England, which seems a tad extreme for a curse]. It's full of crude, brutal incident – nose-loppings, boil-probings,
McNeice slobbering, Finch declaring 'a shilling for every man who fucks
my wife', contagion passed on through communion wine transubstantiated
into the blood of a plague carrier – and the cast swagger with
that barrack-room joshing which passes for period in lower-end dark
ages movies, while Headey suffers at length without actually being in
much peril. It's too gloomily ponderous to play as exploitation, but
too shallow and melodramatic to be anything else. First published in this form here. Visit Kim's Official Website at www.johnnyalucard.com
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