If Mario Bava was the grandfather of the giallo - which I'm not sure anyone has actually said before, but shush - then Dario Argento is its father. Not because he was Mario's son (he wasn't), but because he made this film, and several films like it, which had a profound effect on the direction taken by the filone thereafter.

Sam Dalmas - you all know this already, surely - is a penniless American writer trapped in Rome. His friend Carlo gets him a job writing a booklet about birds, the proceeds from which will be enough to cover his, and his gf's, air fare home. On his way back to his apartment with his paycheck he witnesses an attempted murder in an art gallery, and the police force him to stay in the country as a semi-suspect. Sam begins his own investigation to try and clear his name, and discovers that the scenes he witnessed may be connected with a serial killer targeting young women across Rome. After surviving a couple of assassination attempts, the second of which affords him a clear look at his attacker's face, the police mystifyingly decide that he can leave after all. However,  he's in too deep to give up now, pursuing his investigation to track the origins of a mysterious painting which the killer may have purchased. Ultimately, though, his investigations contribute nothing towards the cracking of the case - it's Carlo who saves the day, thanks to his ornothology prowess. But there's still time for one final, deadly twist...

Argento + Storaro + Morricone = good. This isn't a perfect film, by any means, but there's just something so pleasing about it. Argento would scale greater heights, but this is undeniably his most influential work, as it refocused the filone into the proto-slasher form which dominated the early 1970s, AKA the glory years. Previously there was the odd Bava-esque black gloved killer, but the most influential giallo film previously was The Sweet Body of Deborah (taking its own cue from Les Diaboliques), and gialli tended to be about rich people tricking each other for inheritances. Now, suddenly, the gloves were off (and then put right back on again), as Freudian psychology took hold, and deranged killers, haunted by past events, began to stalk the screen.

I've touched elsewhere on potential generational reasons for this shift (viz. younger directors being willing to address the stain on the national psyche that was WW2), but it's probably fair to say that Argento's bombastic personality and style suited a more graphic, outré style of film more than a twisty-turny rich-people-play-tricks-on-each-other-in-a-villa style of plot. His films take place in the city, where his characters can simultaneously be surrounded by others yet, paradoxically, also alone, so very alone, when the time comes. (Something he took to extremes in Tenebrae, which [he claimed] was set in a future in which the world has been significantly  depopulated. )

The film is an unofficial adaptation of The Screaming Mimi by Frederic Brown, from which it takes the conceit of previously-repressed trauma  inspiring a series of murders. The look of the murderer is pretty much full-on B&BL Bava, while the comedy is full-on Ed Wood. OK, that's a cheap shot at both Argento and Wood, but the comedy isn't great, and there's quite a lot of it here, but it's something that Argento clearly enjoyed as he returned again and again to drink at the same unfunny well. The patented Argento mad science gets an early look in, with a scientist, who works in a laboratory which resembles a laundrette, using a computer to deduce that the killer's description (40, 6ft, slender, dark brown hair and 75kg) matches 150,000 current Rome residents. While this can't have been anything but a wild estimate which could have been performed by the human brain, he goes on to say that "most" of these matches are in jail... Eh?!

There's a heavy police procedural influence, although the fuzz prove to be pretty useless - Sam's stuttering investigation (lil' jokey reference there to the stool pigeon guy) is based on uncovering some info about what happened to the first victim before she was murdered, info that the fuzz surely would've discovered themselves. Then again, maybe they did follow the same line of enquiry as Sam and ultimately abandoned it, as, although it proved useful in explaining the killer's motive/root trauma, it didn't really open up any opportunity to nab them. You'd have to question what the two men on duty outside Sam's apartment are at though, allowing him to bugger off to visit Mario Adorf in a loft, and then allowing the killer to pop upstairs  to try and kill Suzy Kendall. And the decision of Inspector Morosini to finally allow Sam to leave the country after he's been attacked by Reggie Nalder is literally insane, given the presumption at that point would have to have to be that Nalder's the killer, with Sam the only person who could positively ID him.*

That chase is an interesting one, scored as it is by discordant Morricone noises. It's probably more stylish than tense, with the direction never quite building suspense, largely due to an absence of medium shots - everything is either tight or extremely wide, so there's no real internal rhythm generated. The arty quick shots are almost Tinto Brass-like, although the casting of Nalder does go a long way to adding a sense of menace to proceedings. Saying that, Nalder folds like a limp vest when Sam runs to appeal to some Bigger Boys for help (Bigger Boys who show absolutely no interest whatsoever in what he says), and the chase dynamic switches on a dime, with Sam now pursuing the armed assassin. Eh (again)?!

Further Bava influence can be seen in the prominent role played by phone calls in proceedings - the Telephone segment of Black Sabbath was one of the earliest gialli, but it hadn't as yet proven especially influential in the filone. But this film, as stated, excelled in the influence stakes - just look at how many gialli which followed in its wake referenced animals in the titles, not least Argento's two immediate follow-ups. This film isn't perfect, and in another universe where it didn't (eventually) become a big commercial success it might be dismissed as just another decent Italian thriller. But in this universe, it's a behemoth. The moment when the camera pulls back from Sam standing isolated in front of some steps and pans across the city, slowly picking out an apartment window hundreds of metres from him, then suddenly cuts to a close up of a pair of black leather gloves is truly the moment the giallo arrived.

Viva Argento!

*He also doesn't have a good memory, if his "Have we met before?" exchange with Suzy Kendall is anything to go by. Although, intriguingly, this doesn't come back, and is left hanging, just another moment designed to unsettle the viewer, to throw them off the scent by overburdening them with smells (ie chucking a load of red herrings into the mix, in case that wasn't clear). It's an approach Lucio Fulci used to the nth degree in House by the Cemetery, a film which  sets itself up as a giallo only for the killer to turn out to be a Zombie living in a cellar (!), and which contains a near-identical exchange to the one detailed above.

This is Umberto Lenzi's first giallo, and it very much set the template for his next few efforts, until the Argento-isation of the filone led to his producing more bodycount-type films (although he did essentially remake this, as Oasis of Fear, in 1971). And yes, this film was marketed as Paranoia for a while, and he made another film called Paranoia, yada yada etc.

Recently-widowed Kathryn West, who seems to be a celebrity although we're never told why (possibly just because she's a wealthy heiress) arrives in Italy to recuperate in one of her husband's properties. Her attorney/lawyer, Brian, is helping with the sale of her newfound assets as well as dealing with her husband's gobby sisters, who want to get their hands on as much of the financial pie as possible. He's also nursing a bit of a grá, as we say in Ireland, for Kathryn, apparently seeing no conflict of interest or impropriety in seeking to marry her. However, she has only eyes for Peter, a young ragamuffin whose car allegedly broke down outside her villa one day. He comes to stay with her, then his sister comes to stay with them both, then it turns out that she's not really his sister and they're shagging, then they get Kathryn hooked on pills and booze and then they convince Kathryn to sack the nosey housekeeper and essentially imprison her in her own home. Then some more stuff happens!

Writing it out there, it's surprising that one of the things I wrote while watching the film was that the second half drags somewhat, as it has "nowhere to go." It does - that long list of things basically takes up the third quarter of the film, but I suppose this is one of those situations where the success of this film (and its progenitor The Sweet Body of Deborah) led to so many facsimiles being made that familiarity breeds... certainly not contempt, but possibly a sense of inevitability, where it's clear in what direction things are moving, but they just take that bit longer to get there. Which isn't to say that this is a boring film - it's actually a terrifically-made, fun flick - but its impact and effectiveness has been dulled because its impact and effectiveness back in the late 60s led to so many similar films being produced. 

