They're hit and miss. Most of the appeal is in the perfect framing of gore. Seeing a hand get sliced in a Argento film is ten times creepier than seeing someone get dissected in a Hostel film, due to the pacing, editing, filtering, and framing of the shot. If you like spine-tingling, creepy gore more than gratuitous "violence for violence sake" you should check out some of the classics. Character and plot usually play second fiddle to audio and visual style. Italian horror is an aquired taste, but it'll fuck with your psyche more than most of the derived, hack-job bullshit of today's day and age of CGI and pointless shock.

Example: