by Eleanor Mannikka
synopsis
This horror film concerns Umberto (Hanns Zischler) as a zipped-up, buttoned-down, formal leader in the Communist Party in Italy who would benefit by relaxation therapy. Underneath this exterior lies a man obsessed with blood, a fixation that is first fed when he spends some eerie days in his family's abandoned mansion reading his grandfather's diaries. The obsession gets its second infusion when Umberto's girlfriend Marcella (Gioia Maria Scola) is bitten on her breast by a bat one day, awakening a hidden desire in Umberto. Anemia is stylistically fashioned after comic books and is often tongue-in-cheek.
