Joe D’Amato: A Total Contempt for all Mankind

by Phillip Escott

Aristide Massaccesi was born in Rome on the 15th December 1936. His father was involved in filmmaking, as an electrician, and clearly passed the film bug on to the young Aristide. Being born around the film world helped Massaccesi enter the business with ease, by the age of 14 he was helping to run wires and other such low-skilled work.

Massaccesi worked his way up the film-ladder throughout the 50’s and by the end of the decade he was a bona-fide assistant cameraman. By the early 60’s Massaccesi was hired by some of the greatest directors of that time, from Cult-icon Mario Bava on the 1961 effort Hercules in the Haunted World to Art-house favorite Jean-Luc Godard on 1963’s Contempt and even Oscar-nominated talent with Franco Zeffirelli on The Taming of the Shrew in 1967.

When the 70’s came blowing in, it brought with it a major change in Aristide’s output. Acting as cinematographer for Massimo Dallamano on his excellent 1974 gialli What Have You Done to Solange? and working on other genre flicks from spaghetti westerns like Django and Sartana Are Coming... It's the End (Demofilo Fidani & Diego Spataro -1970) to poliziottesco movies like Crime Boss (Aberto de Martino – 1974) starring Telly Savalas.

It’s during this period that Massaccesi made the crossover to directing. This was also the birth of what would become a common scenario: his choice in using pseudonyms and giving credits to other members of the production. In 1972 he directed a number of sex comedies and westerns but gave credit to other crew members, like assistant director Romano Gastaldi for More Sexy Canterbury Tales. This manner continued throughout his career.

Finally in 1973, came the first film to sport his true name as director, Death Smiles on a Murderer. Starring Klaus Kinski, this eerie Gothic horror come Giallo hybrid was a hit with audiences and proved that Massaccesi was a capable filmmaker - also having something that resembled a budget helped. The film features some staple Massaccesi themes, like necrophilia, graphic violence and over the top sexuality: in this case lesbianism and incest. The movie is executed in a more professional manner than fans tend to expect from the sultan of sleaze, but overall it’s a confusing watch. Still, it remains one of Masseccesi’s personal favorites of his own output.

Massaccesi continued to work on other people's films, including editing Jess Franco’s first XXX outing - De Sade's Juliette, which became known simply as Justine once Massaccesi took additional footage from other Franco titles and re-dubbed the whole movie (it didn’t get released until 1979). Word has it that in 1975 he took the legendary alias of Joe D’Amato, it’s the name he is best known by, but he still continued to use his real name and an assortment of different pseudonyms – my favourites? Robert Yip and Sarah Asproon!

Massaccesi used his D’Amato moniker while teaming up with fellow trash merchant, Bruno Mattei, on Emanuelle’s Revenge in 1975. This also saw him form a long, productive partnership with man-mountain, Luigi Montefiori; who would use the name George Eastman on all of Massaccesi’s movies. This was the first film in which Massaccesi tried to cash-in on the popularity of Just Jaeckin’s 1974 erotic classic, Emmanuelle. As interesting and sleazy as the film is, it hasn’t captured the minds of cult-film enthusiasts as much as his next attempt(s) would, the Black Emanuelle movies, which followed a year later.

Before working on the Black Emanuelle films, Massaccesi found time to make a film with his new muse, Laura Gemser, and screen legend Jack Palance in Black Cobra Woman, which was originally released as Emanuelle in Japan in the states, which is weird as it’s based in Hong Kong: God bless those slimy 70’s distributors!

Although he was not responsible for the fist film, he has since become synonyms with the Black Emanuelle series. The real creator of the series was Bitto Albertini, using his alias, Albert Thomas. Massaccesi’s first entry was Emanuelle in Bangkok, after Albertini foolishly rejected the beautiful Laura Gemser for his official sequel Black Emanuelle 2. Massaccesi jumped and put her at the centre of his film. Naturally Albertini’s film flopped where as Emanuelle in Bangkok rung the cash registers. With the success of this, Massaccesi made three sequels the following year - impressive to say the least!

First out the gates was Emanuelle in America, following the same structure used in the previous entry, the intrepid reporter gets down and dirty while investigating various atrocities; this episode saw her looking to break a snuff ring while bedding as many people as possible, man or woman – or both at the same time, what a girl! The film obtained legendary status after various copies of the film circulated, rumors of brutal violence and explicit sex abound and needless to say it was all proven to be true: though Laura Gemser herself was never involved in the XXX footage. Featuring the most authentic snuff footage yet filmed, it stands as a testament to the skill of its director. It also contains a scene in which a horse gets jerked off by an enthusiastic extra, obviously this has caused the film numerous censorship, and legal, issues around the world and will never be available uncut in certain territories.

