What Have They Done To Your Daughters? was the very first, complete, Italian horror movie I ever watched. I did see the opening segment of Bava's Black Sabbath one night when I was very young, but I was so traumatized by it I chickened out of watching the rest.
Here's how it happened.
My friend Dennis and I used to walk all the time. I didn't want to be around my asshole father and he didn't want to be around his asshole stepfather, so we stayed away from home as much as possible.
I guess we were around fifteen years old. Dennis and I were exploring some woods. Walking around, talking shit, wasting time. We stumbled around through fairly thick foliage, and then we saw a clearing ahead. Pushing on, we entered a large area with posts sticking up out of the ground. I can't remember who called it first: "This is the Peninsula Twin Drive-In!"
The Pen Twin, as they called it, was an extremely run down drive-in theater. In serious disrepair, it was hanging on by a thread and would be demolished within a year. An RV sales center took over the real estate, and that lasted for a few decades. Now it's another blight on the landscape. Just a typical group of soulless chain stores and restaurants. A place that once filled the night sky with dreams and screams, unclad flesh, roaring gunfire, racing vehicles, and lots of martial arts action.
There was no question what we were going to do that very evening. We were coming to see...Bambi and Swiss Family Robinson.
There were two screens, but we were stuck with the one closest to the woods. Oddly, the two Disney classics were the only family features we were to see in our glorious months of illicit drive-in fun.
The Peninsula Twin couldn't afford first run movies. It showed older features, and we were more than happy about it. The next weekend was a good one: Death Race 2000 and The Brood. We literally went every night of the week.
What a crew we were. We would arrive as dusk descended upon the theater. My older brother accompanied us, and he had no compunctions about contributing to the delinquency of minors. Especially if one of us was paying for the beer.
We'd surreptitiously creep out of the woods and plunk down by the nearest speaker. One or two of us usually had cases of beer under our arms. We weren't even scared. Sitting on the edge of the woods, we kept our eyes open for trouble. We knew we could outrun any employee or cop who tried to catch us. The thing is, no one cared. The owners were merely going through the motions.
That week of Death Race 2000 and The Brood was glorious. We continued on, going nearly every week. Oh, the movies we saw. The double features were stupendous. The memories have faded, but I sharply recall seeing Piranha and Rabid. Caged Heat and Candy Striped Nurses. I know we sat through Bob Clark's Deathdream, but the print we saw was called It Came from the Grave.
There was an Italian sex farce called Hot and Bothered. We were stunned by the erotic horror of José Ramón Larraz's Vampyres.
I can't remember them all, but it was amazing. It seemed too good to be true, and like everything else, the end was nearer than we hoped. One week there were no new movie titles up on the marquee. The Peninsula Twin Drive-In Theater, once a prime entertainment location in Newport News, Virginia, shined its last light through a projector.
I heard from older folks how great the theater was in its heyday. Newer drive-ins were built, and people flocked to them. The Pen Twin couldn't afford the repairs it needed to survive.
But still! The movies I listed above? Why the hell wasn't there bumper-to-bumper traffic heading into the theater every weekend? They were showing solid exploitation gold, and you could watch in the privacy of your own car.
Or you could do as we did and walk right in and enjoy the show.
One of the movies we loved was called The Co-Ed Murders. God, it's been so long. I can't remember much, other than some cops breaking in an apartment in the opening scene. A naked woman was hanging dead from the rafters. I also remember how we found the music amusing.
The years rolled by. I watched hundreds, thousands of horror movies. I saw a few Italian horror movies at the other drive-ins, like Zombie and The Gates of Hell. Or, as aficionados call them, Zombie 2 and City of the Living Dead.
The Golden Age of Horror bled into the world, and I was right there with a front row seat. As the VHS revolution erupted, fans began looking back to find treasures. Italian horror movies were the in thing to watch. Nothing was cooler to me and to countless splatter fans. We learned the gospels of Argento, Fulci, Bava, Deodato, Lenzi, Soavi.
I still love Spaghetti Horror and I suppose I always will.
The Co-Ed Murders drifted in and out of my consciousness over the years. I'd think back to those magnificent nights when we were just a bunch of kids, our lives all ahead of us. Out there, feeling deliciously decadent, watching things we probably shouldn't have been seeing. It was illegal, it was perverse, it was heaven.
A little research showed me that The Co-Ed Murders was yet another retitling. It was commonplace to give foreign horror movies catchier names that would hopefully appeal to American viewers. Italian titles were lyrical, suggestive, even poetic. Sure, we knew what we were in for with a movie called The Co-Ed Murders, but what the hell does What Have They Done To Your Daughters? mean?