The template was certainly set here for the Lenzi-Baker collabs: big houses in bright sunshine, young cads, cheesy nightclub dancing, speeding (too speeding*) cars, rack focuses to drinks glasses are all present and correct. Carroll Baker is typically great here-she wasn't afraid to own up to being somewhat further down the path of life than her co-stars; indeed, that's something of a theme here. The young, dashing ('dashing'-more on that anon) Peter and Eva offer a chance to engage with the 1960s youth culture by opening a door which seems to have been long-since closed for Kathryn-judging by the ages of her aunts-in-law her husband may have lived through the 1860s. Her uncertain attempts to get to grips with the free and easy lifestyle of the kids allows them to get their metaphorical claws into her, to hook her on pills and to systematically isolate her from everyone and everything she knows.

But she already seemed quite isolated - there's no evidence of her having had any real friends. Indeed Brian, her aged attorney, seems to be the closest thing she has on this front, and he's not all that close. The scene in which she admonishes Peter and Eva by telling them that they're too young to realise that they should hate themselves contains more raw human truth than a dozen other gialli combined. In common with most films made by middle-aged Italian genre directors, you get the sense that the freewheeling drug-taking ways of the youth are viewed with suspicion, if not downright hostility. Here, though, there's not a blanket dismissal of the evils of drugs, rather an admission that they are ultimately only an attempt to paper over the ever-widening cracks of the soul. And when the soul is corrupt, as pretty much every soul is in a Lenzi giallo, then the drugs ain't gonna change that.

(It's worth pointing out that while Baker's character does engage with youth culture with initial abandon, and is clearly sexually liberated etc, she does laugh off being called a 'slut' or 'whore' with disconcerting ease. This possibly reflected male attitudes of the times - we'll give you more freedom etc but don't forget that ultimately we're better than you - or it may just be another case of the middle-aged Italian flex.)

Now on to the youths. Colette Descombes is certainly a fascinating presence, sexy and vampish, but her 'brother' is another kettle of fish. Lou Castel is no-one's idea of an adonis, which makes the opening act of the film creak at times - are we really to believe that Kathryn is infatuated by Peter to that extent? You could make the argument that she lives in a closed-off world, but still - he just isn't charming or handsome enough for the scenes to ring true. He's much better when called on to turn into a weaselly manipulator though, tackling the part with a relish that would probably have been beyond a more relaxed, suave Hilton or Sorel-type of actor.

And speaking of closed-off worlds, it's worth considering the form of house arrest to which Kathryn is subjected by Peter and Eva. Sure, they're regularly drugging her, but she does have moments (long moments) of lucidity. And she's not all that trapped given a) she has a working phone for most of the time she's under house arrest, b) she still has a loyal servant living on the property, which c) is not by any stretch of imagination a high security prison. 

This isn't the first time where logic falls somewhat short (on which note she herself falls twice, each time horrendously unconvincingly); an early scene has her apparently imagining a home invader, being calmed by her housekeeper Terry, and ends with her seeing a man walking across the garden beneath her window. There, then is the proof she needed - the guys got a club foot, so isn't going anywhere fast, yet she apparently decides against summoning Terry to confirm that she wasn't imagining things. So you can see why she was such easy prey for those devious kids!

In an interview accompanying the Severin Blu ray of the film Lenzi belies his advanced age to pat himself on the back for the ingenuity of the film's twist ending, one which "no-one" could have guessed. Well, to return to my notes, Umberto: "End twist predictable." And it is - though, again, at the time it'd likely have gone down a storm (even if in the interview he's talking about a retrospective screening in Venice), but because we now know that this is a Lenzi giallo, we know there's going to be a late twist (or two), and the main twist here can pretty much only be one thing, an attendant difficulty when you populate your films with so few characters. Also, the 'subtle clue' which is shown in flashback did stand out a mile to me at the time (again, it wouldn't necessarily be noticed by everyone, and it is executed without undue attention being focused on it, but anyone who's aware that they're watching a mystery film should pick up on it). And, even if you know what's coming, you should still have a hell of a time with this film, which, even if it's not the best of Lenzi's gialli, will still give the discerning giallo fan 90-odd minutes of orgiastic pleasure.

IF YOU... have manipulated yourself into inheriting a fortune through murder and blackmail, don't openly celebrate outside the executor's office!

*“Drinking on an empty stomach really impairs my driving skills” - a very sharp observation there from Eva.


End twist predictable-only possible further twist, and inception does stand out a bit (signing blank doc)

"Welcome to Spring Break... The annual migration of the idiot," as Michael Parks succinctly puts it. And if there's a better showcase for this than the 2020 spring break, which involved a lot of blithely ignoring the encroaching Covid-19 pandemic, then I haven't yet seen it. But I have seen this giallo/slasher. Three times, in fact!*

The middle-aged leader of the youth motorcycle gang The Demons is sent to the electric chair for a crime he claims not to have committed. The execution was executed in a quaint seaside resort which hosts the annual uniquely American shenanigan-fest known as spring break. At least, somewhere adjacent to the main filming location hosts it, so the producers were able to nip over there to film some stock footage to blend into the final film. Anyway, when the next spring break rolls around the usual array of airheaded teens and twenty-somethings roll up to get wasted and roll in the hay. But not everyone's happy to host the libidinous layabouts - the local police chief (John Saxon playing the standard hardassed John Saxon cop, with a sprinkle of sexual perversion on top) and local priest disapprove of anything approaching fun. As does a mysterious leather-clad biker who shows up and starts electrocuting revellers with his specially modified motorbike. Is it Diablo, the dead gang leader? Course it's not-if you know anything about gialli you already know who it is!

This film is possibly directed by Umberto Lenzi, and possibly not directed by him - for years it was believed that he made it using the pseudonym Harry Kirkpatrick, until an interview in which he attributes direction to the film's screenwriter James Justice (who wrote the script under the Kirkpatrick alias). Roberto Curti, who's far more knowledgeable about these things than me, says that Lenzi made it, and my opinion is that he's probably right. It's a long, long way from Lenzi's earlier gialli and poliziotteschi, but so was all of his work from this era - Hitcher in the Dark and Black Demons (especially the latter) are textbook examples of the kind of low rent Filmirage-esque production (HitD actually was produced by that company) which proliferated in the late 80s; specifically, Italian films shot in America which captured enough local flavour to be sorta-convincing as American productions. The drawback of this shift in setting was that the films lost some of their uniquely Italianate edge - those wacky quirks which marked their fare apart from, and more enjoyable than, standard US exploitation films. The Filmirage-type productions actively tried to pass for lower tier American product, which probably helped international sales, but cost the films something of their souls. (I should say now that I actually like a lot of Filmirage films, several of which did retain just enough of their Italian qualities to stand out - I merely refer to them here as a yardstick because they proliferated to such a degree). But, to bring my ramblings back around to this film, even though we're a long way from Seven Blood-Stained Orchids here, I do think the same man's hand (directing hand) is responsible for both.
 
