LastingAware The greatest movie ever!

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Twilightfa Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Coventry Even if you only occasionally and/or accidentally stumble upon my profile, you must have noticed already that I'm a huge fan of Italian cult cinema from the '60s, '70s and '80s, and more particularly the so-called "giallo" is my absolute favorite sub- genre. Gialli are violent and often perverted whodunit thrillers from Italy that were tremendously popular from the mid-sixties until approximately the mid-seventies. The sub-genre was more or less founded by Mario Bava with his classics "The Girl Who Knew Too Much" and "Blood and Black Lace", released in respectively 1962 and 1964, but the glorious heydays were between 1968 and 1972, with brilliant highlights from a range of multi-talented directors like Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Sergio Martino, Umberto Lenzi and Massimo Dallamano. But then, for some mysterious and incomprehensible reason, the giallo-reign abruptly ended in 1975 and, with the exception of one or two titles, no more decent gialli were made in the second half of the decade. There was a brief revival during the '80s, mainly thanks to Mario Bava's son Lamberto and his handful of good contributions ("A Blade in the Dark", "Midnight Killer", "Delirium: Photos of Gioia") but then the giallo passed away for good. It's most interesting to investigate why exactly the gialli of the late '70s stopped being good, and I think Enzo Milioni's "The Sister of Ursula" is the ideal study object…It seems as if newer and aspiring directors mistook the most important trademarks of the giallo and subsequently enlarged them in the most wrongful and distasteful ways! For instance, gialli have always contained sleazy sex footage and the lead actresses often provided gratuitous nudity, but watching "The Sister of Ursula" almost feels like watching hardcore pornography! There are many extended sex sequences; showing – in great detail - foreplay and both male as female genitalia, and that's really not necessary! Also, in older gialli the female victims were occasionally stabbed in the crotch with a sharp knife, which was ultimately perverse and shocking, whilst here in this film all the victims' intimate areas are sodomized with a big wooden dildo! That's right; it doesn't get any more tasteless than that! The plot and main characters of this late giallo are weak and uninteresting, with several minor stories that are interwoven with each other. There's the principal story of the lovely siblings Ursula and Dagmar arriving in sunny Amalfi to look for the mother that abandoned them when they were still children. They reside at a luxurious seaside hotel, where the lurid manager has an affair with the night club singer and his wife is a frustrated lesbian. Ursula becomes more and more asocial and forbids her sister to date the junkie who always hangs around the hotel bar. Oh yes, meanwhile there's also a mad maniac on the loose who loves to savagely destroy vaginas! Many long parts of the film – including the semi porn – are dull and badly acted. The best aspects and, in fact, the sole reasons to consider checking out "The Sister of Ursula" are the breath-taking Amalfi filming locations and the surprisingly exhilarating musical score.

