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Il prato macchiato di rosso

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Il prato macchiato di rosso
Directed byRiccardo Ghione
Screenplay byRiccardo Ghione[2]
Story byRiccardo Ghione[2]
Produced by
  • Alfredo Chetta
  • Aldo Pascucci[1]
Starring
CinematographyRomolo Garroni[2]
Edited byCleofe Conversi[2]
Music byTeo Usuelli[2]
Production
company
Canguro Cinematografica[1]
Distributed byVariety Distribution
Release date
  • 2 March 1973 (1973-03-02) (Italy)
Running time
90 minutes[1]
CountryItaly[1]
Box office56.364 million

Il prato macchiato di rosso (lit.'The Red-stained lawn[1]') is a 1973 Italian film directed by Riccardo Ghione.[3][page needed]

In the film, two hippies are offered hospitality in a villa, unaware that their host is after their blood. The host uses a robot to drain blood from humans, and placing them into wine bottles from his winery.

Plot

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Emilia-Romagna, Italy, early 1970s. A Unesco agent discovers that blood is contained in a bottle of wine produced by a well-known Italian winery. A couple of hippies in their wanderings come across Antonio who accompanies them to the villa where he lives with his sister and brother-in-law.

In the sumptuous house the two young men meet strange characters: a gypsy woman, a prostitute and a disquieting drunkard. The landlord, Michelino Croci, reassures them by saying that he is only a wine producer and loves to host strange people. In reality, Mr. Antonio is a madman who created a mechanism, a sort of robot capable of sucking blood from human bodies.

Cast

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Style

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Italian film critic and historian Roberto Curti described the film as mixing elements from the gothic genre, the thriller and a little bit of science fiction.[1]

Production

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Shortly after the release of director Riccardo Ghione's previous film A cuore freddo, Ghione was working on his next film titled Vampiro 2000 which was shot in the village of Fiorenzuola d'Arda.[4] Ghione announced a different film during this period, an adaptation of Il male oscuro, a novel by Giuseppe Berto, which never came to fruition.[5] Vampiro 2000 eventually became retitled as Il pratto macchiato di rosso.[5]

Release

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Il pratto macchiato di rosso was distributed theatrically in Italy by Drago Film and had its premiere on 2 March 1973 in Fiorenzuola d'Arda.[1][6] The film grossed a total of 56,364,000 Italian lire domestically on its initial release.[1] According to Curti, after the film's release it vanished into obscurity to only be brought back to attention on a home video release around 2017.[6]

Reception

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Curti declared that Il prato macchiato di rosso retained a small level of notoriety in the village of Fiorenzuola where the memory of the shooting of the film remained vivid still in 2018.[7]

See also

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Footnotes

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Curti 2017, p. 100.
  2. ^ a b c d e Curti 2017, p. 99.
  3. ^ Roberto Chiti; Roberto Poppi; Enrico Lancia. Dizionario del cinema italiano: I film. Gremese, 1991. ISBN 8876059695.
  4. ^ Curti 2018, p. 77.
  5. ^ a b Curti 2018, p. 78.
  6. ^ a b Curti 2017, p. 102.
  7. ^ Curti 2018, p. 80.

References

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  • Curti, Roberto (2017). Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1970–1979. McFarland. ISBN 978-1476629605.
  • Curti, Roberto (2018). Mavericks of Italian Cinema: Eight Unorthodox Filmmakers, 1940s–2000s. McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-7242-7.
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