It's hard to know what to make of this gothic giallo from Romano Scavolini. As a murder-mystery, it fails miserably. As a gothic horror, likewise. As an examination of the lingering effects of childhood grief, or of what happens when cracks appear in the tenuous structures of civilisation to which we all subscribe, it's also a failure. But as a film, it's a qualified success.

A young girl-the titular Mariale-watches her father gun down her mother and a nude lover in a countryside idyll. The father then turns the gun on himself. Years later, Mariale lives in her family's crumbling castle in near-captivity, sedated by her husband Paolo and their creepy servant Osvaldo. She manages to break the lock on one of the castle's telephones and dictates a telegram, to be sent to several old friends, inviting them to visit the castle. Despite Osvaldo's initial efforts to repel the visitors, Paolo decides to let them come in, hoping to persuade them to leave at the earliest opportunity. After taking a tour of the castle, the group play an after-dinner game of Mariale's choosing, which revolves around ideas of submission and domination. They also appear to have a bit of drink taken, and things very quickly get messy, with the already-unlikable visitors revealing even more reasons to hate them. Then, finally, they start being offed one by one, until the not-very-shocking, not-very-grisly truth is revealed.

This is a pretty uneven film, although considering it was made by the same man who gave us Nightmares in a Damaged Brain a few years later, that's not really surprising. As stated above, it doesn't really succeed on any specific level, but it is worth a watch nonetheless. The cast is pretty top-notch, with Ivan Rassimov notable in that he plays by far the most sympathetic character. Maybe 'sympathetic' isn't quite the right word, but he's willing to call the rest of them out for being the unlikable assholes that they are, and he's the only character who seems capable of something approaching rational thought (ironic given that the rest of them refer to him as 'Poet' in a snidey manner). His slamming of attempted rapist Jo's "idiotic talk and dirty kisses" is shady as fuck, too.

SPOLIERS! Mariale, who is simultaneously the main protagonist and antagonist, reacts slightly differently to Jo's attempted rape of his girlfriend Mercedes-she walks right up to him and kisses him. She's set up initially as a victim-we witness the traumatic childhood murder-suicide of her parents, and then discover her years later, apparently held prisoner by a callous husband and creepy servant. We sympathise with her attempts to avoid sedation, and cheer at the success of her cry for help, achieved after she breaks the flimsy lock on one of the telephones. Why she didn't just call the police should be the first question asked by the discerning viewer, who before long will have arrived at the incontrovertible conclusion that she must be guilty of the series of murders, despite her status as possibly the most likely suspect. 

NO SPOILERS! I say'before long'; that's not strictly true. The murders don't actually begin until 55 minutes have elapsed (if you discount the prologue killings). To make up for this, we're treated to a quick succession of kills for the next twenty minutes of so, none of which are top of the range set-pieces, although a dog-mauling scene is imaginatively shot with some interesting point-of-view camerawork, which doesn't intercut that well with the scene's non-POV footage. The very first murder is almost casually introduced, in a sequence which cuts between it and some softcore lesbianism, all scored to some light-hearted muzak (odd, as most of the rest of the score is nice and powerful). This-along with the lack of mystery at the heart of the plot-is one of the chief giallo failings of the film, which before that point has veered variously between gothic horror (never quite crossing into fully-fledged G.H. though) and bizarro satirical/social commentary-laden drama.

The exchanges between Gustavo and his black girlfriend Semy seem to exist to criticise a what would nowadays be referred to as 'toxic masculinity' (and racism), but on the other hand Semy doesn't help herself with some of her scatty behaviour and utterances. Scavolini also can't resist including a de rigeur 'exotic dance' scene for Semy either. Rassimov's Massimo, with whom we're most closely aligned, criticises Gustavo's behaviour (and, justifiably, that of most of the guests), which does suggest that this is one of the more socially-aware and progressive gialli. The game played post-dinner seems designed to expose the truth about human nature, specifically the selfishness and immorality which lurks just beneath the surface of respectable people with their respectable behaviour. The point is somewhat laboured, though, and could have been made in a more measured manner throughout the film, which instead moves clunkily from sequence to sequence in a stilted 'gothic scene to social commentary to murder set-piece' manner. There's a great opportunity for some early killing when the guests go exploring the tunnels in the castle's cellars-the separation of characters being a pre-requisite for murders in a single-location mystery-but Scavolini curiously passes it up, no doubt because his A to B to C formula hadn't yet reached K for Killing.

