THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE aka LA NOTTE CHE EVELYN USCI DALLA TOMBA

Emilio Miraglia, 1971

Starring: Anthony Steffen, Marina Malfatti, Erika Blanc

An English lord, Alan, was recently released from a mental hospital after a breakdown over his wife Evelyn’s death. His obsession with Evelyn has not abated and he spends his time trolling bars and clubs looking for red headed women that resemble her to come home to his isolated castle and spend the night. But these trysts all result in torture and murder. He has to pay off his wife’s brother, the groundskeeper, to keep silent and attempts a seance that summons Evelyn’s ghost but results in another minor collapse. His doctor convinces him he should marry again and he meets the blonde Gladys. For a time he is happy with her, but Evelyn’s ghost begins to appear around the castle and drives Alan back to the brink of insanity. Gladys finds Evelyn’s tomb empty and strange murders begin to occur around the castle. Is Evelyn back to take her revenge on Alan?

The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave is the first giallo film from director Emilio Miraglia. Though lesser known alongside giallo greats like Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, Dario Argento, Sergio Martino, and Umberto Lenzi, Miraglia’s first film is a stylish, fascinating entry in the genre that will likely delight giallo lovers but probably confuse the hell out of everyone else. At its heart, the film is an entertaining blend of genres and presents a series of intertwining murder mysteries constantly folding and unfolding upon themselves. The winding plot is far from perfect and will likely confuse giallo newbies. While the giallo films in general aren't known for linear or rational plots, Evelyn is something else entirely. Some scenes drag on too long, where as others cut away without fully explaining events. Though there are many beautiful set pieces, the film is a little choppy and the plot isn't too concerned with making a lot of sense.

Part of the confusion is due to the fact that Miraglia blends a number of genres together. This begins as a fairly routine Euro-horror serial killer film a la The Awful Dr. Orloff (1962), Bava’s Hatchet for the Honeymoon (1970), or even the ridiculous Night of a Thousand Cats (1972), where a series of beautiful women are whisked away to a castle or mansion to be murdered. It rapidly turns into a ghost story with the seance and sightings of Evelyn’s ghost around the castle. The plot eventually morphs into a more giallo-like construction and picks up some genre tropes along the way, including twist after twist... after twist. 

If you have the patience for it, the bizarre story actually works in the film’s favor. Though there are some murders early on, courtesy of Alan, things don’t really kick off till the second half of the film. Evelyn isn’t particularly gory, but includes such unexpected deaths as a woman being fed to a cage full of prized foxes. There are some lovely, surreal visuals with plenty of shots of semi-nude women running through graveyards and one great scene where a stripper, played by the lovely Erika Blanc, rises from a coffin to begin her macabre striptease act. And let’s not forget the wacky ending that involves a swimming pool full of acid. 

Unlike other genre directors, Emilio Miraglia did not make a lot of giallo films even though he started fairly early -- Evelyn came out the same year as one of Dario Argento’s earliest films, The Cat O’Nine Tails (1971). As with Mario Bava’s Baron Blood (1972), the Gothic horror influence is richly felt, particularly in the main set: a menacing castle in the woods complete with a moldering crypt and a torture chamber. It also borrows from Bava’s Hatchet for the Honeymoon, as both films center around insane protagonists who murder women because of complicated relationship with their wives, who may or may not be dead and who possibly linger in the form of malignant spirits.

The uneven cast makes it difficult to really sympathize with anyone and, unlike the films of Dario Argento or Sergio Martino, Evelyn lacks a charismatic protagonist. Part of the problem is that it's simply unclear which characters are trustworthy. Spaghetti western regular Anthony Steffen does a decent job as Alan, though it’s difficult to redeem a character that is depicted as insane for much of the film. Marina Malfatti (from All the Colors of the Dark and Miraglia’s other giallo The Red Queen Kills Seven Times) is icy and reserved, but looks beautiful whether she is screaming in terror or plotting diabolically. She also wears increasingly racy lingerie and is barely clothed for much of the film. The cast is rounded out by Enzo Tarascio (The Conformist) as Alan’s conniving cousin, Giacomo Rossi-Stuart (The Last Man on Earth) as his psychiatrist, and Erika Blanc (Kill Baby, Kill) as a particularly memorable victim.

