The Red Monks, also known as I Frati Rossi, is a gothic horror that follows a young woman who falls into the lap of a young man, only to eventually marry him and move into his old family castle. In the basement of the castle lies a killer history where said Red Monks seem to be living or, at the very least, breaking in. What they do there is unknown, but they require the blood of a virgin, and luckily, one has just moved in.

Despite having some good stuff, like star Lara Wendel, for instance, who at more than one point bares all for the audience, the film is marred by a bad script, uneven pacing, and a story that needed more than what made it to the big screen. Wendel is good and does the best she can with wSergio Rubinihat she is given. She is one of the only things in this entire picture that keeps one’s attention throughout and, more than that, draws the eye thanks to the aforementioned nudity. Even if she had not disrobed, she has a bit of magnetism about her, and viewers want to know what will happen to her character, Ramona, who is slightly naive but knows something is wrong about the situation she finds herself in.

The special effects are shameful, as the severed heads that eventually end up on screen look incredibly fake. It is obvious the makers were working on a budget, but they could have used a workaround or put their effort into making at least one head look slightly real. The horror in this movie suffers because of it and, coupled with everything else, never really rises to the point of scaring anyone. On the flip side, director Gianni Martucci manages to give the affair a little atmosphere, an almost dreamlike state at times that belies the horror that is to take place later on in the film. It works for the most part, but Martucci cannot seem to hold the pacing in place, the movie ramping up at times, only to cool off for a while, letting whatever tension and suspense build up simply fade away. A stronger script would have helped even out the film’s acts and strengthen what was already there. He had the ideas; he simply failed to connect them very well. The final act was the strongest, with everything coming to a head and the family curse, quite possibly, coming to an end.

The weirdest thing about The Red Monks has nothing to do with what appears in the film, but with how it was made, as Martucci tried to associate some or all of it with Lucio Fulci, who has vehemently denied taking part in any of it. The movie was even released with Fulci’s name attached, and yet nothing in it can be attributed to him aside from perhaps inspiration. A genius bit of marketing perhaps, but a fraud on the audience to be sure. As it stands, the picture is not all that bad, but it is not all that good either. Frankly, it is all right, and that is better than some.

2.5 out of 5