The existence of a thruple (a polygamous word for a three-person couple, keep up you squares) also hints at a progressive viewpoint, although this is undercut by the already-detailed rapey behaviour of one of the thruple's males, Jo. The other male in the triangle, Sebastiano, also covers himself in unglory when he chooses to covertly observe Jo's assault rather than intervene. In fact, Gustavo (who looks confusingly like Sebastiano) behaves in much the same manner when he stands idly by as his gf Semy tries to escape a horde of scorpions in the animal room. In both instances Rassimov's Massimo comes to the rescue, with Mariale gliding in after him to emphasise the increasing control which she's exerting on proceedings. The film could probably be seen as a treatise on the arrogance and underlying cowardice of the male, and the ability of the female to thrive when she escapes the domineering influence of the male, up to a point (the point being the final ten minutes). This interrogation of gender stereotypes is present right from the beginning, with Mariale's fully-clothed mother picnicing with a fully-nude dude.

SPOILERS! As well as gender stereotypes and behaviour dynamics, the film also somewhat investigates the effects of grief. I say 'somewhat' because while it does show that traumatic events of the past can exert an influence over present-day matters, with Mariale donning her mother's death dress to literally wear the events of the past on her sleeve, the execution-specifically, Mariale's executions-isn't exactly a nuanced representation of the effects of grief. But saying that, this is a giallo, not a Dogme film, and past traumas pretty much exist solely to provide a backstory/motive for a killer, and this film does scratch the surface of the topic more than most. It kind of has to, though, given that  unlike something like, say, Bird with the Crystal Plumage, we know the identity of the trauma victim from the start, so they're never far from position numero one in terms of suspects. 

NO SPOILERS! To sum up, this is a very flawed but somewhat interesting film. It's stylishly-shot (far, far, far more so than Nightmares), with the lighting on one shot which has the characters descending a staircase by candlelight being particularly impressive (most Italian films adopted a crude 'shine a torch at the actor with the candle' approach to lighting such sequences). There are also several stylish swooping camera moves, particularly during the debauched after-dinner behaviour, with the suggestion that the film is 'looking down' on its characters in more ways than one (specifically, in two ways). The music for this sequence is a thinly-veiled facsimile of In a Gadda Da Vida, a song which inspired more than one Italian knock-off. As for Scavolini, the jury's still out on him as far as I'm concerned, especially knowing the bizarre film he'd go on to create nine years later. Nightmares is either the work of a flawed genius who's decided to lower himself to making trash, or the work of someone who thinks he's a genius and has lowered himself to making trash. Or maybe it's just the work of a not-very-talented filmmaker who's prone to occasional flashes of eccentricity/inspiration. A White Dress for Mariale brings us no closer to solving that mystery, so kudos to Scavo for at least giving us one tough-to-crack puzzle.

This is definitely more of a supernatural gothic horror than a giallo, in as much as it is a supernatural gothic horror film which happens to feature two kills early on in which we cannot see the killer's face. But, it's usually listed as part of the giallo cannon, so here we go.

A young, incredibly beautiful and apparently dead woman is found in the wreckage of a crashed carriage in 1909 somewhere in Germany or Austria or Switzerland or Luxembourg. Despite being clinically deceased (no heartbeat; doesn't react when her eyeball is stabbed) she is to all intents and purposes 'alive', but cannot remember her name or from where she has come. A clue comes in the form of a neck pendant reading 'Greta 2006', which also incorporates an old Inca design which apparently was used in reincarnation rituals. Walter von Ravensbruck and his wife Eva, who discovered Greta in the wreckage, take her in and each fall in love with her. After a servant girl and the doctor who examined Greta after the crash are murdered, Eva takes against Greta and walls her into a disused room in the basement of their large house/castle. Mere walls aren't enough to contain an undead Swede however, and Greta returns to wreak havoc on the von Ravensbrucks, including Walter's father Herbert, to whom she was previously married (and to whose wedding Walter-who's about three years younger than his dad-and Eva apparently weren't invited). Will Greta ever find peace, and will the inspector sleepwalking his way through the film finally figure out what's going on?

This is different to most gialli (in that it's not a giallo, but whatevs) because the supernatural idea of a reincarnated woman turns out not to be merely a ruse designed to scare someone to death/into signing over their claim to an estate. This is made fairly explicit early on, in that our first glimpse of Greta is of her corpse laid out and being mourned by her incestuous brother, and it's confirmed when Klaus Kinski's mad doctor (he's not really meant to be mad, but come on-it's Klaus) can't detect a heartbeat and then sticks a pin in her eye to no response. A world in which reincarnation is possible is not really suited to a giallo film, as the threat of death-the bedrock upon which the genre's sense of danger is built-carries less weight if it's not a terminal event, but, as I've said (and will stop saying now), this isn't really a giallo.

