Lamberto Bava's IL MAESTRO DEL TERRORE is a balls-up

Golf balls vanish while loos mysteriously overflow with blood in this barmy TV film.
What we have here is another movie-within-a-movie premise which was so popular in the late 80's/early 90's - MASSACRE, A CAT IN THE BRAIN also came around the same time.
Thomas Arana (Soavi's LA CHIESA, DERAILED with Van Damme) is Vincent Omen(sic), a cocky Italian horror film director. He owns a posh villa, has an icy beauty of a wife and a silly daughter. Vincent is also a keen golf player. More on the subject of balls later...

IL MAESTRO DEL TERRORE begins with Omen directing a scene which looks a lot like a scene from some typical Lamberto Bava made-for-TV movie. Vincent is unhappy with the way the episode turns out, he ridicules the make-up effects and than fires his old-time collaborator and screenwriter, played by David "Stagefright" Brandon (I love this guy). Later that night Brandon shows up at Vincent's secluded mansion (accompanied by some failed actor who looks like Claudio Simonetti) and begins to terrorize Vincent and his family.

David Brandon as Paul Hilary,
a scorned screenwriter out for revenge.

Arana's daughter freaking out at
the sight of some gooey Stivaletti SFX.

Dardano Sacchetti devised a script full of twists, each successive one undermining and contradicting previous events. Thus, all credibility is quickly lost but some entertainment value comes from the sheer ridiculousness of the whole thing. It's like having that old "it was all a dream" ending every five minutes.

No, the girl isn't vomiting - the toilet is!
Time to call Joe the Plumber...

No,- daddy gets there first!

Questionable fashions, dodgy acting and plentiful film references are abound in IL MAESTRO DEL TERRORE. Names of Henri-Georges Clouzot and Stephen King are dropped.
Lamberto also includes self-references. In Arana's house there's a room where props from his horror films are displayed. There one can spot the puppet monster 'Menelik' from DEMONS 2 and also the puppet dog used for transformation effect from that film. Even Vincent's daughter's dog is called Demon(or maybe Daemon)!

But the most obvious visual reference would have to be balls - a family trademark.
Remember that rolling apple from Mario Bava's BARON BLOOD, ghost with a bouncing ball from KILL, BABY KILL!, beads from a torn necklace showering down the floor in Lamberto's debut MACABRE and the freaky, tennis ball-obsessed culprit of A BLADE IN THE DARK? Well, IL MAESTRO DEL TERRORE fits into that pattern nicely with its repeated imagery of golf balls! It's pretty unsubtle this time, especially towards the finale, which has to be seen to be believed.

No fucking comment.

If Italian Horror was a city, IL MAESTRO DEL TERRORE would be situated right on the outskirts. It's not essential stuff by any means.
Still, those already too familiar with 'via Fulci' and 'piazza Argento' might venture to seek this one out. Even just to see a dummy vomiting golf balls... or to watch Thomas Arana put his hand down a toilet bowl!

Gotta love those endings on a freeze-frame!
Hmm,'Dialogue o'coach' - that's a fun job, I bet.