Overall The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave is recommended only for giallo lovers or at least seasoned Italian horror fans. The film is available uncut on DVD from Eclectic or in the Emilio Miraglia Killer Queen box set with The Red Queen Kills Seven Times. It's one of my favorites among the lesser known giallo films, partly because of the great atmosphere and the fact that the script -- from Miraglia, Massimo Felisatti (The Weekend Murders, Strip Nude for Your Killer), and Fabio Pittoru (The Weekend Murders, The Red Queen Kills Seven Times) -- is allowed to delightfully meander where it will.

THE RED HEADED CORPSE aka LA ROSSA DALLA PELLE CHE SCOTTA

Renzo Russo, 1972

Starring: Farley Granger, Erika Blanc

A disturbed, alcoholic painter, John, is given a female mannequin with a red wig. He spends time fixing it up, paints a face on it, and begins talking to it. Inexplicably, the mannequin soon becomes a real woman. She is silent and subservient, waiting patiently for John to return home. But one day, she has transformed into a sexier manifestation of herself, and becomes talkative, opinionated, and demanding. When John fails to meet her needs for sex and material possessions, she insists that he sell naked paintings of her, which does begin to bring in a fair amount of money – and other suitors, driving John to madness.

Director Renzo Russo’s The Red Headed Corpse is truly a strange beast. An amalgamation of Italian Gothic horror – such as Lust of the Vampire (1956), Mill of the Stone Women (1960), The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1961), and many more – and the giallo film, it overlaps with two small, strange (sub-)subgenres found within horror cinema: films about demented painters and movies that feature disturbing mannequins. There were a few giallo films that dealt with painters spiraling into madness, such as the effective A Quiet Place in the Country (1969), unsettling classics The House with the Laughing Windows (1976), and the absolute bat-shirt crazy Blood Delirium (1988). The Red Headed Corpse uses this character trope to its advantage and it is impossible to tell if John is going mad or if he’s just mad enough to accept the how wildly his reality has transformed.

This insane painter type ties in directly with the second theme of creepy, possibly supernatural mannequins. Found in everything from Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace (1964) and his Hatchet for the Honeymoon (1970), these plastic nightmares are also the subject of Umberto Lenzi’s Spasmo (1974), El asesino de muñecas aka Killing of the Dolls (1975), and the wacko American film Tourist Trap (1979). Quoting my own Spasmo review seems useful here: “I think it was only inevitable that pediophobia – the fear of dolls – and automatonophobia – the fear of humanoid figures – have played a fairly significant role in the horror genre over the years. Freud’s concept of the uncanny, the strangely familiar that both repulses and attracts, can be found everywhere from the monster that appears in human guise (Dracula, The Wolf-Man) to the double (The Student of Prague), the dead brought back to life (Frankenstein), recreations of the human form (Der Golem), and many more. Mannequins, dolls, and statues began to trickle into horror through the ‘30s and ‘40s, growing in popularity over the years.”

John is an unlikable character, not fascinating or charismatic in his madness like Franco Nero’s character from A Quiet Place in the Country, or frightening in his insanity like painter from House with the Laughing Windows; rather, he seems more grumpy and unpleasant than anything else. It is also thoroughly bizarre to see Farley Granger in a giallo, as I primarily know him from his earlier suspense films. After turns in film noir efforts like They Live By Night (1948) and Edge of Doom (1950), and Hitchcock’s Rope (1948) and Strangers on a Train (1951), he proved he was more than capable in dark roles with emotionally fraught characters. He spent a few years relegated to mostly TV roles before turning to giallo films and Italian horror movies: Something Creeping in the Dark (1971), Amuck (1972), So Sweet, So Dead (1972), and What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (1974).

