Torture is Torture to Sit Through

Conspiracy of Torture (1969)
directed by Lucio Fulci
rating: 1 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

Thematically, Conspiracy of Torture wouldn't usually qualify for my October slate: it's political in nature. But from a slightly different angle, this could easily be a movie about witches (which, from the perspective of the Catholic church, I suppose it is). The truth is, I received and watched this very worst of the Fulci movies I've seen because it's the poorly dubbed B-side on the same DVD as The Whip and the Body. So it doesn't really count, but I've missed at least a review or two this month, and I sat through it, so I'm going to. New York-born Adrienne Larussa looks just like a Guess model, and although Fulci's men are appropriately sweaty for a plot about incest, their convoluted, flashback-riddled narrative is best summed up as drearily melodramatic. There's something in the sleaziness of reactionary anti-Catholic cinema that always seems pretty accurate with regards to church hierarchies, but Halloween is too good a holiday for all that religious nonsense.