The film probably wouldn't be considered a giallo without the Italian involvement (although the identity of the killer - which I won't be getting into here because it had very much Been Done by this point, and I have written about the trope before - does provide another link), and it's pretty much an attempt to capitalise on the fag end of the slasher trend; gialli not being exactly hot box office fare in the late 80s. Killing young people through electricity isn't very gialloey either (although Wes Craven may have liked the idea, as Shocker, made the following year, isn't dissimilar to this film in its set-up). 

The cast are largely young and expendable, and there's no attempt at any real investigation into the killer's identity. This is somewhat of a surprise, given the prevalence of the police in the film, as well as the manner in which de facto leading man Skip is run out of town by John Saxon, with a threat that he'll be framed for the murders if he returns ringing in his ears. He does return, but rather than conduct anything approaching a logical investigation, he merely sends his new girlfriend out on her tiny moped, hoping to lure the killer into attacking her (he's not following at a discreet distance ready to intervene or anything, that would be too intelligent an idea for a spring breaker).

Skip is probably the least annoying of the young male cast, and it says a lot when you're saying that about a character with whom we're meant to sympathise just because he threw an interception in the Rose Bowl. This is classic Italians-in-America filmmaking: throw in some classic American references to uniquely yankly products like the Rose Bowl, and no-one could possibly question the provenance of the film. And if the shoehorned-in reference tugs on the audience's heartstrings, so much the better. Skip mopes into town and quickly catches the eye of local barmaid Gail, who mopes to and from work at walking pace on her little motorbike. She's also the sister of the girl who Diablo murdered (allegedly), which is pretty useful for narrative purposes. Gail and Skip bond as they investigate the disappearance of his homosexual friend, Ronny, who's also, bafflingly, the self-appointed leader of a 'beaver scouting patrol', bless him. He's fallen afoul of the Demons, now led by Diablo's homosexual brother, who strangely has a different ethnicity and accent. His accent (stilted and Hispanic) is actually almost the exact same as his new lady's, and she is literally the exact same as his brother's old lady.

As already stated, Skip and Gail don't really drive the narrative at all (if they do, it's at walking pace), and the film just bounces along from set piece to set piece, including some footage shot at a Playboy wet t-shirt competition. There are fairly chunky and clunky comedic elements, with the Porkies-style films obviously being another influence. And speaking of films being influences, who could forget Jaws, which lends a mayor-trying-to-keep-a-lid-on-an-escalating-crisis subplot (Mayor Loomis in this case, in another horror film reference), as well as the scene in which an utterly hilarious banterhound pretends to be a shark (check out the police dude's reaction - shoot now, deal with animal rights activists later). 

The chasm between the acting ability of the young and old(er) players is so great as to be almost confusing; one feels that Michael Parks's perma-grimace is an unvarnished reaction to the efforts of his co-stars. The murder scenes are OK, and feature some decent burn make-up and some less successful shots of mannequins' heads on fire. The killer's appearances (as well as those of a mute weirdo cop) are accompanied by a heavy metal-lite track, showing Umberto had been paying attention to the 80s sonic swerve taken by his old pal Dario Argento (or else James Justice had been paying attention, which is actually probably as likely). The up-tempo riff-monstering can only do so much to make things exciting, though, especially in any scene involving Gail's moped. 

I suppose I'll briefly touch on the motivation offered up by the killer - the usual 'I'm eliminating sin by sinning' nonsense. The killer is affronted by the raw sexuality and carnality of spring break (but, obviously, simultaneously obsessed with it). In much the same way, this film made by a group of middle-aged Italians doesn't know quite what to make of its young subjects - it's willing to depict them having fun, often with their baps out, but you get the feeling that there's a school of thought that they may be having just a leetle too much fun on occasion. That particular school is out for Easter, though, so the filmmakers do bravely depict plenty of immorality.

*Take a wild guess when the third time, after which this review was written, was...

This late 80s American-set, British-financed film is more of a mongrelly, giallo-influenced piece than a purebred example of the filone, but we try not to be racist, so here goes.

A serial killer is slashing his (or her) way through the yummy mummies of Arizona. Philandering Paul (who still loves his wife, as he reminds us every four-to-five minutes) becomes a suspect when police link his new tyres to one of the murder scenes. When yet another housewife is offed, Paul struggles to provide an alibi without divulging the details of his latest extra-marital affair. Fortunately his wife has learned of the affair, and doesn't hesitate to reveal all to the police. Is Paul now vindicated, exonerated and in the clear? Not quite...

{SPOILERS THROUGHOUT!] This is a bit of a mental film, which befits its creator, Donald Cammell, who was, to cast aside propriety for a moment, a bit of a mental man. It both reveals the killer extremely early, and, bravely (/mentally) has the main suspect turn out to be actually guilty. Yes, that's right - Paul is the middle-aged mummy murderer, and a dog murderer, and almost a daughter murderer (to be fair, she is really, really weird, and her mother tries to muscle in on the daughtercide when she drops the kid from a second storey window from which she herself refuses to jump). 

The final forty minutes of the film are pretty out-there; about as far out-there as Paul, with his ranting about black holes being analogous to the darkness at the heart of women (if you want to talk about darkness at the heart of something, take a look in the mirror mate). It's not just Paul's behaviour that's off-kilter - his wife Joan settles in to spend a night in his company after discovering a load of dismembered body parts under their bathroom sink. The lengthy scene in which she settles in to hear him rant and rave has a curiously banal air of domesticity which is pretty unique, although the scene's novelty does become somewhat wearing the longer it goes. The remainder of the film plays out as a kind of cat-and-mouse game, albeit one in which Paul doesn't really seem to have much interest in actually catching his mouse; his interests lie more in the field of making odd noises and rubbing blood/paint on his face. 

While the ending isn't very gialloey (although Formula for a Murder, to give one example, isn't exactly dissimilar in structure), the first half of the film contains many nods to the filone. We get black-gloved killings, multiple extreme close-ups of eyeballs and some pretty out-there camerawork (including an early snorricam effect) and editing. Saying that, the editing style owes everything to Cammell's own ideas about time and pacing, and nothing to the influence of gialli.

The lengthy flashbacks seem to initially exist to provide backstory for John and Joan's relationship history, but turn out to be performing much the same function as the standard giallo flashback - ie to provide a bit of context and background for the killer's behaviour.* The police, initially quite perceptive in immediately landing upon John as a likely suspect, gradually fade away into nothing, proving ultimately as effective as most giallo cops. But enough of reductively listing the  giallo connections and influences of this film.

Well, actually, the rest of my notes are about aspects of the film which aren't unrelated to gialli-which makes sense, I suppose, given the subject of this blog. So here are a few more observations: the fetishisation of the local cop's teeth, replete with extremely crisp foley work, is a truly bizarre moment, which performs absolutely no function narratively (and aren't such non-sequiturs an integral part of the Italian genre film?). The cop character seems to be being floated as a red herring, as is Joan's ex-boyfriend Mike, who plays a crucial role in the finale and is probably 7/10ths as mental as John - he witnessed John essentially conducting a blood rite with a dead deer, and decided to keep the info to himself until such a time as he could get the drop on John with a rifle. Also, perhaps it's no surprise that the police investigation fizzles away, given the chief detective's penchant for washing his hands in toilet bowls (although, to be fair, his knowledge of ancient Indian rites is incredibly prescient, albeit never used as anything but quasi-exposition for the audience).

