Joe D'Amato (Aristide Massaccesi 15 dicembre 1936 - 23 gennaio 1999), pseudonimo di Aristide Massaccesi, è stato un regista, sceneggiatore, attore, direttore della fotografia e produttore cinematografico italiano.
Durante la sua carriera, Massaccesi ha utilizzato molti altri pseudonimi oltre a D'Amato, il più celebre, tra i quali vale la pena ricordare Drago Floyd, Peter Newton, David Hills, Alexander Borsky, Dario Donati o ancora Sarah Asproon; la lista è lunga quasi quanto i suoi film. Riguardo al suo pseudonimo più celebre, c'è da dire che venne creato ad hoc dal produttore Edmondo Amati,su
imitazione della allora nuova generazione di registi italo-americani, Martin Scorsese su tutti, per il film per bambini Giubbe rosse 1975, ispirandosi, strano a dirsi, al nome del tipografo, tale Giovanni D'Amato, che aveva stampato il calendario presente nel suo ufficio. Come Aristide Massaccesi firmò un solo film: il thriller La Morte Sorrise All'Assassino (Sette Strani Cadaveri) 1972.
La sua carriera è un interminabile elenco di b-movie, soft core, horror, gore, fantasy, porno realizzati dalla fine degli anni '60 fino alla prematura scomparsa. Dei soft core va ricordata la serie dedicata ad Emanuelle, per quanto non iniziata da lui, su imitazione della Emmanuelle francese, quì scritta con una sola 'm' in quanto l'altro nome marchio registrato con protagonista la bellissima attrice e modella indonesiana, che aveva avuto un piccolo ruolo in Emmanuelle 2: L'Antivergine 1974, Laura Gemser. Questi film, per quanto di scarsissimo livello artistico, sono in tutto il mondo assai più celebrati e conosciuti della serie originale.
Una vita nel cinema, senza dubbio uno dei più prolifici registi italiani, avendo diretto quasi 200 film. Dotato di ottima abilità tecnica e produttiva - era capace di girare in tempi molto stretti a costi decisamente bassi - e grande versatilità: una qualità che gli ha consentito di esplorare ogni tipo di film, ogni genere o sottogenere, inventando e reinventando filoni del cinema popolare.
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Joe D'Amato (born Aristide Massaccesi on December 15, 1936 , in Rome, Italy, died January 23, 1999) was an Italian director of numerous horror and hardcore pornography titles. He is regarded as a master of Italian exploitation film. Fans of the genre widely hail him as the Ed Wood of Italy, while other fans refer to him as "The Evil Ed Wood"; those who use this term explain that, while Wood was interested in crafting art, D'Amato was more concerned with turning a profit, often disregarding any artistic integrity. In addition, while D'Amato and Wood's films are often similar in their poor acting, bad special effects, and cheap sets, d'Amato's films are considerably darker, revolving around nihilistic and misanthropic tones and generally possessing what one reviewer referred to as "a contempt for all mankind."
D'Amato began his career as an operator, often working for Demofilo Fidani. His technical ability made him valuable on low-budget movies. He directed his first movie, a spaghetti western called Scansati. a Trinità arriva Eldorado, in 1972. He used a variety of aliases before settling in 1975 for Joe D'Amato, which became his better-known pseudonym. His earlier films included westerns, thrillers, and softcore erotic movies.
D'Amato's somewhat unscrupulous methods (he often stole stock shots from other films and inserted them into his own as part of the narrative), the shocking content of some of his movies (one of his Emmanuelle films is a softcore porn film centered around human cannibalism) and his own penchant for creating publicity around himself (one of his films, Antropophagus, features a monstrous cannibal eating a - fake - human fetus, a shocking that made the film's) resulted in D'Amato's fame as an exploitative director. He worked under innumerable aliases during his lifetime, sometimes even selling scripts using a female name. Because of his aliases, it is believed that there are still "undiscovered" D'Amato films, that is, films in circulation that he wrote or directed under an unrecognized pseudonym. It is widely believed that only a portion of his pornographic films have been identified as being his work.
Those who knew D'Amato have said in interviews that, though he enjoyed directing, he was more concerned with making money than any kind of merit his films might have had. This is evidenced by the many "knockoff" films he made:
* One of his earliest projects was a western about a vengeful cowboy called For One Thousand Dollars per Day, went into production a few months after the success of fellow Italian Sergio Leone's film, For a Few Dollars More.
* In 1981, D'Amato released Caligula 2, which he marketed as the sequel to 1979's Caligula, even using similar poster art.
* Only months after the release of Conan the Barbarian in 1982, D'Amato wrote, directed, and released Ator the Invincible, about a Scandinavian barbarian who goes on an epic quest against fantasy monsters to save his beloved; two years later, when Conan the Destroyer was released, D'Amato quickly filmed and released Ator the Blademaster, which, while closely resembling Conan, also contained several clips of other movies which D'Amato had stolen and inserted, among them Where Eagles Dare. When it was announced shortly thereafter that there would be no more Conan films, d'Amato announced there would be no more Ator films.
A popular (and, as of 2005, unconfirmed) internet rumor holds that D'Amato suffered the fatal heart attack that killed him while filming a pornographic film in his home.
D'Amato had one son, Daniele Massaccesi. Daniele moved to the United States, where he entered into a lucrative career as a cameraman, working on such films as Cold Mountain, Hannibal, and Kingdom of Heaven.
Joe D'Amato wrote and directed three of the four Ator movies. One of the movies, Cave Dwellers, was featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
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