Tacky, colorful, confusing, mildly-entertaining drivel seems to be the European answer to the short-lived North American 'heavy metal horror' subgenre; films that typically revolved around Lycra-clad, big-haired rock band members being terrorized by supernatural (usually Satanic) forces. Said subgenre included the titles ROCKTOBER BLOOD (1984), HARD ROCK ZOMBIES (1984), MONSTER DOG (1984), TRICK OR TREAT (1986), ROCK 'N' ROLL NIGHTMARE (1987), SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROCK (1987), BLACK ROSES (1988), HARD ROCK NIGHTMARE (1989), HEAVY METAL MASSACRE (1989; directed by David De Falco and so obscure it's currently not even listed on IMDb), DEAD GIRLS (1990), SHOCK 'EM DEAD (1990) and probably a few others I'm forgetting. This one, from the director of the usually-well-regarded giallo THE KILLER MUST KILL AGAIN (1975), the silly sci-fi adventure STARCRASH (1979) and the unofficial SUSPIRIA "sequel" THE BLACK CAT (1989) - amongst others - is neither the best nor the worst of the lot, though it's far from what most would consider good.A nearly all-female rock band headed by singer/songstress Kate (Jasmine Maimone) has hit a creative slump, as evidenced by their atrocious "You Give Love a Bad Name" opening rip-off number. To help matters, drummer Daniel (Pascal Persiano) purchases an unreleased composition written by famous Italian violinist Niccolo Paganini from Mr. Pickett (a diabolically dubbed and goofy acting Donald Pleasance). Upon hearing the track and learning of its origins, the band's bitchy, money-hungry producer Lavinia (Maria Cristina Mastrangeli) decides to hire famous horror film director Mark Singer (Pietro Genuardi) to shoot a horror-themed music video in Paganini's former home; the same place where the violinist reputedly sold his soul to Satan to become famous. It isn't long before most of the cast - which includes Daria Nicolodi as the current owner of Paganini's home and sexy guitarists Michel Klippstein and Luana Ravegnini - are facing various supernatural horrors. For starters, there's a ghostly, echo-voiced, gold masked killer lurking around who uses a gold violin with a retractable blade. There's also an underground tunnel which leads to an alternate dimension (?!), strange shrill noises that incapacitate people and an electric forcefield which surrounds the house (?!) and is able to blow up a car. Some of the death scenes are pretty bizarre. Someone is crushed by an invisible wall; another is mutated by some kind of infectuous tree fungus (!) Oh yeah, and one of the females may be a little girl who toasted her mum in the bathtub with a hair dryer years earlier. The final scene tries to tie all the loose ends together but only succeeds in making things even more confusing than they already were.There's some mild gore (fx are variable) and no less than three musical numbers, including a pretty funny music video. Everything is drenched in blue, red and green colors because the director is an Argento devotee (and had helped write a couple of Argento's earlier projects).

When a predominantly female rock band are lambasted by their producer for failing to write a decent tune, their male drummer purchases an unpublished score written by violinist Paganini, who was rumoured to have murdered his wife and sold his soul to the devil in exchange for fame and fortune.The band use the music as the basis for their newest song, and decide to shoot the accompanying video in the very house in which Paganini sealed his Satanic deal. This proves to be a bad idea when they discover that evil forces are still at work in the old building, where time and space have their own rules and a mysterious masked murderer lurks, armed with deadly violin equipped with a spring-loaded blade."What a strange light," mentions one character to her friends as they investigate the spooky house at the centre of the Paganini Horror. "It's more than strange", comes the reply, "it's weird." This dreadful exchange of dialogue (one of many) is fairly representative of this late-80s Italian horror as a whole: it makes no sense whatsoever—not surprising since it was written and directed by Luigi Cozzi, the man who gave us dumb, Z-grade, trash sci-fi flicks Hercules and Starcrash, and the very daft Alien rip-off Contamination.Cozzi seems to be aiming at delivering a Dario Argento-style supernatural horror in the vein of Suspiria or Inferno, but being a total hack, only manages to emulate Argento's garish lighting with any degree of success. The plot is so muddled that even Argento's most outrageous work seems logical in comparison (believe it or not, one character is inexplicably killed by wood fungus!), the direction is basic at best, and the score is a diabolical mix of 80s pop-rock and classical music.Not one of the cast puts in a credible performance, with particularly bad acting from Pietro Genuardi as the band's video director Mark Singer, who is supposedly a top horror film maker, but who works with a single shoulder mounted camera, no crew and absolutely no sign of a script or storyboard; even Argento's muse Daria Nicolodi and Donald Pleasance are dreadful, with Nicolodi overacting wildly and Pleasance looking rather embarrassed to be involved.Don't go expecting much in the way of decent gore either: most of the deaths are pretty bloodless, and even the most gruesome moment—a woman's head crushed by an invisible wall—will have you laughing at the cheap effect, achieved by pressing the actress's face against a sheet of glass whilst running fake blood over her head.If it hadn't been for the fact that a couple of the women are very easy on the eye and happily squeeze into body-hugging outfits, I probably would have fallen asleep way before Cozzi calls it a day and wraps the film up with a simply awful surprise ending.

As an avid lover of Horror made in Bella Italia, who has seen hundreds of Italian Horror productions, I must say that "Paganini Horror" is arguably not only THE dumbest, but also the most boring and tiresome Italian Horror film ever brought to screen (I am not counting Claudio Fragasso's disastrous "Troll 2", which is, In my opinion, not Horror, and neither is it really Italian). Not even the casting of the great Donald Pleasence and regular Italian Horror actress Daria Nicolodi can save "Paganini Horror", as this has absolutely nothing to offer except for mild amusement about all its ludicrous aspects. I did not have high expectations for "Paganini Horror" as fellow Horror lovers had already warned me about how ridiculously bad it was, yet I somehow wished I was in for a positive surprise, since director Luigi Cozzi is generally a gifted man, as films like his highly unusual, but equally highly memorable Giallo "The Killer Must Kill Again" (1975) prove. "Paganini Horror", however has nothing to recommend it for, which is too bad, since a Satanic Horror film about Paganini could have become something good, or at least highly entertaining, if someone had put a little more heart into it.After the producer of a mostly female Rock band keeps nagging about the lack of originality in their (terrible!) newest song, the only male band member, the drummer, purchases an unopened document with an unknown Paganini score from a sinister man (Pleasance). Supposedly based on this Paganini document, the band produce a new (and equally awful) song, and decide to make a video-clip in Paganini's old mansion - The mansion in which the famous violin virtuoso had once signed a pact with the devil... Sound cheesy, and it is, but not only is it very, very dumb cheese, even though the film is only 80 minutes long, the temptation to fast-forward becomes bigger with each passing minute after a while. Even the gore-effects are awful, there's an incredibly corny-looking electrocution sequence which is so crappy it really has to be seen to be believed. Apart from Donald Pleasence (one of my favorite actors) and Daria Nicolodi, the performances are also god-awful. Still Pleasence and Nicolodi raise the quality a little bit (but certainly not very much). Otherwise, this has little to no redeeming qualities. Avoid!

This movie is so bad.... The acting, the story, the dialogues, the special effects, the direction, the sound.... Everything in this movie is soooo bad that I LOVE it!! It's supposed to be a horror movie but it's the best and funniest comedy I ever seen!! I can't stop laughing every time I'm watching it and I'm so in love with it that I ended up buying the video! If you want to laugh for 80 minutes, watch it!! The best line?? "Spirito del Male.... TI DETESTO!" - Italian people will understand.