‘The nightmare that grabs you where you least expect it!’
Evil Clutch – original title: Il bosco 1 – is a 1988 Italian supernatural horror film written and directed by Andrea Marfori (Soviet Zombie Invasion). It stars Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, Diego Ribon and Luciano Crovato.
The film was picked up and distributed worldwide by Troma Entertainment.
An American college student joins her Italian boyfriend for a romantic weekend trip. Along the way, they pick up a female hitchhiker who turns out to be a maniacal demon with a ferocious deadly claw-like hand…
Reviews:
“In the last 30 minutes things pick up and we are bombarded by diverse weirdness. There is more crotch tentacle, weird monstrous (maybe tree root) tentacles, clothes-on zombie love, an unseen POV Evil Dead force rushing through the forest, crusty zombie attacks, bloody dismemberment and some weak demonic transformation. Yes, this may sound good…but it’s bad. Very, very bad.” John Leavengood, Movies, Films and Flix
“The plot is non-existent and confusing, the acting is dismal, some insane scenes reach a minimal level of twisted entertainment, and there are quite a few splatter scenes that you can see coming miles away.” The Worldwide Celluloid Massacre
” …a lot of cheap-jack gore on display, including crushed hands, an exploding decapitated head, some chainsaw gore and a fish-hook in the face, but I found that no amount of unconvincing severed body parts and bloody wounds could possibly compensate for Marfori’s derivative visuals and incomprehensible script, the dreadful acting, dismal lighting, or Cataldi-Tassoni’s irritating non-stop hysterical screaming.” BA Harrison, IMDb
“Percentage wise, Evil Clutch is primarily just pointless tracking shots. But if you have a keen eye and can see what’s going on in between the long, aimless and pointless tracking shots you’ll find some hysterical garbage of the highest caliber.” Stankshadow, Letterboxd
“What you really need to take away from this review is that it is a boring, confusing, uninteresting movie that doesn’t really have anything going for it that you should stay away from […] I guess the long and the short of it is that you should avoid this movie like the plague.” Todd Martin, HorrorNews.net
Buy DVD: Amazon.com
“I’m fairly certain that only reason that Evil Clutch exists is that Andreas Marfori somehow got access to a steadicam and just started to film stuff. Somewhere along the line he decided to turn this into a shameless Evil Dead ripoff, filled to the brim with some gore and a shitload of padding and horrible horrible acting by Italian actors trying to speak English.” Joachim Andersson, Letterboxd
Cast and characters:
- Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni as Cindy
- Diego Ribon as Tony
- Luciano Crovato as Algernoon
- Elena Cantarone as Arva
- Stefano Molinari as Fango
Filming locations:
Capo Cotta Beach and Filacciano, Rome, Lazio, Italy
Giazza, Verona, Veneto, Italy