If Granger’s aloof, detached persona seems odd in The Red Headed Corpse, Eurocult regular Erika Blanc is a welcome presence and is certainly the film’s high point. The prolific Italian actress became known for genre films like Bava’s Kill, Baby… Kill (1966), So Sweet, So Perverse (1969), The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (1971), and The Devil’s Nightmare (1971). Her lush sexuality serves her well and she is thoroughly charismatic while manipulating John and the other men that come in to her circle. The film never clarifies why the mannequin turned into a woman, or if this is a supernatural event or one born of mental illness. Even more inexplicably, the mannequin has two incarnations: the first is meek and passive and is depicted by Krista Nell (The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance, 1975). For no apparent reason, she transforms into Blanc’s character, an overripe parody of female sexual excess.

This Italian-Turkish co-production was helmed by director Renzo Russo, who only made 8 films throughout his career – primarily erotica and mondo films like The Kinky Darlings (1964), and Europa: Operation Strip-Tease (1964) – primarily South American productions that are impossible to find today. I would love to know how he was persuaded to make one pseudo-giallo, but very little information is available about this elusive smut peddler. I can’t say that direction is The Red Headed Corpse’s strong point, but it is a compelling film that Russo also penned.

The Red Headed Corpse is really only recommended to films of absolutely bizarre Eurohorror. Amazingly, you can find it on DVD in a collection called Euro Fiends From Beyond the Grave, which also includes The Faceless Monster (1965) and Satanik (1968). It is disorienting and creepy, and despite the fact that it’s a bit short on atmosphere, gore, or much sexual content (a lot is implied, but not shown), I can’t help but have a soft spot for this odd little film.

THE FIFTH CORD aka GIORNATA NERA PER L’ARIETE

Luigi Bazzoni, 1971

Starring: Franco Nero, Silvia Monti

Andrea, a journalist with a drinking problem, is at a New Year’s Eve party where one of the guests is attacked and hospitalized. The man is convinced that it was an attempted murder and soon enough the bodies – mostly guests from the party -- begin piling up around Andrea. In order to avoid becoming the main suspect himself, he begins investing the crime; even though he was at the party, he was too drunk to remember the events of the evening. He learns that his mistress and his former lover may be involved, and the only real clue is a series of black gloves with various fingers cut off left behind by the killer.

Clearly building off the success of Dario Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, The Fifth Cord – the title actually translates to Black Day for the Ram and it’s also known as Evil Fingers or Silent Killer – is an underrated effort with a solid lead performance and some effective moments of suspense. It borrows The Bird with the Crystal Plumage’s composer, the great Ennio Morricone, cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (also known for his work with Bernardo Bertolucci), and the premise that the protagonist saw something of vital importance, but can’t remember exactly what. While Bird’s protagonist didn’t realize exactly what he was seeing, The Fifth Cord’s Andrea is simply an alcoholic – a device that believably wipes his memory and also makes him something of a likable scoundrel.

Italian B-movie star Franco Nero – mostly known for his spaghetti western roles – was excellent in the earlier proto-giallo A Quiet Place in the Country and is really the best thing about The Fifth Cord. His character is sort of a raconteur; a not so hard-working journalist who specializes in whiskey and women and is charming despite his many flaws. In typical giallo fashion, he’s a reluctant detective, driven to solve the crime only to keep himself from being arrested (or killed). I am perhaps biased writing this review, as I would watch a movie where Nero scraped paint off the walls (which he nearly does in A Quiet Place in the Country) and probably walk away content. He is certainly the film’s weighted center and remains a stable presence – despite his character’s unstable personality – in the face of dozens of characters and a somewhat flimsy plot.