Emanuelle Around the World followed next and once again the brave Emanuelle (this time joined by fellow Black Emanuelle alumni Karin Schubert) was on the hunt to bring down a white-slave ring… while bedding as many human beings as possible. Although it’s not as shocking as its predecessor it still features such joys as bestiality and a rather obnoxious rape scene where a young woman is violated by homeless people, as bourgeois couples laugh hysterically at the goings on.

The final entry into the series for ‘77 was Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, it changed the format up, a little, by moving from the typical travelogue approach and used a more stable narrative and proves to be an interesting little hybrid. When Ruggero Deodato scored big at the box office with The Last Cannibal World earlier in the year, Massaccesi was quick to jump on the bandwagon and the result is a mixed effort, fans of the series were probably not prepared for a gore film on this level. T&A are plentiful, but sees the sex tamed down and placed in a close second place to the violence.

After the onslaught of Emanuelle product, Massaccesi took time out to make an all out macho War flick – Tough to Kill, with exploitation regular Luc Merenda. He quickly returned with possible the most restrained entry in the Black Emanuelle series with Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade. Containing no bloody violence or gore, and nothing stronger than beaver shots, this effort feels a little dry and required some additional spice to compete with its predecessors.

When Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade failed to capture the hearts, and more importantly – wallets, of the cinema-goers Massaccesi teamed up with Bruno Mattei for a few mondo style documentaries, all narrated by Laura Gemser. Crazy Nights, Sexy Night Report and Emanuelle and the Erotic Nights are all overly cheesy efforts that contain numerous soft-core footage, that bores more than engages, its audience. Realizing that filming movies back to back was effective enough with the Emanuelle movies, Massaccesi went at it again; this time in the Caribbean.

1978 saw the first entry into another quasi-series of movies. Papaya of the Caribbean, it brought back the gore and violence seen in his Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, but didn’t feature the hardcore sex that would appear in the other, more popular, titles of the Black Emanuelle series. Before continuing his Caribbean style adventures he made what many claim to be his most nihilistic and down-beat movie – Beyond the Darkness.

Beyond the Darkness revolves around a taxidermist and the death of his wife. Unable to cope with the loss he resorts to rather drastic measures in order to keep her... fresh shall we say. All the while slipping further and further in the mental health stakes, helped no end by his relationship with his sister. Prog-rockers, Goblin, provide a fantastic score for a film chock full of intestines and other such foul imagery: a strong stomach is a must.

After hitting big on the horror scene, Massaccesi found time to film Images in a Convent, an explicit nunsploitation flick in the vein of Behind Convent Walls. Then it was back to the Caribbean where Massaccesi filmed a number of films back-to-back with the same cast; Luigi Montefiori and Mark Shannon, amongst others, also saving some cash by using the same locations. He even went as far as to “cut and paste” scenes from one film to the next. The first release was Black Orgasm, co-written by Dario Argento protégé Luigi Cozzi and starring Luciano Erocoli’s wife, Susan Scott (Neives Navarro). It was shot softcore but Massaccesi included a few hardcore scenes from Porno Holocaust for good measure.

The next two entries remain elusive, Hard Sensations and Black Sex, the former is a Last House on the Left rip-off about three women who are violated by thugs and get their revenge, all shot in the lovely sun, sea and sand of the Caribbean. Black Sex however, is about a man whose about to have his manhood removed, via surgery, so goes on holiday to the Caribbean to get laid. I’m sure we can all relate with that.

His final two entries are perhaps the most widely seen and considered the better films in this series, Erotic Nights of the Living Dead and Porno Holocaust, released in 1980 and 1981 respectively. During this time, Massaccesi continued to re-edit other peoples work, with the help of Claudio Bernabei, and released a number of titles like Desire and Super Climax; the latter featured archive material of Linda Lovelace!

In true exploitation style, Massaccesi recycled old footage from Black Cobra Woman with a few left over bits from his Caribbean holiday to form another feature, Porno Exotic Love, that could be classed as a member of the series but for the sake of my sanity, I think it’ll just classed as a D’Amato/Bernabei re-edit job here.

