A fog shrouded countryside, swinging sixties outfits, counterculture attitudes and creepy crypts. These are the elements of ‘They’ve Changed Faces’, a novel vampire film that conflates the old myths of vampirism with the policies of capitalism and comes up with a new meaning for the term ‘bloodsucker’! Alberto Valle (Giuliano Disperati) works for Avia Motors. He is informed one day that he has an appointment to meet with the company’s owner, Giovanni Nosferatu (Adolfo Celi), at his villa in the mountains. Arriving there, he finds it to be it is a strange place, very cold and without the normal woodland sounds of animals. Meeting Noseferatu, he’s quickly offered the job of CEO of Avia Motors. But a bit of investigating soon turns up a nursery full of babies, a file with complete information about his entire life and a tomb for Nosferatu with a birthdate of 1801 and no date of death. But his scariest discovery is yet to come. The ‘Board Of Directors’ meeting which includes members from all walks of society (including the church) with a plan to merchandise LSD to the masses and to rebrand ecologically polluted detergent as Clean Water. Nosferatu is not only a biological vampire, but an industrial one as well. By controlling production, supermarkets, infrastructure, newspapers, the police and the clergy, he sucks the life blood of society in a very chilling manner. .DVD EXTRA “They've Changed Faces” - The original theatrical trailer"Behind The Faces” - A slideshow featuring some of the advertising material used to promote the film
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Intriguing
Corrado Farina was once a copywriter in advertising before he began to direct his own commercials. He moved on to direct documentaries as well as two feature films — Baba Yaga and this strange vampire film. After this, he mainly worked on documentaries and wrote novels. That’s a shame, because both movies are pretty good.Farina referred to this as a conceptual movie. It concerns a man who is given a promotion at the car company that he works for. However, that promotion comes from a place and a person that he didn’t expect.This film was influenced by German philosopher Herbert Marcuse and his critique of capitalism and communism One-Dimensional Man. In this story, consumerism is a form of social control, just like vampirism. Nosferatu is still out there, sucking blood, but now he’s being much more polite about it — he’s Adolfo Celi playing Giovanni Nosferatu and not Max Schreck.In the modern world, the vampires use advertising — a subject that Farina obviously knew plenty about — and business to control their victims. There are even Harkers and Van Helsings on the Nosferatu payroll now. And instead of draining blood from their necks, Giovanni derives pleasure from shooting targets that moan with each shot.Co-writer Giulio Berruti would go on to direct Killer Nun if you’re interested in playing seven degrees of giallo and Italian genre filmmaking with me. Let’s keep the game moving — Geraldine Hooper, who plays Nosferantu’s androgynous secretary, was also in Deep Red and Emmanuelle in Soho.You have to love a movie where business meetings take on the sinister trappings of the occult ritual. The symbols may have become logos and the mantras may have become concept statements, but the intent is so much the same.
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