The stalk-and-slash murders are fairly gialloey (and slashery, albeit the attempts at suspense and the preponderance of eyeballs probably tips the balance towards the former). The intrusion of a bright white sneaker into one scene jars somewhat, and screams 80s (which is fine, though, cos it was made then). The music is fairly perfunctory, although the opening theme seems to be trying to leap into the main music from Inferno, teasing as it does the main riff from that song. But overall, the music, murders and mystery aspects don't quite hit the mark in purely giallo terms.

But that's not really the point, as this isn't really a giallo. It's a crazy film about a crazy guy, specifically about that crazy guy's dual existence as crazed killer and... somewhat loving father and husband (albeit one who does cheat a lot).** There are a lot of unique touches befitting the idiosyncratic mind of its creator (/adaptor, as it was a very loose adaptation of a book), with the best, for my money, being the scene where Paul's interrogated by the police, who get Joan involved for a bit of good cop-bad cop (or good cop-bad wife), making for some pretty off-the-wall viewing. And consider her fury when she thinks her husband is innocent of murder and guilty of adultery, and contrast that to how she acts when she discovers that he's actually an insane serial killer... Crazy stuff altogether. And it's these myriad idiosyncrasies of tone and logic which seal this film's status as an honorary giallo, as out there as anything the likes of Andrea Bianchi or Mario Landi could dream up.

*The bleached-out grainy images of these sequences recall the technique used by Jess Franco to delineate flashbacks is his masterpiece Nightmares Come at Night, although given the extremely limited distribution that film had until the 2000s I can conclusively assert that the similarity is entirely coincidental.

**Duality being clearly something in which Cammell, writer and co-director of Performance, held a keen interest.

If you've ever wondered what would happen if someone gave you some money and told you to make a giallo, this film might be the sort of thing you'd come up with (unless you're a good director). Directed by one-and-only director Helia Colombo, it's the work of someone very well-versed in the form and history of the filone, but sadly Helia shows precious little filmmaking ability to back this up. That's not overly surprising, given that he was a composer, but he presumably allowed himself to dream when he embarked upon this passion project.

In a sleepy backwater village 30 (or 32) kilometres from Rome, someone is murdering young models. We know it's a man because we can see a brief glimpse of a male face in the opening murder scene, which sees a young woman run screaming through some woods with full-on bap flap while the killer traipses behind her, only for her to inexplicably stop running when she comes within sight of a busy road. Anyway, that's too much detail for a synopsis, so let's push on. Another young model who'd been posing for wheelchair-bound weirdo (these things are not related) Parisi, a photographer who can somehow afford to rent what is clearly meant to be a palatial country house, is murdered-the killer's fifth victim. This model's boyfriend Giorgio, who declined to rescue her from automobile trouble on the night of her murder because he was cock-deep in another lady, decides to travel the 30/32km to investigate her final movements. A bickering couple, Lucia and Antonio, have recently taken up positions as servants in the country house, which is also home to Parisi's wife and niece (who have a bit of a semi-incestuous thing going on [they're not blood relatives, so it's broadly fine apart from the rape aspect]) and is frequently visited by local doctor Dalla. Anyway, Giorgio arrives at the house and thinks about investigating the murder of his gf, and thinks about trying to shag the maid or the niece, and then it turns out that there's another person investigating the murders but even that doesn't matter because the murderer is uncovered by yet another character who uses an invention that doesn't exist.

Yeesh. This is a bad film, but it's certainly not unenjoyable. I'm not going to use the dreaded 'So bad it's good' phrase, but this is not a good film, and its failings do somewhat work in its favour. That's as close to the dreaded phrase as I'll get when discussing a film which isn't The Room. Most of those elements which provide pleasure in traditionally good gialli - the set pieces, the twisty narratives - are MIA. Even narrative illogicality, something of a hallmark of the genre, isn't really present, simply because there basically is no narrative - I've described the set up above, which takes maybe thirty minutes to come together and is followed by almost an hour of Absolutely No Further Developments.

Giorgio is probably the least sympathetic leading character in giallo history (think Nino Castelnuovo in Strip Nude and strip the character metaphorically nude of anything resembling standard human emotions), which is notable at least. His callous dismissal of his girlfriend (or girl friend, possibly)'s request for help on the night of her death doesn't seem to have led to a single second of remorse. He conducts his extremely half-assed investigation not to provide any sense of closure for her or her memory, but rather in the hope of landing a scoop which will advance him in the field of journalism. Unfortunately, despite his lazy, skirt-chasing ways, it seems as if he may indeed have gotten his scoop come the end of the film. 

His position as chief investigator is usurped right at the death (after the final death) by another character, who reveals themselves to have been working as a PI all along. The only problem here is that this character has also achieved precisely nothing - they found out some pertinent backstory which somewhat fleshes out the killer's motivations, but did they use this info to ensnare the guilty party? Did they fuck! No, the killer is unmasked through the use of a machine which can 'photograph thoughts', with the proof of guilt supposedly being the killer imagining a young woman with her clothes off. (Probably just as well this machine doesn't exist in real life...) The machine itself is just as batshit as the concept - the camera is hidden in a weird face statue thing with coloured lights for eyes. Not something you'd see every day in a giallo, that's for sure.*

The mystery angle is pretty poor as well - within seconds of the killer first appearing I'd written down something they'd said, followed by "guilty!" It's debatable if there was an attempt to hide the character in plain sight by suggesting their guilt right off the bat with the hope that we'd thus dismiss them as potential suspects - I suspect this theory gives the filmmakers entirely too much credit, even though if that indeed was what they were trying, it's an abject failure. But hey - better to be an abject failure than just boringly miss the mark.

The direction of the murder scenes does, sadly, boringly miss the mark (unless all you want are tits covered in blood). The effects work isn't terrible, but there's little imagination or flair in the staging. Some of the conversation scenes are also poorly directed - a lengthy dinner table scene halfway through sees much of the dialogue either taking place offscreen or being spoken by characters who have their back to the camera. Several scenes, this among them, were covered by a high angle master shot (not a bad idea, and something I did myself in my own giallo), which is a good way of maximising space (and this is badly needed in order to sell the illusion that the main location is a big country house) but there either wasn't the time, money or inclination to get sufficient coverage to make the scenes flow. 

Finally, those of you who love a good poliziotteschi/giallo hybrid and whose appetites have been whetted by the title should stand down, as the fuzz only make a single, fleeting appearance at the end of the film. The film was shot under the title 'The Cabbage Patch', which is fairly appropriate in terms of suggesting just how odd and off-kilter the end product is, but its delayed release (shot in 1972, released in 75) at the height of the eurocrime boom no doubt led to the wholly unsuitable title with which it was saddled. Staying on the cabbage patch for a moment, I'll close by saying that Helia Colombo is clearly a fan of the genre, and has studiously run through a checklist of giallo tropes which characterised the great and the good early 70s films. However, there's one ingredient which Maestros Argento, Martino and Fulci had in spades which Helia C was singularly unable to call upon: talent. You can tick all the boxes you want, but unless you’re somewhat able to think outside them, and possess a modicum of directorial talent, you’re probably not going to make a great film.

*Saying that, it's something that you've kind of seen before. Well, not quite, but Helia C has clearly been watching the latter two entries of a certain animal trilogy.

This film, bearing one of the more popular titles for gialli, is not one of the more popular giallo titles. It's a film which tries to marry giallo tropes with the isolated country villa-set, slow-moving mood piece (which seemed to be almost a trope itself within Spanish cinema in the 70s), with limited results. It's not shit though, so there's that.