The horror world was about to receive another slice of Massaccesi style fright when he teamed up, again, with Luigi Montefiori for the classic video nasty Anthropophagus: The Beast, a film that caused a furor with the conservative British government, and bible thumpers alike. Some claimed that the film was a snuff movie and demanded the film be removed from the country: it wasn’t snuff, but it was removed from the country never the less.

After the huge success of Anthropophagus: The Beast, Massaccesi and Luigi Montefiori decided to make a sequel of sorts. Absurd followed in 1981 and it upped the gore quotient and proved fans with some superb kills. Plot wise it’s pretty messy, but that would probably be expected by now, it also boasts a cameo from Michele Soavi; who would go on to form a productive bond with Massaccesi over the next couple of years.

After Absurd failed to recreate the success of Anthropophagus: The Beast Massaccesi reverted back to porn for a few titles, including another zombie/porn hybrid Orgasmo Ertoico. 1982 saw the release of his first post-apocalyptic genre entry with 2020 Freedom Fighters, but it was his sequel to Tinto Brass’s controversial flop Caligula that fans will remember. Caligula II: The Untold Story takes all of the dirty aspects of the original and magnified it by ten, as all good sequels should. When released here in the UK it had a running time of 86 minutes, its official run time is actually 125 minutes and involves everything from obese men vomiting, to a woman with a horse; not to mention one poor guy getting a rather unpleasant anal violation! It goes without saying that this will never see the light of day in the United Kingdom: seeing as we’re a ‘free’ nation and all.

After this Massaccesi took porn to heart and settled into that genre, stopping to make a few rip-offs here and there. Most notable would be the Conan the Barbarian knock-off, Ator, and the Jaws inspired feature Deep Blood. He also gave the Emanuelle series a last ditch “cut and paste” effort in the guise of Emanuelle's Perverse Outburst, which was nothing more than footage from the previous entries hacked together to form a new feature – badly.

After the mid-eighties, he took a shining to softcore movies in the vein of 9 Weeks, he took time out to make the occasional Ator sequel; Troll movie; nunsploitation movie (Convent of Sinners) or a new zombie film (Killing Birds), but the stone in his crown at this time was 11 Days, 11 Nights and its many, many sequels. Luciana Ottaviani had taken over as his new muse during this period and as lovely as she is, she’s no Laura Gemser, and his movies continued to suffer without her presence. Finding new actresses proved difficult and with each passing movie his already questionable quality began to deteriorate further. By the time he reached the nineties, his product looked highly polished but didn’t leave the same impression as his earlier, rougher, material. Even his return to the horror genre was a total disappointment; Frankenstein 2000 (1992) was a low budget mess that failed to provide punters with any descent scares, gore, tension or story.

It was during this dry spell, 1986 onwards, that Massaccesi took an active interest in the production side of the industry. Forming Filmirage back in 1980 for the release of Anthropophagus: The Beast, he put focus on choosing scripts for development and discovering the talent to direct this material. Notable films from this period would be Michele Soavi’s debut Stage Fright, Umberto Lenzi’s Hitcher in the Dark and Lucio Fulci’s Door to Silence. Filmirage also funded long time collaborator Luigi Montefiori’s directorial debut, Metamorphosis, which remains the big man’s sole directing credit to date.

When Massaccesi turned 100% hardcore he formed a partnership that would last for the next couple of years and allow Aristide Massaccesi a creative freedom, big budgets and the best stars European smut had to offer. This partner was Rocco Sifferedi. The two would work on a number of big budget fuck-flicks, including Tarzan X, and featured lavish costumes, impressive sets and hot, sweaty sex. Due to Rocco’s involvement most of the action was of the anal variety, a style that Massaccesi would use time and time again as the demand for such product grew, proving to be very lucrative for the pair.

Sadly on the 23rd of January 1999, at the age of 62, Aristide Massaccesi suffered a fatal heart attack. To say that this was unexpected is an understatement of epic proportions, anyone who has seen the excellent documentary Joe D’Amato: Totally Uncut will notice he looks in perfect health, and to think that he shortly died is heartbreaking. He is survived by an ever growing legion of devotee’s who realize how special he was to exploitation cinema.

He was a one of a kind and is still sadly missed, and always will be. His son, Daniele Massaccesi, has gone on to become a top camera operator in Hollywood; he has worked with Martin Scorsese on Gangs of New York, Steven Spielberg on Munich and Ridley Scott on Kingdom of Heaven. Here’s hoping he goes onto a career as extensive has his beloved father.

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