POTENTIAL SPOILER: The primary plot issue is that Andrea wades through a series of clues to uncover an underground sex ring that involves minors. This sleazy element is disappointingly forgotten by the end of the film and it winds up as little more than a red herring. The overall tone is not quite lurid enough to be in league with a Lucio Fulci movie, but it goes a long way towards making everyone – including Andrea – a potential killer. The stylish cinematography, which eschews the vivid color palette of many giallo films, is dark and moody, with an emphasis on nighttime shots, overcast skies, and heavy blues. The death scenes have an especially grim feeling, certainly more so than The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, and tension is ratcheted up by a number of creepy moments – such as when the killer records a confessions and plans for future murders.

Director Luigi Bazzoni didn’t make a lot of giallo films, but the three he did helm are some of the most unusual entries in the genre. His early film, The Possessed (1965), dealt with a woman’s mysterious suicide at a lake resort and plenty of sleazy sexual intrigue, while the latter Le orme aka Footsprints on the Moon (1975) is a delightfully chilling tale of psychological disintegration complete with a woman’s haunting dreams of an astronaut. What Bazzoni really brought to The Fifth Cord was the sense that all the characters are corrupt, morally flawed, or at least carrying a dirty secret, and that violent could erupt at any moment in such a compromised universe.

Fortunately available on DVD, The Fifth Cord might not be in the very top-tier of giallo classics, but it’s well worth seeing. Even if it’s sometimes difficult to keep the characters straight, there are a lot of familiar faces, including giallo actresses Rosella Falk (The Black Belly of the Tarantula), Silvia Monti (Lizard in a Woman’s Skin), and Ira von Füstenberg (Five Dolls for an August Moon), as well as The Bird with the Crystal Plumage’s Renato Romano. There are effective death scenes, a particularly chilling concluding sequence where the killer menaces, a child, and plenty of suspense. But hey, if all these pictures of Franco Nero haven’t convinced you, nothing will.

DEATH OCCURRED LAST NIGHT aka LA MORTE RISALE A IERI SERA

Duccio Tessari, 1970

Starring: Raf Vallone, Frank Wolff, Gabriele Tinti, Eva Renzi

Avanzio Berzaghi’s daughter, Donatella, has disappeared. Though she’s 25 years old, she’s mentally handicapped and prone to nymphomania, so he fears the worst. No one will help him until he travels to Milan and meets with Detective Lamberti. A bleeding heart, Lamberti is determined to find the girl, believing that she has probably been kidnapped and forced into the sex trade. Lamberti and his assistants blackmail a con and former pimp, and later a prostitute, into helping them comb their way through the city, one brothel at a time, towards the missing girl.

Based on a novel by Giorgio Scerbanenco, director Duccio Tessari’s Death Occurred Last Night is a bleak, unique blend of giallo and police procedural. Known primarily for spaghetti westerns (A Pistol for Ringo and many others with star Giulio Gemma), Tessari made a few giallo films throughout his career, namely The Bloodstained Butterfly (1971) and the excellent Puzzle (1974). All three of these are unusual approaches to the genre and Tessari is certainly one of Italian cinema’s more underrated directors.

While Death Occurred Last Night takes a while to get going, its premise is fairly brutal. This blending of genres is not really a giallo film, but borrows elements from the giallo, thrillers, Italian police procedurals, and revenge films. What is particularly unique about it – aside from the queasy premise – is how developed and personable Detective Lamberti becomes and that the script is always willing to work at its own pace, often forgoing genre expectations. POTENTIAL SPOILER: Although this information is all over the internet – and other reviewers make it seem like this happens early in the film – the actual main plot point doesn’t occur until more than halfway through. Detective Lamberti finds Donatella’s burning body in a field, just as they have begun to close in on the person/people who kidnapped her. This sets in motion Bergazhi’s parallel quest for revenge.

