Cruel Tango

Released by: One 7 Movies/CAV Distribution
Released on: December 9, 2014
Director: Salvatore Metastasio
Cast: Francesco Castiglione, Chiara Barbagallo, Diego Bottiglieri, Alessia Alongi, Max Amato
Year: 2012
Purchase From Amazon

The Movie:

Women are being murdered by a mysterious masked man, who shares video of his crimes on a former journalist-turned-blogger's website. The killer slaughters the women while listening to records of tango music on an old phonograph. Seeking to unmask the culprit, the blogger tracks the killer to a small village in Italy, but when he turns the video over to police, he becomes a suspect himself. Things go from bad to worse when his girlfriend informs the police that she believes he shot the video himself as a publicity prank, after which she, too, is abducted.

The DVD case of Cruel Tango refers to the film as a “stylish neo giallo that pays homage to the classics of maestros like Sergio Martino and Giuliano Carnimeo.” And the opening credits, which certainly have the aura of an Argento film's credits, would seem to attest to such a claim. Yet one cannot get the unmistakable whiff of torture porn out of one's nostrils after viewing Cruel Tango. While the film may exhibit some minor influences from the Italian masters of giallo, it revels in obvious homage to James Wan's Saw (2004) series. The killers wear similar masks, they appear on video screens, and they taunt both victim and pursuer. The film follows the investigation of the blogger, who remains the audience's identification point throughout, though one gets the impression that he, too, was intended to be a red herring. Unfortunately, the identity of the killer is only too obvious, even if the film's final scene makes little sense.

Not that Cruel Tango is a terrible film. Given its nonexistent budget, newcomer Salvatore Metastasio does a competent job of handling the directorial chores. The film retains a certain amount of flair. Shots are tightly framed and inventive in the manner of the best giallos, and the camera is surprisingly fluid. The score is emphatic in all the right places and alternately beautiful and bombastic in the others. The performances, particularly from male lead Francesco Castiglione, are all-around terrific. There are a couple of shocking, nasty sequences, including one in which a woman's breast is flayed while she's still alive and another in which a woman has her brains literally bashed out. If there's a problem, it's with the script, which takes every route one would expect it to and comes out exactly where predicted.

Still, Cruel Tango is engaging enough to fill 100 minutes without the viewer feeling as if he or she has lost otherwise valuable time. Fans of modern-day horror films predicated on torture will be interested in seeing an Italian take on their favorite subgenre.

Video/Audio/Extras:

One 7 Movies presents Cruel Tango on DVD in anamorphic widescreen at 1.78:1. Unfortunately, the film was shot on some sort of low-grade video, which means that black spaces devolve into muddy noise, while lighter spaces are only marginally better. While this is a handicap, the film is entertaining enough to overcome it.

The audio is presented in Italian Dolby Digital 2.0, which does well by the film's soundtrack. It's certainly superior to the film's video. There is no English dub track, though there are, of course, English subtitles. These contain enough weird sentence construction and typographical mistakes to suggest that they were done by someone for whom English was a second language.

The only extra is the film's trailer, which runs approximately a minute and a half. There are 12 chapter breaks, with the 13th break taking viewers back to the menu screen.

The Final Word:

Cruel Tango isn't so much a neo giallo as it is a Saw rip-off, albeit an interesting one. It may wear its most obvious influences on its sleeves, but it's still a showcase for what can be achieved despite an extremely low budget. Good direction, a nice score, and solid performances make it an entertaining watch. Just don't go into it expecting superior visuals and you should be okay.