Directing

Domiziano Cristopharo

Born 1974-06-22 · Rome, Lazio, Italy

Domiziano Cristopharo, an independent film director from Rome, has been the first Italian director in years to try and revive the erotic/horror film genre.  Four years ago he obtained enormous audience and critical acclaim with HOUSE OF FLESH MANNEQUINS (starring international horror actor Giovanni Lombardo Radice).   HOUSE OF FLESH MANNEQUINS won six international awards and eight international film festival presentations. Domiziano Cristopharo has frequently been compared as a perfect mix between Fellini and Dario Argento: Cristopharo's aesthetic has a vintage quality: he is simultaneously extreme in style, shocking, and yet classic. ​ To those who define him "pornographic," he responds by quoting Picasso: "Art is never chaste and we should keep her away from pure ignorants. It it were chaste, it wouldn't be art at all."   In his career he worked also with/for: Carlo De Mejo (City of living Dead), Maria Rosaria Omaggio (Nightmare city), Ruggero Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust), Frank Laloggia (Lady in white), Venantino Venantini (Ladyhawke), Giovanni Lombardo Radice/John Morghen (Cannibal Ferox), Mariagrazia Cucinotta (El dia de la bestia), Stefano Cassetti (Roberto Succo), Romano Scavolini (Nightmare in a damaged Brain) ​​Director   2014 E.N.D. (episode REVENIENS) 2014 THE TRANSPARENT WOMAN 2014 P.O.E. 3 "Pieces Of Eldritch" 2014 DOLL SYNDROME 2013 PHANTASMAGORIA (episode "a snake with a steel tongue") 2012 LOVECRAFT'S 2 Left Arms  2012 Red Krokodil​ 2012 BELLEROFONTE 2012 P.O.E. 2 Project of Evil (episode "TARR&FETHER) 2011 SHOCK -  My Abstraction of Death 2011 P.O.E. Poetry of Eerie (episode "Maelzel's Chess-Automaton") 2010 HYDE'S SECRET NIGHTMARE 2010 BLOODY SIN - Oltretomba 2009 The MUSEUM of WONDERS 2008 HOUSE of Flesh Mannequins

Acting credits

Hyde's Secret Nightmare poster
4.5

An erotic horror movie dedicated to Joe D Amato, Hyde's Secret Nightmare combines the two genres and mixes them in equal parts. Cross-cut erotic and horror scenes are kept together by a thread of dramatic force bordering on obsession, paranoia, phobia, perversion, and lack of self-acceptance. Everything unfolds in an extreme world where sex seems the only way to attain a state of well-being.

Hyde's Secret Nightmare

2012

The House Guest poster
7.0

Moving into a new apartment might seem like a good idea at first, but as Daniel is about to find out, it is not always the case.

The House Guest

2020

3 poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

3

2026

Phallacies poster
5.0

11 international directors, 11 short stories and one protagonist: the PENIS. The penis as you have never seen it, feared it, conceived it, dreamed of it... in the first DICKSPLOITATION movie ever!

Phallacies

2024

Penny Pinchers 2: Scenes from the Underground poster
NR

Go deeper and darker into the world of micro-budget horror as some of the genre's leading underground creators discuss their craft.

Penny Pinchers 2: Scenes from the Underground

2018

Not for the Faint of Heart poster
NR

A documentary about the extreme films released from the 1970's-today with interviews from the creators.

Not for the Faint of Heart

2021

Reveries of a Solitary Walker poster
5.0

Three characters in three different ages are united by a dream of freedom and a small masterpiece of literature. A journey through the mysterious and timeless aspirations, sufferings and 'Reveries' of a poet, of a young student and a child lost in the woods.

Reveries of a Solitary Walker

2015

Beyond Horror: The History and Sub-Culture of Red Films poster
7.0

Delves into the history of the most extreme and shocking films that have ever been made. chronicles the timeline of Red Films: those films that are too extreme for the mainstream and historically have been circulated via the bootleg circuit.

Beyond Horror: The History and Sub-Culture of Red Films

2019

Behind the camera

Analogies poster
NR

A daring horror-anthology film built from seven segments, each by a different director, unified under the theme of taboo, the body and the repressed. The collection turns its gaze toward the most demonised and fetishised frontier of bodily representation — the anus — and uses this “hidden” territory to explore anxiety, identity, desire, repression and liberation. The stories vary in tone and style—some digital-age allegory, some dream-like psychological journeys, some extreme body-horror—but all form a choral fresco: each segment maintains its individual voice while entering into a dialogue with the others. The project positions itself not simply as provocation but as a political, aesthetic dissection of the obscene, asking where cinema’s boundaries lie, and what is suppressed, shown or revealed.

Analogies

2026

Unburied Tales poster
NR

In a obituary, the keeper tells to the mortuary make up artist, the reasons of the deaths of 4 bodies... one in particular seems to be unbelievable...

Unburied Tales

Unburied Tales poster
NR

In a obituary, the keeper tells to the mortuary make up artist, the reasons of the deaths of 4 bodies... one in particular seems to be unbelievable...

Unburied Tales

Poern poster
3.1

Four experimental short movies, based on the following Poe tales and poems, are told: “Alone”, “Song”, “The Black Cat”, “William Wilson” and “Ligeia” (which is combined with another Poe tale, “Morella”). Each sequence is introduced by the sensual and international PornStar Roberta Gemma, who also appears (as a 3D generated character) in the last segment.

Poern

2015

The Obsessed poster
4.2

A body horror freak-out based on the manic descent of Bjork’s stalker.