Like The Black Belly of the Tarantula’s Inspector Tellini, released a year later, Lamberti often laments that he is not qualified for police work – he is simply too sensitive for the relentless brutality of the cases he has to solve. Police officers and detectives fill somewhat of an unusual role in giallo films. Often they are completely useless – occasionally comically so – or they lack the insight of the protagonist. In this case Lambertini’s reluctance to separate victims and perpetrators, which are often one and the same in his world of gangsters and prostitutes, adds a nihilistic, depressed edge to the film. He knows that he is likely to find Donatella’s corpse and futilely races against the clock, hoping to save at least one person. He’s played by exhausted-looking genre actor Frank Wolff, known for everything from early Roger Corman films like The Wasp Woman and Beast from Haunted Cave to spaghetti westerns like The Great Silence and Once Upon a Time in the West, as well as police procedurals (Caliber 9), other giallo films (Cold Eyes of Fear and Death Walks on High Heels), and even erotica (The Lickerish Quartet). He is perhaps not the typically handsome giallo lead (like George Hilton), but he’s incredibly compelling.

Prostitution and the sex trade have not faded over the years as a subject of cinematic interest, and it can even be seen in mainstream works – including recent efforts like Hostel to Taken – where the theme skirts the uncomfortable boundary between exploitation and true horror. Death Occurred Last Night’s script goes to some truly unexpected places and avoids many giallo genre clichés. Rather than being violent and – let’s face it – stupid, the cops are sympathetic and hardworking, average guys who routinely have to deal with the worst of humanity. The father, Bergazhi, is not the standard portrait of overwrought Italian masculinity. In some comic-tragic scenes, he is shown tenderly caring for his daughter. He lives alone and grieves at her absence.

SPOILERS: His (and the film’s) final act is to get vengeance on the people who kidnapped Donatella. Unexpectedly, this is a local criminal hoping to make a quick buck prostituting a beautiful, but senseless girl, along with the aid of Berghazi’s female neighbor, who works at the Laundromat nearby, and her crooked boyfriend. He essentially beats all three to death (or at least unconscious) in a public laundry room, a scene that would be comical if not for the grim tone heightened by a sense of claustrophobia. The final, unpleasant note is the idea that anyone, even the smiling woman next door, is capable of an extremely cruel act of violence – she admits that they killed Donatella simply because she was annoying and wouldn’t stop crying for her father. In response, Berghazi strangles her to death under the weight of pounds of wet bed sheets.

The film’s other unusual element is Herrero, a black prostitute played by Jamaican actress Beryl Cunningham (also seen in The Weekend Murders), one of the few black actresses to make a mark in Italian cult films. In additions to the few aforementioned giallo efforts (including So Sweet… So Perverse), she appeared in exploitation films like Tarzana, the Wild Woman, Massimo Dallamano’s Dorian Gray, Sergio Martino’s Island of the Fishmen, post-apocalyptic film Exterminators of the Year 3000, and her then-partner Piero Vivarelli’s erotic/cult films The Black Decameron and The God Snake, among others. Herrero is a complex character, as she both helps and deceives Lamberti. He invites her to live at his home, where she is reluctantly accepted by his photographer girlfriend. Though Lamberti believes she is complicit in her own misery, the film turns this on its head and shows that Herrero – and women like her – are exploited by a corrupt, broken system, to which there is almost never a means to escape and women are sucked in by abusive boyfriends, drug use, poverty, and a lack of employable skill set (outside prostitution).

Death Occurred Last Night may not be the most stylish giallo (though it does take advantage of the Milanese setting), but its sense of gritty realism is almost unparalleled within the genre. Despite several murders, including the conclusion’s triple homicide, it lacks the flashy, effect-laden gore of giallo films or the over-the-top violence of police procedurals. Hovering somewhere between the two, the film comes highly recommended, though look out for the almost inappropriately jazzy score, some slightly disturbing montage sequences, and plenty of red herrings. Fortunately it’s available on DVD from Raro Video, doing spectacular work, as always.

