Not very good, but not particularly forgettable

I've been interested in seeing this for a while now. I couldn't really tell you why per se, as I'd mostly heard it was dreadful and Joe D'Amato has never been a filmmaker I've ever been interested in checking out (though I am developing a slight fascination with his work, which is some of the most vulgar cheapest junk to ever be filmed). But the couple clips I found online, and the "Grim Reaper" DVD that was at my video store (which I knew was edited, but was always tempted to rent it anyway as the cover was just so eerie!) prompted me to eventually buy a cheap copy on amazon after years of sort of being interesting in watching it.

And it's really not very good. For a relatively large cast of bland non-entities to be systematically slaughtered and devoured (in the best Italian tradition), only 1 person dies a particularly awful death, while the others are all killed rather humanely for this type of flick (Zora Kerova certainly got off easy). And the biggest shocker is no one is even killed for almost an hour after the opening kill, and you don't even see the crazy cannibal guy until 50 mins in. It's weird how long the characters are safe for. Every scene that seems to be setting itself up for a murder, or at least some sort of reveal of the killer, continually doesn't happen. And then when the killer does show up, he disappears again for another 20 mins to show up for about 10 mins in the climax. The cannibal guy is the only scary thing about the movie, I actually think he's a genuinely intimidating killer, so it's weird that the film's best asset is barely used and the rest involves a lot of boring people walking around speaking bland dubbed dialogue.

But none of this is even that much of a criticism because the movie works while it doesn't work. Most of the film is disposable as I suspect much of it is filler, there's little to make this a satisfying horror film, and it features some shoddy filmmaking and special effects (rubber head in bucket and all of those filler shots of that Greek city in the beginning). But something about this film has stayed with me, and the ultimately small role of the pretty scary killer kind of fascinates me, as he's like a rogue terrifying element in the blandest horror movie. The stock victims are all unendurably boring unlikeable people in an otherwise boring film that gives them nothing to do, but then they're up against this actually scary monster, and it creates this weird conflict. People this boring in a movie this low key and minor shouldn't conceivably be against something that actually seems this threatening. And I think the well climax is awesome and genuinely scary and suspenseful, though it could have been milked a bit longer and the movie's abrupt ending sucks. Oh, the lead male character who disappeared for 30 mins randomly comes back in the last 5 secs to instantly kill the cannibal. A killer that intimidating (and seemingly invincible and magical) needs to be harder to kill, and that guy's return is the epitome of bad writing.

If ever a movie deserved remaking, it's this, because there is a kernal of something unnerving in here amidst all of the borderline boring nonsense. This is not a good movie, and the friend I watched it with was bored to death and couldn't believe it was only 90 mins ("Wait, that was like 2 hours, right?"), but there's something in there that stayed in my mind. This sort of film inspires me to remake it, as it's terrible flawed crap that manages to have struck upon something interesting that warrants revisiting.