We do get a couple of 'faceless killer'-style killings, although the fact that the mystery angle is suddenly dropped after killing number two suggests that the script, which was apparently more of a traditional mystery when first conceived, was adapted somewhat on the fly. From the point where Greta returns from her walled-in tomb we see her cut a swathe through the cast, and we can only assume that she was responsible for the two early murders (although there's a chance that the creepy butler Simeon, who seems to be in on her secret, was the initial killer; not that it really matters). It is notable that the first murder is committed by a shotgun, something rarely utilised in gialli (or slasher films) due to the slightly routine nature of a gunshot killing. D'Amato certainly does his best to sex things up here though, with some inventive, if ludicrously unrealistic, facial make-up effects.

There's a clear Poe influence at play, with cats suddenly becoming prominent right about the time that Eva walls Greta into the room in the basement. Plus, Walter actually resembles Poe fairly closely (and there's a bit of incest thrown in as well, which would no doubt have pleased ol' Edgar).  Greta's role as avenging angel clad in red and black can also be seen as a personification of the Red Death, with her second resurrection being revealed to Eva at a Masque-rade ball. The story is very much a hodgepodge of various fragments of Poe stories, with some gialloey iconagraphy* sprinkled on top, and a single reel diversion into the realm of the sex film (where D'Amato would later reside permanently). The traditional giallo slo-mo flashback, replete with ethereal music and smiling, silent characters recurs throughout; in fact, as much as half of the film is comprised of dialogue-free sequences. 

As a rule, these flashbacks seemed to largely be confined to gialli set in the past (see A White Dress for Mariale and The Murder Clinic), which suggests that filmmakers knew that they were faintly ridiculous, or at least incongruous with standard 1960s/70s behaviour-people then were protesting wars and smoking ganja, not lolloping through meadows smiling like loons. Of course, what passed for 'normal' behaviour, and depictions thereof, in the films c. 1970 are now often derided and mocked by contemporary audiences, who would doubtless find the slo-mo flashback sequences to be doubly guffaw-inducing (and one wonders if audiences in 2050 will chortle away at the films that we unquestioningly lap up as entertainment-quite possible, if people cop on and realise in the interim that Marvel movies are bullshit). 

Trapped in among all the slo-mo frolicking and Poe references there is a meditation on desire and freedom struggling to (ironically) break free. The love triangle which develops could have formed the centrepiece of the film, but instead is limited to the aforementioned sexy sex reel. Greta also gives a heartfelt speech to Walter about how she identifies with his pet birds, as she too feels trapped by her 'owner' (him), to which he responds by laughingly telling her that the bird she has taught to say her name is actually a chap. Men as a whole don't really come off great here, being either leering pervs (Kinski and Luciano Rossi) or sly, shy pervs (Simeon, and Walter to some extent). The women are more forceful, driving the narrative and being responsible for pretty much all the kills (and attempted kills), although man is still in control for the sciencey reincarnation bit. So, this is a world where a male God has control but women have agency.

The film is very stylishly shot, with excellent use of wide-angled lenses, and the soundtrack is fantastic (the opening credits feature possibly my favourite giallo score of all time, with a extremely sparse soundscape punctured by occasional guitar stings). It's definitely D'Amato on top form, and he knew it-it's the only film he ever directed which bore his actual name, Aristide Massaccesi. The stalk-and-slash sequences aren't quite as tautly executed as Argento at his best, and after Greta is unequivocally revealed to be responsible for the killings they become almost choreographed dance sequences, but they're never less than visually arresting. The same goes for the make-up effects which, although frequently ridiculous, very much go for the jugular in every respect. D'Amato also finds an interesting halfway house for his presentation of violence, marrying the quick. incisive cutting of an Argento set piece with the lovingly lingering presentation of gore effects of a Fulci gore effect.

As I think I may have hinted at before, this isn't really a giallo. As with many fringe efforts, if it was made elsewhere in the world it would simply be a supernatural horror film which features two killings in which we're not immediately sure of the killer's identity. Despite the semi-regular presence of a police inspector, there's no real investigation into the murders (indeed, the two 'anonymous' early killings are never mentioned by anyone after they happen), and any mystery that is present in the film surrounds the exact provenance and intentions of Greta. But even this isn't really a mystery-we have a fair sense of what she's about from the start, and nothing that happens is exactly a shocking revelation.** Instead, possibly wisely, D'Amato plays up the incredibly ethereal beauty of Ewa Aulin as she ghosts through the film seducing and destroying. She may not be a giallo killer, but by damn she's certainly a killer gal. And, on that dud note, I'm off to watch Candy.

*AKA eyeconagraphy-witness the violence visited upon Greta's eyeball, as well as the shots of eyes silently observing characters through windows and cracks in doors. 

**There is a semi-twist in the very last shot, although it's undercut slightly with the plethora of questions it raises as to the inspector's general competence and quality of eyesight.