Daniel, a weirdo writer who's fled his wife and home in Madrid, rocks up at an isolated country house occupied by Veronica, a weirdo hotelier and figurine-maker, and her invalid husband, name unknown and face unseen and voice unheard. A couple of couples rock up to the house to stay the night, only to be murdered by a black-gloved killer. When Elena, Daniel's wife, tracks him down (by methods unspecified), the truth finally outs.

Anyone who's read that and discounted a potential 'solution' based on its being too obvious should bear in mind that Spanish gialli typically were not possessed of labyrinthine whodunnit plots - oftentimes it seems that the identity of the killer was something of an afterthought (or, possibly more accurately, any attempt to obfuscate the identity of the killer was an afterthought). Paul Naschy's gialli exist somewhat outside this rule of thumb, but in a lot of cases (Night of the Scorpion being the best example that springs to mind) the films fail abjectly on a murder-mystery level. And this film's no exception-anyone who hasn't figured it all out after the first scene with Veronica's 'husband' (filmed, as all such scenes are, from a vantage point behind his chair, in which he apparently sits silently whilst somehow provoking his wife to continually reply to imagined slights) is, frankly, an idiot. (No offence.) Although maybe people who haven't seen Psycho are less likely to jump to the correct conclusion, who knows.

So - to deal first with the last - the 'twist' here is basically that there is no twist. This is possibly not how the filmmakers would see things - back in the late 1970s it's possible that cinemagoers wouldn't have seen Psycho (although at the same time they wouldn't all have been Fucking Idiots). I suppose the final few seconds of the film constitutes a twist of sorts, although it's up there with the least surprising reveals of all time (giving this film two entries on that list). Seriously - there are basically two potential suspects here, and it turns out that each of them is a killer. That'll catch out some people, but only because they've given the film too much credit and have sought a less obvious explanation.* There are multiple instances of that rare occurrence whereby the killer is presented as a red herring, rather than trying to smuggle them through proceedings in plain sight - probably partly due to the lack of potential killers, but possibly also because the filmmakers didn't really care, and were just ticking items (zoom in on black gloves - tick!) from a giallo checklist.

That's not to say that the film is badly-directed; it's not, and Leon Klimovsky does his usual solid job here, with a lot of slightly ropey handheld tracking shots to keep things visually interesting. There are also interesting touches such as Daniel's wife Elena being introduced to us through an extremely blue colour scheme. I mean, it doesn't necessarily mean anything, but it makes for a few nice-looking shots. The film clearly didn't have much of a budget, and was likely shot extremely quickly, but it's never really rushed or shoddy-looking (apart from possibly in the framing of the killer, as discussed in the footnote). The make-up effects are rudimentary-but-effective, with one sequence in particular perhaps revealing the true motives of the filmmakers.

I refer here to the scene in which young (very young) Irene Foster's nude body is slashed with a straight razor. Initially, the staging seems somewhat restrained - she grips the bedclothes around her when the killer starts hacking at her, and it seems that the violence will be limited to her facial area (very much a loose definition of 'somewhat restrained', I'll grant you). After she dies; however, the black-gloved hand and hairy wrist pops the bedclothes down, and gets to work on her breasts, in a sort of New York Ripper-lite sequence. This film was made shortly after General Franco's death, at a time when the Italian gialli were increasingly sex-infused (Play Motel, Giallo a Venezia etc). While the sleaze factor is never pushed as far as it was in the Italian flicks, it's certainly boundary-pushing for Spain, and I wouldn't be surprised if the giallo aspect was largely conceived of as a framework on which to hang the copious sex and nudity, with pretty much every character being nude at some point (apart from the young boy, who merely appears in tiny speedos). To be fair to the filmmakers, Daniel is played by Heinrich Starhemberg, the film's producer, and he doesn't exempt himself from the nudity requirements (much to no-one's pleasure).

The character of Daniel is a slightly odd one - he's the standard frustrated artist, but he's not exactly an obvious audience identification figure (SPOILERS) which very much lessens the impact of the climactic revelation regarding his character. It's difficult to know whether this was due to Starhemberg being an awkward and wooden actor, or if the role was intended to be played in this manner. If the latter, this decision falls squarely into the 'highlight a killer as a potential suspect' approach, as detailed above. (END SPOILERS) You'd have to say that the character as written is definitely a bit off, as even the most charismatic actor would have difficulty selling the sequence where Daniel strolls smiling towards a couple he's spotted copulating by the side of the road as Normal Behaviour.

The acting in general isn't too bad though, with the women being particularly impressive (and Antonio Mayans popping up for a brief period as well). Ágata Lys seemingly adopted a similar approach to Starhemberg, not really trying to sell Veronia as being 'normal', but instead giving a reasonably convincing portrayal of someone whose grip on reality is eroding at the seams. Much like Elena and her link to the colour blue, Veronica seems to be associated with wine being spilt, but I'll be goddamned if I know what that's supposed to symbolise.

The cinematography and music are solid, with sound design playing a more prominent role, at least initially, that it did in many gialli. The lack of attention typically shown for aural concerns was likely due to the practice of shooting without live sound, which presumably led to directors, who often weren't involved in the post-production process, seeing film as an almost-entirely visual medium. Here, though, we get a stormy night or two, and the mysterious husband in the upstairs bedroom provides an opportunity for some muffled bumps and smashes (not many though, and they gradually get phased out, presumably so the sounds aren't fresh enough in your mind that you ask "How did an empty chair make all that noise?" when the Big Reveal happens).

It's not a great giallo, or a great sex film. The filmmakers have somewhat stumbled on a slasher movie formula - disposable characters arrive at remote location and are murdered - but there's nothing here that wasn't done a lot better before 1978. And the odd bits where it seems like the filmmakers are at least trying to do something different (the blue and wine motifs, the hint at the strong bond between the young boy and Daniel) don't overly convince (the bond is quite convincing, but it's not something about which you want to really devote too much thinking time). But, it's not a bad film. It's short, competently made, and ticks pretty much all of the giallo boxes. Which just goes to show that there's a certain alchemy to filmmaking, a certain indescribable quality which separates the great from the good - this film is an attempt to construct a giallo from the sum of its parts. It succeeds, but great films have something extra, something indefinable, on top of that. But Leon Klimovsky, who retired after this film, didn't choose a bad aul note to exit on all the same.

*There is some ambiguity as to how many murders have actually been committed by one of the suspects - 'most, if not all, of them' would appear to be the answer if you examine the body of the killer in the set pieces (keep an eye on the wrist in particular), but it's likely that this is just slapdash blocking and editing, and the other suspect is probably intended to have committed all of the on-screen murders.

​Don't be fooled by the title of this film and the fact that it's being reviewed on a site called Giallo Reviews - it isn't a giallo. So why is it being reviewed on a site called Giallo Reviews? Well, because I ignored a similar warning to this one and watched it. And, even though I realised fairly quickly that it indeed was not a giallo, I'd already begun taking notes, and I was going to be goddamned if they went to waste.