happyendingrocks Locked away in the vaults of every film studio are negatives from some truly quality horror and cult films that have yet to see a proper DVD release. Serious aficionados are forced to track down bootleg copies that are merely transfers from semi-grainy VHS tapes, which do little to preserve the quality or augment these films with supplemental material, or at least a decent digital remaster. With so many gems left undiscovered by a discerning digital audience, it thoroughly amazes me that something like The Sister Of Ursula was deemed worthy of a DVD makeover.Though billed as a hybrid giallo/erotic thriller, there are few thrills to be had in this plodding mess of a whodunnit, and with only a few unimpressive scenes that feature any sort of horror element, the spaghetti splatter here is closer to Stauffer's lasagna (although such a comparison is actually insulting to Stauffer's, since their lasagna is loaded with taste, while this film has none).When you strip away any mystery or horror, what this film does offer is loads of soft-core sex scenes that are graphic enough to skirt the boundaries of even the X rating. So, was there no pornography available in Italy in the '70s? I consider this merely because the only audience this film seems aimed at are fans of graphically displayed and unabashedly lewd sex acts, yet since this film doesn't quite go the XXX distance, it seems silly that anyone in that demographic would seek this out instead of opting for a purely pornographic offering.As far as smut goes, this is certainly well-made smut, we have to give it that. The cinematography and locations are attractive to look at, as are most of the female actresses, who spend the majority of the film in various couplings and states of undress. However, this also works against Ursula, because since this is a relatively polished piece of film making, it doesn't even have the unintentional humor of ineptness that gives many trashy movies such as this cult following appeal. One definite piece of comedic interest, however, is that the main "steamy" music theme that accompanies each of the sex scenes borrows heavily from "Jingle Bells."Even the murderer's choice of a giant phallus as a weapon isn't too novel, since while reading up on Ursula I learned that there was another Italian film made before this with a killer that employed the same noteworthy instrument of death. It doesn't help that the unit is carved in the shape of a bearded gnome, either. When all is said and done, and the killer is revealed, the particulars of the murders become puzzling: So, apparently the victims just laid there and allowed themselves to be wooden phallused to death? Nearly all of the on-screen carnage is displayed through after-reveals, none of which reveal much of anything, so this can't really be recommended to fans of the classic '70s Italian slasher movement. And since we've already established that there's no suspense (the killer practically has the word "psychotic" carved on their forehead), fans of classic thrillers won't find a winner here. (It's worth noting that the trailer advertises this piece as an adult character study of sorts, with only one hint of murders taking place in the film, so the giallo aspects in Ursula were apparently considered irrelevant even to the film-makers). Which leaves a question far more disturbing than this film: why would anyone pay twenty bucks to preserve The Sister Of Ursula in their DVD library? That one, I can't answer. Besides, I got my copy for around seven bucks, and I'm fairly confident I can get at least that much when I sell this piece of crap back.

HumanoidOfFlesh Barbara Magnolfi plays Ursula,who along with her sister Dagmar checks into a beautiful hotel by the sea in sunny Italy.Soon the guests start to be murdered by an unseen assailant with a dildo.Ursula,being a touch neurotic due to the trauma of her fathers recent death has a bad feeling about the hotel and some of the guests,especially the shady Fillipo,drug addict boyfriend of the hotels resident cabaret star Stella Shining.I must admit that I'm a fan of super sleazy Italian giallos from 70's like "Giallo a Venezia" or "Play Motel",however "La Sorella di Ursula" is the worst of the bunch.The soft-core sex scenes are quite steamy,each one followed by a murder.Still the film is poorly acted and made.Give it a look,only if you are a fan of Italian sleaze.Enzo Millioni went on to direct only two more films after "La Sorella di Ursula" the most notable being "Fuga Dalla Morte"(1989),one of the five films that Lucio Fulci supervised and used the footage from it in "Cat in a Brain".

The_Void Well, it's safe to say that The Curse of Ursula isn't the greatest Giallo ever made, but there's plenty of sex and sleaze, and the whole thing is at least enjoyable. The Curse of Ursula came rather late on in the Giallo cycle - in fact, it had pretty much dried up by the time this film came along, and as such; it would seem that writer-director Enzo Milioni was extremely keen to put as much sex and nudity into the film as possible to ensure that people would watch it; and while this sort of stuff isn't really what I watch Giallo for, it doesn't go amiss in a film such as this, which has little in the way of a plot. As the title suggests, the film focuses on a woman called Ursula. Along with her sister Dagmar, she finds herself at a hotel, where the sisters are looking for their mother, believing she has a right to some inheritance left by their father. However, a vicious psychopath, who uses a dildo to murder his (female) victims has also taken up residence at the hotel, and begins dispatching of everyone who has sex...I had heard that this film was particularly sordid, and while I can certainly see why that is said, I have to say I was expecting more from it...though admittedly, I probably do watch a bit too much of this stuff! Sex fuelled Giallo's got more common towards the end of the cycle, which is unfortunate as the style of the earlier films was lost. As well as the sex, this film also features some pretty gruesome death scenes, which is nice but it does seem like director Enzo Milioni (with his first feature) is trying to force the film down the audiences throats a little bit as everything is completely over the top. The plot takes a backseat to the sex and gore, and typically it is a rather dull affair. There isn't much to it after the foundations are laid down, and while the twist ending isn't too bad; I have to say I didn't really care about it. There is some style in the film, the way we only see the killer's eyes, for example, shows some attempt to build atmosphere, but overall; if you're looking for a great Giallo, you really shouldn't track this one down!