2 out of 5

Director: Lamberto Bava

The music, the over-sexualism – Macabre is a tad soft pornish, and if you missed the key scenes toward the beginning and end, the only thing leading you to suspect otherwise would be the Bava director credit and some creepy camera angles. There are some worthwhile elements – we have a great creepy kid, and the movie does a good job of sticking to a particular flavor – while the weird sexy-horror thing never quite gels into anything too erotic or horroful, it is consistent throughout, something Bava has proven good at throughout his career. Those benefits mentioned, the film is a bit of a snooze. Some elements that aren’t explained or don’t make sense can be excused as part of the genre, but some of it is just weirdly unclear – that’s his… brother? The pacing is unusual in that the “reveal” is obvious, and knowing this, the filmmakers put it quite before the movie’s climax, but the movie isn’t any stronger for it, it just makes the slow pacing more apparent. Overall, it’s a one star flick, but it totally gets bumped a star for that very last shot.