Francisco Villaverde is a rich young artist who likes to play around with women who aren't his wife. He also has a nasty habit of taking things too far and strangling these women. When he chokes a Mrs Simmons mid-coitus, with two witnesses no less, you'd think his philandering days are at an end, but not a bit of it. Mrs Simmons' husband (Mr Simmons) hires some detectives to investigate, and they figure out whodunnit pretty damn quickly, but they need proof of Villaverde's guilt. Instead of doing any further detecting, they decide to send one of the dicks' fiancée undercover to hang out with Villaverde and essentially sit back to let nature take its course. Oh, and then there's the illegal bank, headed by Adolfo Celi and Anita Ekberg, who are trying to call in an illegal loan which was given to a local hotelier and his partner, who was one of the witnesses of the initial illegal strangling. After some spy film-esque hijinks the truth outs, and Francisco is free to keep on womanising. Except then he isn't, he dies. The end.

Alright, this isn't totally ungiallo-like: there is kind of a murder mystery at the centre of the film, plus the whole thing takes place in exotic seaside locales beloved of the filone in the late 60s. It's the sort of film which if made a year or two later would've been totally different, but as is it very much straddles the giallo/spy film divide (before toppling over onto the spy film side). The title, which naturally bears no relevance to anything that occurs on screen (you could probably come up with a somewhat convincing explanation to link it to what happens, but come on, you're better than that), is definitely the most gialloey thing about it, with only sparse rations of yellow illiberally sprinkled here and there to complement it.

The opening dialogue-free scene does contain a murder, albeit one in which we (apparently) see the murderer in broad moonlight. The scene - which contains the bulk of the film's nudity courtesy of the ever-reliable Femi Benussi - is somewhat awkwardly shot and edited, with some early shots seeming to include a few frames of the actors waiting to hear the call of "Action." From here on, though, the editing is a lot tighter, although that's probably down to the somewhat-cut print I watched.

The fact that the available print is cut means one is forced to become an active viewer, doing a bit of sleuthing and deductive reasoning simply in order to figure out what exactly is going on. Removing the exposition which links A to B requires the viewer to be attentive and engaged so they can join the dots of the plot themselves. Here, there are a lot of characters in the mix, so figuring out who everyone is and what motivates them is half of the battle. In fact, there are so many things going on that Dean Reed, the nominal hero, is barely in the second half of the film (at least the version I watched).

Fabio Testi, in an early role as Villaverde, is mainly required to look sexy (tick!) and alternate between horny and confused, which wouldn't really stretch many actors. Nonetheless, he's more than up to the task - a task which actually, the more I think of it, isn't all that easy. His character is very obviously nuts - take the painting he happily exhibits of a nude and dead Mrs Simmons. He makes no real effort to deny that she's the subject of the painting, and even if he did the fact that he included the necklace which was stolen from her corpse is a dead (!) giveaway. He seems to have some kind of kinky 'agreement' with his wife (or else she's been browbeaten over time, or maybe she just likes his money and is willing to put up with whatevs to get it) to facilitate his womanising. And in order to practise this womanising, he has to convey enough sexiness to make it believable that a lunatic could seduce such ladies as Anita Ekberg's Mrs Ferretti, something Testi manages to pull off, in every sense.

And yes, Mrs Ferretti does prove susceptible to his charms - the film contains a lot of spouses carrying on behind their spouses' backs. (And also a lot of spouses knowing their spouses are carrying on behind their spouses’ backs - the makers of this film were clearly struggling to get their heads around the sexy possibilities presented by the advent of Free Love). They might have been better advised putting a bit more work into the logic of the film; the way the 'heroic' detectives toss Ini Assmann's (great name) Ellen into the lion's den (aka Fabio Testi's bedroom) beggars belief, and the subplot (which essentially becomes the main plot) about the dodgy loan doesn't really convince. Even the supposedly downbeat finale, which sees the detectives climbing atop a high horse to decry one of the characters' deceptiveness, isn't thought through: in real terms, they've just punished someone by refusing to charge them for services rendered. I'm not saying the makers of this film shouldn't have been paid for their rendered services, but they shouldn't have been paid much. And it should have taken the form of a loan, repayable at 150% interest within seven days.

You can track the society's progression (or regression) through those gialli which use the fashion world as their backdrop - from the staid, buttoned up early 60s of Blood and Black Lace to the gaudy and hyper-sexualised modern landscape of Argento's Giallo. This effort by Carlo Vanzina perfectly encapsulates the 1980s - glossy and stylish, but superficial and hollow at the core.

Bob Crane (not the perverted chap from Auto Focus) is a twenty year old park ranger in Wyoming. His twin sister Jessica is a model based in Italy. They apparently share a kind of telepathic bond, allowing each glimpses into the other's life when they're in danger. When Bob has a vision of Jessica's death in a hotel room, he refuses to believe the concierge's assertion that she simply hasn't yet returned from a night out, and he flies to Italy to look for her. After forming a bond with the initially sceptical local Police Inspector (Donald Pleasance doing the most half-hearted Italian accent of all time), Bob begins a cursory investigation into Jessica's life/the world of 1980s fashion. A couple more models turn up dead, but then Bob receives a note from Jessica telling him that she's alive, and advising him to cease his investigation. He packs his bags and sets out for the airport, but his ESP isn't done with him yet...

As with the John Carpenter-scripted US quasi-giallo 'The Eyes of Laura Mars', the second sight depicted here is, at best, nebulously defined, and doesn't really add much to the picture. Well, saying that, it does have relevance to the plot, and I imagine that it featured strongly when Carlo Vanzina was pitching it to the suits. As always, though, including a supernatural angle in a film such as this leads to a diminishing of any sense of 'reality', and this the stalk and slash scenes become less menacing and more fairytale-like, as we know they're occurring in a parallel universe which is different to ours. 

The one attempt at a traditional set piece, which involves a chase through deserted streets at nighttime followed by an extended sequence in a hotel room, during which the victim believes she's out of danger, concludes in a bizarrely anti-climactic note - the model, in her bathroom, turns around and stares blankly for a second or two, before we cut to see a pair of scissors being raised into an empty frame. And exit model.

Did she somehow not see the killer? Did she see them but not react because she knew them (possible, but surely you'd still jump if you thought you were alone in your jacks and turned around to find a friend right behind you)? There's no real jump scare either, and the sequence's only real saving grace is Pino Donaggio's score (I initially wrote in my notes that the score sounded like someone imitating Pino D imitating Bernard Herrmann; the sentiment is correct, but I should probably apologise to Big P for thinking his own work was an imitation of same, so soz bbz). I should stress that the praise for the score here refers to this and maybe one or two other pieces, with the rest of the film showcasing standard 80s synthy fare (and a pop song by Gloria Gaynor).

Bob isn't an especially compelling character-he seems to like models (and his sister), and he shows some initiative in immediately flying across the Atlantic following his vision (which seemed to mostly incorporate the killer's POV rather than his sister's, further confusing the telepathy aspect) but he never seems truly, passionately driven. The scene in which he stands slack-jawed watching a fashion show while a potentially crucial suspect struts her stuff metres from him before meeting her demise backstage kind of sums up his lack of impetus. The police aren't much better, although, it has to be said, they do seem slightly more driven to catch the killer than Bob. (Maybe he knew from ESP that they'd be better at sleuthing than him?)

He also displays an alarming lapse in judgement when he receives the note from Jessica telling him to drop his investigation - it's unclear as to whether we're meant to truly believe that it's from her, but any idiot should be able to tell that the signature has been forged. Bob seems to be a special kind of idiot and does actually buy the forgery (although he spends the last third of the movie in an uncommunicative trance, so it's impossible to fully discern his thoughts and motives). A later shot of pages of handwriting in the killer's lair showing that they've been practising Jessica's signature is presumably meant to be some sort of revelation, but the only revelatory aspect is that the filmmakers apparently believed that anyone would be surprised by the reveal.

