Joe D'Amato

Joe D'Amato
D'Amato at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival
Born
Aristide Massaccesi

(1936-12-15)15 December 1936
Rome, Kingdom of Italy
Died23 January 1999(1999-01-23) (aged 62)
Monterotondo, Rome, Italy
Other namesSee below
Occupations
  • Film director
  • film producer
  • cinematographer
  • screenwriter
  • actor
Years active1961–1999

Aristide Massaccesi (15 December 1936 – 23 January 1999), known professionally as Joe D'Amato, was an Italian film director, producer, cinematographer, and screenwriter who worked in many genres (westerns, decamerotici, peplum, war films, swashbuckler, comedy, fantasy, postapocalyptic film, and erotic thriller) but is best known for his horror, erotic and adult films.[1][2][3][4]

D'Amato worked in the 1950s as electric and set photographer, in the 1960s as camera operator, and from 1969 onwards as cinematographer. Starting in 1972, he directed and co-directed around 200 films under numerous pseudonyms, regularly acting as cinematographer as well.[citation needed] Starting in the early 1980s, D'Amato produced many of his own and other directors' genre films through the companies he founded or co-founded, the best known being Filmirage. From 1979 to 1982 and from 1993 to 1999, D'Amato also produced and directed about 120 adult films.

Among his best known erotic films are his five entries into the Black Emanuelle series of films starring Laura Gemser (1976–1978)[5] and his horror/pornography crossover films Erotic Nights of the Living Dead and Porno Holocaust (both shot in Santo Domingo in 1979).[6] In the horror genre, he is above all remembered for his films Beyond the Darkness (1979) and Antropophagus (1980), which have gained cult status, as well as Absurd (1981).[7][8]

  1. ^ Lentz III 2000, p. 57.
  2. ^ Lentz III 2000, p. 58.
  3. ^ Normanton, Peter (2005). The Mammoth Book of Slasher Movies. McFarland. p. 39. ISBN 9781780330419. Retrieved 23 October 2017.
  4. ^ Riazzoli, Mirko (2017). A Chronology of the Cinema Volume 1 From the pioneers to 1960. Youcanprint. p. 345. ISBN 9788892685482.
  5. ^ The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 11, edited by Stephen Jones. Carroll & Graf. 2000. p. 558.
  6. ^ Mendik, Xavier (2004). Black Sex, Bad Sex: Monstrous Ethnicity in the Black Emanuelle Films; in: Alternative Europe: Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945. Wallflower Press. p. 147. ISBN 9781903364932. Retrieved 23 October 2017.
  7. ^ Lupi 2004, pp. 21–22.
  8. ^ Hutchings, Peter (2009). The A to Z of Horror Cinema. Scarecrow Press. p. 216. ISBN 9780810870505. Retrieved 28 February 2019.