What Have They Done To Your Daughters? was directed by Massimo Dallamano, whose best known film is probably Venus In Furs. A former cinematographer for Sergio Leone and other filmmakers, Dallamano jumped into the director's ring in 1967 with a western called Banditos. Spaghetti westerns were on their way out, and Dallamano's second movie was a giallo called A Black Veil For Lisa.
In 1973 Massimo Dallamano made the first in his informal Schoolgirls in Peril trilogy. What Have You Done To Solange? was a kind of blend of giallo and a German krimi thriller. Both these subgenres were heavily influenced by the novels of Edgar Wallace.
Solange was very successful, and the next year Dallamono released a thematic sequel called What Have They Done To Your Daughters? This time the movie was a mix of giallo and the very popular Poliziotteschi genre. Inspired by American movies like Bullitt and The French Connection, Poliziotteschi movies were tough, violent thrillers whose antiheroes were usually maverick cops out for justice at any price.
I recently acquired an Arrow Video blu-ray of What Have They Done To Your Daughters? After waiting nearly fifty years, I put it on the top of my movie watch list.
The opening is exactly as I remember it, but the rest seemed new to me. It's a really good movie of its kind, combining the best elements of police drama and the lurid mystery that typifies gialli.
A renegade cop is after the killer who staged the suicide of a pregnant teenage girl. Soon other girls are found dead, and an underage call girl syndicate is unearthed. Disturbing tape recordings of trysts between the young girls and their clients are discovered. Meanwhile a masked killer on a motorcycle is wreaking havoc on witnesses and others who could expose the racketeers.
What Have They Done To Your Daughters? is stylish, explicit without being too exploitative, suspenseful, and shocking. It wouldn't be a bad entry point for those uninitiated in these kind of hybrid Italian opuses. The movie moves quickly, it kept me guessing, and I had a laugh or two. It's currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.
It was great to finally put the pieces of my memories together with What Have They Done To Your Daughters? Or, as purists call it, La polizia chiede aiuto.
Still, it was nothing like being a naive teenager who had very few opportunities to watch wild movies. What Have They Done To Your Daughters? was a jaw-dropper, an eye-opener, and a gateway drug for my future of horror.
Written by Mark Sieber
Here's how it happened.
My friend Dennis and I used to walk all the time. I didn't want to be around my asshole father and he didn't want to be around his asshole stepfather, so we stayed away from home as much as possible.
I guess we were around fifteen years old. Dennis and I were exploring some woods. Walking around, talking shit, wasting time. We stumbled around through fairly thick foliage, and then we saw a clearing ahead. Pushing on, we entered a large area with posts sticking up out of the ground. I can't remember who called it first: "This is the Peninsula Twin Drive-In!"
The Pen Twin, as they called it, was an extremely run down drive-in theater. In serious disrepair, it was hanging on by a thread and would be demolished within a year. An RV sales center took over the real estate, and that lasted for a few decades. Now it's another blight on the landscape. Just a typical group of soulless chain stores and restaurants. A place that once filled the night sky with dreams and screams, unclad flesh, roaring gunfire, racing vehicles, and lots of martial arts action.
There was no question what we were going to do that very evening. We were coming to see...Bambi and Swiss Family Robinson.
There were two screens, but we were stuck with the one closest to the woods. Oddly, the two Disney classics were the only family features we were to see in our glorious months of illicit drive-in fun.
The Peninsula Twin couldn't afford first run movies. It showed older features, and we were more than happy about it. The next weekend was a good one: Death Race 2000 and The Brood. We literally went every night of the week.What a crew we were. We would arrive as dusk descended upon the theater. My older brother accompanied us, and he had no compunctions about contributing to the delinquency of minors. Especially if one of us was paying for the beer.
We'd surreptitiously creep out of the woods and plunk down by the nearest speaker. One or two of us usually had cases of beer under our arms. We weren't even scared. Sitting on the edge of the woods, we kept our eyes open for trouble. We knew we could outrun any employee or cop who tried to catch us. The thing is, no one cared. The owners were merely going through the motions.
That week of Death Race 2000 and The Brood was glorious. We continued on, going nearly every week. Oh, the movies we saw. The double features were stupendous. The memories have faded, but I sharply recall seeing Piranha and Rabid. Caged Heat and Candy Striped Nurses. I know we sat through Bob Clark's Deathdream, but the print we saw was called It Came from the Grave.