Speaking of reveals, the 'unmasking' of the killer is one of the least surprising in giallo history - 'one' being the operative word, as that's how many potential guilty parties remain alive by then! (Unless you believe that a Japanese man could convince a non-blind woman that he's a blond Caucasian model.) The mystery aspect is pretty perfunctory - the murdered girls all have expensive diamonds in their possession, which adds a layer of mystery, but this angle is summarily resolved when a leading suspect thoroughly cleans his conscience in a police interview. What little investigating that does happen is essentially for nought; Bob gets a tingle in his third eye on the way to the airport towards the end of the film, uncovers the killer's lair and then phones the police to come and rescue him (although how they pinpoint the exact apartment is a bigger mystery than anything else in the film). The final sequence/shot suggests that co-writer Franco Ferrini had seen some of his buddy Dario Argento's earlier films, and it's somewhat effective if you can buy the fact that everyone just stands idly by watching what happens.

Speaking of the script, the first dialogue exchange (“you open it, I’m too nervous” and some guff about catching a big fish*) would make you think they’d filmed a first draft; if they did it was a first draft to which three credited writers contributed. The direction isn't great; some of the camerawork is stylish, but it's often ruined by poor blocking and staging (check out the scene where Barbara makes her first entrance for a particularly bad example of this - she clearly begins standing in front of a wall awaiting her cue). There's also a fair amount of body doubled nudity (and some 'authentic nudity', to be fair) shoehorned in. And yet - it's not a bad film. It's not a good film, certainly not a great film (in fact, it might actually be a bad film now I think about it), but it's watchable. It doesn't overstay its welcome, it's decently-paced, and it tries to do something slightly different with the genre. And if it doesn't fully succeed, it succeeds in trying. Which counts for something. 

*This dialogue potentially is a foreshadowing the fish-out-of-water narrative, featuring a yank in Italy, except it almost certainly isn't.

This Spanish giallo is pretty obscure (hence its presence in one of Vinegar Syndrome's 'Forgotten Gialli' boxsets), but boasts a pretty impressive cast-Patty Shepard, Jack Taylor, Simon Andreu and Paul Naschy in a minute role (which barely contains more than a minute's screentime). The version presented by VS is a pre-death-of-Franco Spanish cut; the frequency with which scenes end just as an actress is about to flash some flesh hints at the existence of a racier, international cut, which sadly seems to be lost to the ages (I say this as a completist, rather than a drooling pervert). 

Two years after her husband Carlos died in a plane crash, Lisa Mandel invites thirteen of the couple's friends, acquaintances and incestuous family members to her countryside villa in Spain, I mean England. Over the course of a couple of meals (comprising the first half of the film's running time), she explains that she suspects that her husband was murdered (more on this anon) and then explains the motivation behind each guest's invitation, which doubles as a potential motivation for their having murdered Carlos Mandel. Almost all of the bourgeois guests have something to hide, and a few of them (the ones who contact fellow guests saying there's-something-we-must-discuss-but-not-right-this-second-I'll-tell-you-what-it-is-later-on) start popping up dead. But which of the thirteen guests for the crime(s) is the killer?

I'll get to that in a moment. But first-as suggested by the lil' reference I just made there to Nine Guests for a Crime, and by the synopsis in general, this is yet another loose adaptation of Ten Little Black Men/Native Americans by Agatha Christie. The opening sequence actually mirrors the novel's beginning-minus the interior monologue of the characters-as everyone converges upon the single location which will be the locus and focus of the mayhem. It's one of the less bombastic adaptations of the book-indeed, as with most Spanish gialli of the era, it doesn't quite overflow with that particular flavour of unpredictability and eccentricity which characterised Italian servings of giallo. In her commentary on the VS Blu, Kat Ellinger speaks of how Spanish gialli are often considered to be the "poor cousin" of the Italian ones-the Francis to the Lisa, if you will (watch the film and you'll appreciate that)-a reputation which I would argue is, on balance, fully justified.

And that's the case here-it's not a bad film at all, but it's not a top-of-the-range giallo. The first death actually occurs after 63 minutes (as does the second death, to be fair), and the film constantly dances around the concept of sex without fully engaging (likely for censorious reasons, as noted above). This can be somewhat explained by the film's setting-or nominal setting, as you'd have to be pretty damn gullible to take its depiction of upper crust English society at face value. Even though 1970s Britain wasn't quite as repressed in some respects as it's portrayed here (divorce, introduced to the country by Henry VIII, wasn't considered half as scandalous as the Spanish filmmakers seemed to think), the obsession with class and a certain obsession with (and simultaneous fear of) sex isn't without some foundation in reality. The murder sequences are fine, if sparse-it seems odd to gather thirteen potential victims and leave most of them alive come the end of the film. That's not just me being blood-lusty, by the way-they're presented as mostly belonging to that class of obnoxious, self-obsessed people who make a big deal of standing on ceremony in public but are hiding all sorts of dirty laundry in private, so seem perfectly primed to act as cannon fodder.

This dirty laundry is thoroughly aired in the film's first half, as Patty Shepard's Lisa systematically reveals their darkest secrets, AKA their potential motivations for murdering her husband (and their obsession with repression and manners presumably explains why they all remain as guests of the villa even after she essentially accuses them of murder). The lengthy scene in which Lisa runs through these motives is actually pretty well handled by director Javier Aguirre, given the amount of information and characters on/around the table. The scene plays almost like the denouement of an old-fashioned drawing room mystery, except Lisa's not revealing the fruits of her research in order to make an ultimate accusation, but rather to let everyone know that she holds the knowledge, and thus the power (and it's also-let's face it-primarily for the expository benefit of the film's audience). Lisa speaks some wise words in the first half of the film, which neatly summarises the futility of apportioning guilt based on circumstantial evidence: "knowing the motive would be the same as knowing the killer." In other words, examining everyone's various potential reasons to kill will get you nowhere, as one hypothetical motive is as good as another. The only way to know the actual motive is to first identify the actual killer and work backwards. And, even at that, murder isn't rational, nor does a motive have to make sense. This is a flaw inherent in the Nero Wolfe/Hercule Poirot method of psychological detecting, which relies firstly on the accumulation of knowledge, followed by the extrapolation of motive from this knowledge. But a sane mind, no matter how brilliant, cannot always second-guess the inner machinations of the mad.

But I digress. Lisa proves herself an excellent evidence-based detective, in that she is instrumental in pushing the line of investigation which found that her husband has ingested coffee laced with barbiturates prior to flying (you'd think the police would've picked up on this at the time), and she also identifies the presence of an empty envelope which had contained ten grand withdrawn from the bank by Carlos on the day of his murder as evidence that something fishy went on (again, the police really should've picked up on that). She's also not above indulging in a spot of extrapolation herself-when her servant Henry announced that the corpse of a guest has been discovered, she announces the news with a mention of the location of the murder, despite not having been told by Henners.

