Misteria (Body Puzzle) is a thriller directed
in 1992 by Lamberto Bava (son of Mario Bava, the specialist
of the Macabre).
After her husband's death Tracy (Joanna Pacula) is the constant
target of a fierce maniac killer who murders people close
to her.
All the victims are connected with one another through the
fact that the murderer steals some of their organs.
Michele, a cop (Tomas Arana) charged with doing the investigations,
will discover that the maniac is trying to re-build someone's
body.
Since his debut as a director, Lamberto Bava has followed
his father Mario's footsteps in the horror and thriller genres
(he has directed very good horror movies like Macabro and
Giallos like La Casa Con La Scala Nel Buio and Morirai A Mezzanotte).
Especially in the thriller genre Lamberto has shown himslef
as a deep expert of the tension and Giallo mechanisms.
Misteria suffered a troubled distribution.
Originally the movie had a more incisive title:
Body Puzzle; unfortunately it was heavily censored with several
cuts and underwent a limited distribution with the altered
title Misteria.
Despite all of this, the Bava movie is a very good thriller
and surely the best of all the movies produced in that period.
Its strengths are a good cast and a scenario which perfectly
amalgamates Giallo and Splatter (amputations, eyes torn out
etc.) and which makes this movie so enthralling and mysterious
at the same time.
In realizing this CD with a long duration of about 70 minutes
which will make happy the Horror/Thriller/Noir fans, we could
use all the full stereo master tapes vaulted at RCA.
Carlo Maria Cordio is without anydoubt a specialist of the
genre and his list of OSTs includes movies like Absurd-Rosso
Sangue, Killing Bird-Uccelli Assassini, Aenigma, Sodom's Ghost,
La Casa 4, Paura Nel Buio, Streghe.
For this movie Cordio has written an orchestral - electronic
score with a very American sound concerning the instrumentation
of the dissonant strings and of the brass clusters.
The romantic side of the story is represented by the love
theme for Tracy and Michele introduced in the version for
piano and orchestra (Tr. 8), for sax and orchestra (Tr. 15)
and then reprised in Finale (Tr. 26).
The terrible murders are scored with a large number of mysterious,
suspenseful and often gloomy motifs where the cleverness and
creativity of Cordio give interesting results. |