The Obsessed

2019

The Obsessed poster
4.2

A body horror freak-out based on the manic descent of Bjork’s stalker.

The Obsessed

2019

The Obsessed poster
4.2

A body horror freak-out based on the manic descent of Bjork’s stalker.

The Obsessed

2019

La perdición poster
5.5

The film is about American serial killer Robert Hansen, known in the media as the “Butcher Baker”, who abducted, raped and murdered at least 17 women between 1971 and 1983.

La perdición

2021

Justine poster
2.8

Based on the depraved and libertine eroticism of the Marquis de Sade's "Justine or The Misfortunes of Virtue." A teenager who uses all social methods to preserve her virtue finds instead only incitement to vice.

Justine

2023

Torment poster
5.1

Freely inspired to the GACY's torture insane world, this film promise to tell what in other movies no one had the courage to push the limits! A young man wakes up after a one night stand and finds himself in the clutches of one of the most notorious serial killers to ever stalk the earth.

Torment

2017

Torment poster
5.1

Freely inspired to the GACY's torture insane world, this film promise to tell what in other movies no one had the courage to push the limits! A young man wakes up after a one night stand and finds himself in the clutches of one of the most notorious serial killers to ever stalk the earth.

Torment

2017

XXX: Dark Web poster
4.0

XXX DARK WEB is the new controversial anthology movie directed by five of the most extreme international contemporary directors.

XXX: Dark Web

2020

XXX: Dark Web poster
4.0

XXX DARK WEB is the new controversial anthology movie directed by five of the most extreme international contemporary directors.

XXX: Dark Web

2020

XXX: Dark Web poster
4.0

XXX DARK WEB is the new controversial anthology movie directed by five of the most extreme international contemporary directors.

XXX: Dark Web

2020

XXX: Dark Web poster
4.0

XXX DARK WEB is the new controversial anthology movie directed by five of the most extreme international contemporary directors.

XXX: Dark Web

2020

No artwork available
NR

An unsettling journey into the darkest corners of human desire. EROS & ARTHANATOS, directed by Domiziano Cristopharo and Cristo Gil Diaz, is an unfiltered documentary exploring the taboo world of necrophilia. Through historical accounts, psychological insights, and cinematic representations, the film dissects the intersection of love, death, and obsession. Blending expert interviews, archival footage, and artistic interpretations, EROS & ARTHANATOS challenges conventional morality, delving into the disturbing yet fascinating realm where eroticism and mortality collide.

Eros & ARThanatos

2025

No artwork available
NR

An unsettling journey into the darkest corners of human desire. EROS & ARTHANATOS, directed by Domiziano Cristopharo and Cristo Gil Diaz, is an unfiltered documentary exploring the taboo world of necrophilia. Through historical accounts, psychological insights, and cinematic representations, the film dissects the intersection of love, death, and obsession. Blending expert interviews, archival footage, and artistic interpretations, EROS & ARTHANATOS challenges conventional morality, delving into the disturbing yet fascinating realm where eroticism and mortality collide.

Eros & ARThanatos

2025

7 Sins poster
4.0

7 Sins is divided into seven segments, each one unique in its voice, acting, story, and style. While the seven deadly sins are cemented in Catholic Theology and are always the same, the interpretation by any single person is always different, and this assemblage is no exception. This film uses the themes within its subtext and introduces, and then wildly perverts, the punishments associated with the 7 Deadly Sins. The overall atmosphere is one of uneasiness that, in addition to a fair amount of disturbing visuals, is amplified by its pulse-pounding soundtrack.

7 Sins

2020

HOUSE 6 poster
NR

Freely Inspired by the murders of the most infamous serial killer of Australia: Katherine Mary Knight Katherine Mary Knight (born 24 October 1955) is an Australian murderer and the first woman in the country's history to be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. She was convicted for the murder of her partner, John Charles Thomas Price, in February 2000, and is currently imprisoned at the Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre in New South Wales. Knight stabbed Price to death, skinned him, and then put his skin on a meat hook, which she had recently installed. She then cooked his head and parts of his body with the intention of feeding them to Price's adult children, but was stopped by police after an employee of his went to check on him after he had not been at work that day.

HOUSE 6

Just a Child poster
2.0

A family moves into their new home, which proves to be evil, resulting in the possession of the teenage son by the ghost of the father.

Just a Child

2019

Red Krokodil poster
5.1

A man, heavily addicted to Krokodil (a powerful synthetic drug with devastating effects), suddenly finds himself alone in a post-nuclear city, which in appearance is very similar to Chernobyl. Reality and hallucinations begin to mix as the physical decay of man proceeds hand in hand with the internal one.

Red Krokodil

2014

Red Krokodil poster
5.1

A man, heavily addicted to Krokodil (a powerful synthetic drug with devastating effects), suddenly finds himself alone in a post-nuclear city, which in appearance is very similar to Chernobyl. Reality and hallucinations begin to mix as the physical decay of man proceeds hand in hand with the internal one.

Red Krokodil

2014

4 Halloween poster
10.0

A Serial Killer, a Witch, a Mad scientist and a girl followed by zombies cross their paths during the halloween night

4 Halloween

2023

Hyde's Secret Nightmare poster
4.5

An erotic horror movie dedicated to Joe D Amato, Hyde's Secret Nightmare combines the two genres and mixes them in equal parts. Cross-cut erotic and horror scenes are kept together by a thread of dramatic force bordering on obsession, paranoia, phobia, perversion, and lack of self-acceptance. Everything unfolds in an extreme world where sex seems the only way to attain a state of well-being.

Hyde's Secret Nightmare

2012