This, contrary to what the sharp-minded among you will assume, is not because (SPOILER) she herself is the killer. And (STILL SPOILER) nor, indeed, is any of the thirteen suspects; Henry's the guilty party. In this way, the film's title actually functions as a form of red herring, something which is fairly novel (for a film). The film plays fair for the most part, and actually inadvertently tips its hand as to the killer's identity in a manner I've never really seen before-by turning down an obvious opportunity to present him as a red herring. The scene in question comes when one character says that she feels the killer is always there, watching, listening. We know that Henry has gone upstairs to check on this particular character (who turns out to have been a significant figure in his past), so the obvious edit after that line would have been to cut to him, listening outside, bolstering his red herring credentials. But Aguirre eschews this opportunity, which, to me anyway, seemed highly suspicious-either Aguirre is being extremely sloppy, losing track of his characters' movements, or else there's a reason why he passes over this obvious opportunity to cast suspicion on Henry (END SPOILERS).

Even though the film doesn't push the envelope in any way-style, music, gore, plot etc are all fairly run-of-the-mill, there are some decent performances, none more decent than that of Simon Andreu, who is so effortlessly charming and dastardly that it really doesn't seem like he's acting at all. (Apparently he's nice in real life, so he was probably acting to some extent, unless he was more of a fuckboy in the early 70s than he is now, in his late 70s [which is rather likely tbh]). His role could've easily been fumbled in a less easily-sleazy pair of hands, as the character is a bit of a sex-obsessed scumbag. He pales in comparison to Francis, Lisa's cousin (more accurately, her dead husband's cousin), though-Franny thinks nothing of rubbing the hand and/or knee of any lady who takes his fancy, and is also fond of comsuming his porno mags in bed. He's a voyeur, spying on the nocturnal activities of one of the hired hands (and the rest of the hands' body, badoom) in a strange sequence which seems to be trying to obscure his identity by matting out all but his eyes (the blue eyes of the broken Frank). Oh, and he's extreeeeeemely close to his mother, who is one of the more reprehensible of a reprehensible bunch of characters.

There are plenty more characters I haven't even mentioned here-there's the theoretically rich but in-reality poor heiress who's forced to resort to... (gulp) waitressing to pay her way; there's Paul Naschy, a chauffeur who manages to incorporate a contractually-obligated topless scene and a fight scene in his minimal screentime, there's Jack Taylor playing a more cynical version of his poet from Female Vampire (but one just as disposed to falling in love easily). There are several spring-autumn romances, and there's a reasonably effective murder mystery, albeit one which necessitates  wading through a lot of exposition (with which, as stated, Aguirre does do a more than passable job). One final thought, though, for those of you who've seen it-how the devil does Lisa know the significance of the button?!

One of the longer gialli-almost two hours-this one's more Sweet Bod than Crystal Plume, with a black-gloved killer present but (increasingly) peripheral as the story trundles leisurely towards its climax.

Chris(tine/tina) Miller lives with her stepmother Ruth in an isolated country home. Her father, Ruth's husband, left suddenly a year previously, something with which Chris-who suffers from psychiatric issues arising from a sexual assault in a shower by a weightlifter who looks like Nigel Farage-is struggling to come to terms. When handsome drifter Barney stumbles upon the broken home, sparks fly on all sides, but ultimately things just get more broken. A lot more broken.

The first hour of this film (after an odd pre-credits sequence in which a Charlie Chaplin mask-wearing male knifes a middle aged chanteuse to death in her luxurious home) reminded me of Norman J Warren's film Prey, in which an alien man happens upon two lesbians living in a secluded country house. Wikipedia has just informed me that the alien man was played by none other than Barry Stokes, who plays Barney in Chris Miller. It's thirteen-odd years since I've seen Prey, so my recollection of it isn't perfect, but I'd contend that the Wiki description of it as having been "conceived by producers Terry Marcel and David Wimbury and developed by Quinn Donoghue" should probably also contain a nod to this Spanish giallo which was shot four years before Warren's film.

The slow pace of Chris Miller allows for quite a lot of scenes of character development. Well, on paper it does, but in some ways the filmmaking is almost too economical (or else our familiarity with the set up through other films forearms us with sufficient knowledge to anticipate much of what will unfold), as we get a fairly clear sense of who all the main characters are within moments of first meeting them. And, this being a giallo, we can't delve too deeply into their backstories-at least, not initially-as the solution to the mystery inevitably has its roots in the past (as well as roots in the present; keep reading for more on that!).

The film does, as stated in the synopsis, contain a traditional killer. However, in a marked departure from the norm, the presence of the killer almost functions as a red herring to obfuscate the real reasons for certain characters' behaviour. While we do get an unmasking at the climax of the film, we discover (in the original Spanish language version) precisely nothing of the motivation lying behind the murders, nor does this motivation really matter-the murders only 'exist' to cast suspicion upon people who are innocent of those crimes, but not wholly innocent of all transgressions.

In keeping with the rich-people-plotting-against-each-other subset of gialli, pretty much every character here is guilty of something. They're not quite as nakedly greedy and evil as was standard-in fact, you could argue that only the killer and one other character who exists entirely offscreen seem to be wholly lacking in redeeming features, although Barney, and his sexy body which seems to be allergic to tops, isn't exactly Father Teresa either. Then again, that was my point really, wasn't it-none of the characters are Good.

In fact, quite a few of the characters are so Ungood that they're guilty of murder. A big baroque set piece towards the end features the extremely slo-mo knifing of a main character (providing an excellent showcase for the retractable quality of the prop kinves), and leads to an off-kilter finale which seems to be ambling towards a broadly happy ending until some peas which have been buried with a body take root and grow through a newly laid tarmac road*, alerting the authorities to the presence of said body. This, one can assume, will lead to the arrest of the murderers, who aren't even all that guilty, given they were mostly murdering in self-defence.

This self-defence comes about after a sequence which recalls Torso, with two females locked in an isolated house as a malevolent male stalks back and forth between their rooms (albeit here the male isn't masked, and the sequence is quicker, and less good, than Torso). There's also some classic storm action in play as well, with the attendant unreliable electricity sources. None of the 'tense' scenes reach the heights of the better Italian films of the time, but all the same this one is never less than competently directed (by Anton Chigurh's uncle, no less), with solid technical credits across the board. And the sequence in which the inhabitants of a farmhouse are slaughtered is a terrific set piece, which makes up for the lack of action we've endured beforehand.

The script is decent-with one conversation in which the central three characters compare themselves to the Red Riding Hood story cleverly working as a slight red herring, in that the characters don't quite assume the fairy tale roles they've self-assigned, and the house of cards Barney constructs doubles as a neat metaphor for the uneasy existence of the leading trio-sooner or later (later, in the case of this 113 minute film) their alliances are going to come tumbling down. There are a few touches which suggest an awareness of what Argento was doing at this time even if this film owes more the the late 60s Lenzis-the gender bending name of Chris is very much in keeping with Dario's sexually fluid outlook, and the dialogue about extra Y chromosomes recalls the work of the Terzi Institute in Cat o' Nine Tails. (It is worth pointing out that theories about XYY syndrome were prevalent in the late 60s and early 70s, so this may not be an Argento ref at all. Also, the English dub eshews the chromosome chat in favour of offering a tenuous motivation relating to horsies.) And, if you ever wanted evidence of how much time has passed between the making of this film and the present day, consider how reference is made to one of the XYYers being "the student who shot his classmates"-nowadays those students are, in the States anyway, ten a penny.

*The Spanish version omits the stop-motion cracking shots of the road, and ends on a more ambiguous note, cutting back and forth from the newly-laid road to the 'murderers'.