There was an Italian sex farce called Hot and Bothered. We were stunned by the erotic horror of José Ramón Larraz's Vampyres.
I can't remember them all, but it was amazing. It seemed too good to be true, and like everything else, the end was nearer than we hoped. One week there were no new movie titles up on the marquee. The Peninsula Twin Drive-In Theater, once a prime entertainment location in Newport News, Virginia, shined its last light through a projector.
I heard from older folks how great the theater was in its heyday. Newer drive-ins were built, and people flocked to them. The Pen Twin couldn't afford the repairs it needed to survive.
But still! The movies I listed above? Why the hell wasn't there bumper-to-bumper traffic heading into the theater every weekend? They were showing solid exploitation gold, and you could watch in the privacy of your own car.
Or you could do as we did and walk right in and enjoy the show.
One of the movies we loved was called The Co-Ed Murders. God, it's been so long. I can't remember much, other than some cops breaking in an apartment in the opening scene. A naked woman was hanging dead from the rafters. I also remember how we found the music amusing.
The years rolled by. I watched hundreds, thousands of horror movies. I saw a few Italian horror movies at the other drive-ins, like Zombie and The Gates of Hell. Or, as aficionados call them, Zombie 2 and City of the Living Dead.
The Golden Age of Horror bled into the world, and I was right there with a front row seat. As the VHS revolution erupted, fans began looking back to find treasures. Italian horror movies were the in thing to watch. Nothing was cooler to me and to countless splatter fans. We learned the gospels of Argento, Fulci, Bava, Deodato, Lenzi, Soavi.
I still love Spaghetti Horror and I suppose I always will.
The Co-Ed Murders drifted in and out of my consciousness over the years. I'd think back to those magnificent nights when we were just a bunch of kids, our lives all ahead of us. Out there, feeling deliciously decadent, watching things we probably shouldn't have been seeing. It was illegal, it was perverse, it was heaven.
A little research showed me that The Co-Ed Murders was yet another retitling. It was commonplace to give foreign horror movies catchier names that would hopefully appeal to American viewers. Italian titles were lyrical, suggestive, even poetic. Sure, we knew what we were in for with a movie called The Co-Ed Murders, but what the hell does What Have They Done To Your Daughters? mean?
What Have They Done To Your Daughters? was directed by Massimo Dallamano, whose best known film is probably Venus In Furs. A former cinematographer for Sergio Leone and other filmmakers, Dallamano jumped into the director's ring in 1967 with a western called Banditos. Spaghetti westerns were on their way out, and Dallamano's second movie was a giallo called A Black Veil For Lisa.
In 1973 Massimo Dallamano made the first in his informal Schoolgirls in Peril trilogy. What Have You Done To Solange? was a kind of blend of giallo and a German krimi thriller. Both these subgenres were heavily influenced by the novels of Edgar Wallace.
Solange was very successful, and the next year Dallamono released a thematic sequel called What Have They Done To Your Daughters? This time the movie was a mix of giallo and the very popular Poliziotteschi genre. Inspired by American movies like Bullitt and The French Connection, Poliziotteschi movies were tough, violent thrillers whose antiheroes were usually maverick cops out for justice at any price.
I recently acquired an Arrow Video blu-ray of What Have They Done To Your Daughters? After waiting nearly fifty years, I put it on the top of my movie watch list.
The opening is exactly as I remember it, but the rest seemed new to me. It's a really good movie of its kind, combining the best elements of police drama and the lurid mystery that typifies gialli.
A renegade cop is after the killer who staged the suicide of a pregnant teenage girl. Soon other girls are found dead, and an underage call girl syndicate is unearthed. Disturbing tape recordings of trysts between the young girls and their clients are discovered. Meanwhile a masked killer on a motorcycle is wreaking havoc on witnesses and others who could expose the racketeers.
What Have They Done To Your Daughters? is stylish, explicit without being too exploitative, suspenseful, and shocking. It wouldn't be a bad entry point for those uninitiated in these kind of hybrid Italian opuses. The movie moves quickly, it kept me guessing, and I had a laugh or two. It's currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.
It was great to finally put the pieces of my memories together with What Have They Done To Your Daughters? Or, as purists call it, La polizia chiede aiuto.
Still, it was nothing like being a naive teenager who had very few opportunities to watch wild movies. What Have They Done To Your Daughters? was a jaw-dropper, an eye-opener, and a gateway drug for my future of horror.
Written by Mark Sieber
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