LENZI, UMBERTO

(1931-)

Screenwriter and director. A cult director working mostly in genre films (and under a number of aliases, Humphrey Humbert, Harry Kirkpatrick, and Hank Milestone among them), Lenzi abandoned legal studies at university in order to train in film at theCentro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. Having worked as assistant director on Domenico Paolella's pirate fantasy,Il terrore dei mari(Guns of the Black Witch, 1961), Lenzi directed his own female pirate adventure,Le avventure di Mary Read(Queen of the Seas, 1961), which was followed by a host of other swashbuckling adventure fantasies such asSandokan, la tigre della Mompracem(Sandokan, the Great, 1963) andIpirati della malesia(The Pirates of Malaysia, 1964).AfterAttentato ai tre grandi(Desert Commandos, 1967), a desert war drama portraying an attempt by German commandos to assassinate Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin at their meeting in Casablanca, several spy films, and a number ofspaghetti Westerns, Lenzi made the first of his erotic psychological thrillers,Orgasmo(Orgasm, but released in the United States asParanoia, 1968), followed byCost dolce...cost perversa(So Sweet...So Perverse, 1969). In the 1970s he became particularly renowned for his mastery of the police-crime thriller genre while also achieving international cult status withIl paese del sesso selvaggio(Sacrifice!1972), the film that launched the cannibalhorrorcycle in Italy, to which Lenzi would contribute several classics of the genre, includingMangiati vivi(Eaten Alive, 1980) and the notoriousCannibal ferox(Make Them Die Slowly, 1981), advertised as "the most violent film ever made!"

In the 1980s he continued to dabble in most of the major genres but came back to prominence with the voodoo horrorDemoni 3(Black Demons, 1991). His last film was the police thrillerHornsby and Rodriguez—sfida criminale(Mean Tricks, 1992).