Born for Hell (1976)

Original title:  Die Hinrichtung

AKA:  Naked Massacre

Director:  Denis Heroux

Writers:  F.G. Ranger, Denis Heroux, Clenn Wood, Fred Denger, Geza von Radvanyi

Composer:  ???

Starring:  Mathieu Carriere, Debra Berger, Christine Boisson, Myriam Boyer, Leonora Fani, Ely Galleani, Carole Laure, Eva Mattes, Andree Pelletier, Ehmi Bessel, Karl-Heinz Kreienbaum, Paul Edwin Roth

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  For these nine young women, opening the door that night meant ending their lives!

Plot:  A disturbed American war veteran arrives in Belfast during the Northern Ireland conflicts, and proceeds to terrorize a household of female nursing students.

My rating:   7/10

Will I watch it again?   Maybe.

Good flick.  The first half of the picture sets it up and the second half is the home invasion.  Before the horror begins, we get to see both Cain's (played by Carriere) situation and we get to spend some time with the nine girls; all of this happening in Belfast, Northern Ireland, against the backdrop of a country torn apart by extreme violence.  For the most part, Cain is handled pretty well although I think there could've been a few more subtleties to give it a bit more nuance.  The filmmakers aren't giving Cain excuses but rather show you how this man, in his mental state, was able to find himself in a self-created situation that led to the murder of eight women over the course of one short night.   And with the set up involving the girls, that was handled masterfully, giving the audience enough information to know a little about each one to get a sense of who each are.  That was splendidly handled.

Once Cain makes his way into the girls' home, it gets ugly fast.  Cain's slippery slide to murder starts with an impulse that makes each subsequent murder easier to the point of being as natural as breathing.

 

 

The ending delivers something unexpected and still somewhat satisfying, insofar as Cain's fate is concerned.  I'm rather surprised at the low IMDb score.  I don't care to read the reviews on this one.  It's a good, well-made film, made at a time when edge was all the rage but this came from Europe whose filmmakers had a different sensibility and one that likely kept this from being the depraved exploitation film it would've been had it been made in the US.

I do have one last observation.  The version I watched was an English dub.  The dub itself was good which worked as it was set where English was spoken but the problem was with the sound levels for the music which often drowned out the dialogue.  What's more, the music, which is uncredited on IMDb, often didn't fit well with the visual.  There is one theme that did and it had a strong John Barry ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (1968) vibe and it was great.  It had the right tone and unsettling vibe about it that fit well but the other cues were problematic.  Add to that the music would often stop quickly, unfinished.  I can see how that could be used as a technique to set the viewer on edge but it happened so much that, if that were the case, it ceased being effective after the umpteenth time.  I'm curious as the mixing levels and the music in general on any of the non-English versions.  Please let me know if you've seen one of them.  Fixing these issues alone would've boosted my score another point. The print I watched had no title card.