Quite possibly the best misdirection Sergio Martino does in any of his giallo movies. It also set in motion something he does in many of his other giallo movies. Long drawn out suspense sequences in one location, fakeouts, low camera angles, spinning camera movements, blurring dreams and flashbacks with reality, reveals in the middle and twists at the end. What sets it apart from many other movies is a female with sexuality actually being a hero and even embraced, something the giallo would do more, specifically his movies. An antithesis to American slasher films. This is a perfect blend between focusing on the psychological state of the hero with the typical giallo killer wants an inheritance plot of the villains. The music by Nora Orlandi, specifically the use of the human voice makes the score memorable the movie darker at points.
Synopsis: An ambassador's wife discovers that one of the men in her life - either her husband, an ex-lover or her current lover - may be a vicious serial killer who targets women with razor blades in Vienna.
The film starts with an interesting quote from Sigmund Freud on a subtitle. That transitions to a brutal kill where a woman is slashed to death in her car. The blood spray on the window and seeing the throat slit is a nice touch. The film introduces us to Julie Wardh (Edwige Fenech) and her diplomat husband Neil (Alberto De Mendoza). While Neil leaves, as he does throughout much of the film, Julie is driven home by a cabbie who quickly talks about the recent murder after they are stopped by a cop. Of course the first thing he says is "must have been a sex fiend." Check that box on your giallo bingo card. While this is going on Julie has a flashback to being sexually assaulted, though in typical 70s movie fashion it seems like she starts to like it. This is done by Jean (Ivan Rassimov) who we find out later is her ex-boyfriend of sorts. This scene is actually beautiful to watch with the slow motion moments and the rain in the sun. Jean in the meantime starts sending mysterious poetic notes to Julie with roses. The first is done in a beautiful camera angle where you see her looking through the peephole at the delivery person.
Julie goes to a party with her friend Carol (Conchita Airoldi). and meets her cousin George (George Hilton). John seems to be stalking Carol around. Meanwhile Julie and George start a relationship. I enjoy how cute this is too start with him taking her on a motorcycle ride and then phoning her with her saying don't call me anymore. He then suddenly appears in her doorway saying he won't call her anymore and they have sex. I enjoyed the kinetic camera angles on the motorcycle ride. By the way if you wanted to see as much as you can of Edwige Fenech being naked from all sorts of different angles this is the movie for you. The killer of the first woman in the car meanwhile kills another girl from the party in a really cool sequence and a nod to Psycho of sorts where she is killed in the shower but much more bloody than that movie allowed. Julie also has nightmares about Jean. There are many that take place in a black room and Martino gives us a signature from the bed camera angle of his where it is shown that she is intrigued by the sight of blood.
Spoiler Section
Julie is eventually blackmailed seemingly by Jean whose voice is different on the phone. In a great suspense in the woodlands and fields near a mansion she is killed after some fake outs. Not the bloodiest kill but her screaming makes it seem more real and brutal. Jean has an alibi and this starts the first of a theme in this I thought interesting. Jean points out that Julie has a blood fetish. In typical toxic male form he can't seem to think that she may not be into him anymore. This movie has some moments where I think about how men can't understand their own sexual preferences aren't the same as a woman's. Jean doesn't get that at all. In another great suspense sequence Julie is attacked in a parking garage. Julie and her husband go to meet Jean in an abandoned building but discover his supposedly dead body to which Julie is disturbed by the sight of blood. It is at this point Julie leaves with George to go to Spain.
Meanwhile the other killer in the movie is killed in self defense by a woman. There is a great jump scare in this sequence similar to Wait Until Dark where the killer hurls himself across the screen. While Julie hears about this and thinks she is safe, she eventually starts getting the roses and notes again. She has a mental breakdown at the sight of blood where she is living and Jean arrives and knocks her out in another great jump scare where she opens the curtains the low angle turns into a high angle when he grabs her throat. Jean stages the area to look like a suicide from carbon monoxide poisoning. Julie is presumed dead.
It is revealed that all three men were working together and George was working closely with both of them. He wanted Jean to kill Julie and with Carol dead he has the inheritance money from their dead uncle to himself. In another twist he kills Jean. That is another great camera angle as we see just the reflection from his sunglasses when he shoots him. In a very Strangers on a Train move Neil killed Carol. Neil gets insurance money from Julie's death. George and Neil are driving along the countryside when Neil sees a woman standing in the road. He thinks it is Julie. The police appear and the inspector (Carlo Alighero) says they needed the two men together in order to prove their guilt. The Spanish doctor they had seen earlier saved her life from being poisoned to death. They were suspicious after Carol was killed by a razor but not done the same way the other killer had been doing.
I like how many different things in this movie are things Martino does a lot in his giallo movies. Liberated female sexuality, black room dream and flashback sequences, female fronted movie, a character with a backstory or trauma of some kind coming back to haunt them, stalker Ivan Rassimov, kinetic camera movements, bloody kills, a different killer from the main plot, are all things he would do in other movies. What sets this apart is actually seeing Julie really be the hero. Yes they try to drive her crazy throughout the plot and ultimately do but her being the person on that road before the police show up shows how far she has come by the end. Most gialli and slashers need the men to be the hero but her being there all alone before the cops show up at the end showing them she is still alive is powerful. It's not my favorite of Martino's gialli but it might be right in the middle.
English dubbing Cast:
- Susan Spafford dubs Edwige Fenech as Julie
- Carolyn De Fonseca dubs Conchita Airoldi as Carol
Rating: 9.5/10
No comments:
Post a Comment