THE WEEKEND MURDERS aka CONCERTO PER PISTOLA SOLISTA

Michele Lupo, 1970

Starring: Anna Moffo, Gastone Moschin, Ida Galli

After a wealthy man dies, his catty, eccentric family gathers at his country estate for the reading of his will. To the shock of the others, Barbara, his adopted daughter (really a distant relative), is made sole heir to his fortune and his only daughter is cut off for marrying against his wishes. The bodies begin to pile up around the house and the local police – assisted by a stuffy detective from Scotland Yard – try to find the murderer before Barbara is killed.

Also known as The Story of Crime, director Michele Lupo’s thriller is often lumped in with the giallo films being made in Italy during this period, though it is more (or less) than that. It’s essentially an Italian take on the British “old dark house” mysteries that follow a standard central plot: a stuffy, possibly eccentric aristocratic family gathers in a mansion after the death of a wealthy relative to hear the reading of the will. One person, generally an innocent young woman, is made sole benefactor, which encourages the other disgruntled family members to try to murder her. Sometimes, as in And Then There Were None, based on Agatha Christie’s novel, the plot is somewhat altered (a group of strangers are called to an island, where they are all accused of different crimes by an absent host), but the general themes and structure – and the scares – are often the same.

Regardless, I basically never get tired of this formula. It isn’t for everyone and will likely ruffle the feathers of anyone hoping for a more straightforward, bloody giallo, but I found The Weekend Murders to be delightful and entertaining. It is easy to tell that this is a European film, as it has a bit more sex, violence, humor, and weirdness than the average British mystery. Early on, a decaying body is uncovered on the family golf course, while Cousin George – an attractive 20-something – is obviously sexually obsessed with his controlling mother. He can’t go through with seducing a maid, but appears to come in his pants when his mother hugs him tightly after a scolding. He also pretends to have committed suicide in the bath and later fakes a murder, setting up a series of jokes that cause the characters not to believe they are in real danger.

Everyone seems to be having an affair, especially the married characters. The numerous red herrings are generally all based around the characters’ tense relationships with one other. Keep your eyes peeled for a number of genre actors, including giallo-regular Ida Galli (Knife of Ice, A White Dress for Mariale), Gastone Moschin (The Conformist, Caliber 9, Godfather II), Marisa Fabbri (Four Flies on Grey Velvet), and Chris Chittell (The Beast in the Cellar). They are joined by British comic actors Lance Percival (Carry on Cruising) as the inspector and Ballard Berkely (Fawlty Towers) as the unfortunate butler. Inexplicably, American opera singer Anna Moffo stars as the tormented Barbara.

In addition to some capable camera work, The Weekend Murders makes great use of its location, primarily the Gothic manor – allegedly shot at a mansion in Suffolk – with plenty of dark corners and the lovely British countryside that surrounds it. There’s a robust score from Francesco De Masi (New York Ripper) and the suspenseful reveals are all punctuated by quick close-ups and explosive gunshot sounds – an effective and modern technique. The material is also modernized by the frequent humor and it would be fair to say that this is a spoof on the Italian giallo/English murder mystery genres. It is helpful to know about both to get all of the jokes, but so many – such as an early quip that since the butler died first, he can’t have done it – are already deeply ingrained in English-language culture.

The Weekend Murders is not for everyone, though fans of The Cat and the Canary and The Old Dark House are sure to love this updated twist with plenty of satire and strangeness. It would also make a nice double feature with Radley Metzer’s remake of The Cat and the Canary (1978) from just a few years later, which puts an equal emphasis on humor, without fully plunging into the same territory as Clue or Murder by Death. The Weekend Murders comes recommended. It doesn’t break any new ground and it probably won’t blow your socks off, but if you enjoy the Agatha Christie influences in giallo films (and there are certainly plenty), then this is an enjoyable way to spend 90-or so minutes. Thankfully, Code Red have rescued it from obscurity with a lovely hi-definition DVD release that even has an audio commentary track.

IN THE FOLDS OF THE FLESH aka NELLE PIEGHEDELLA CARNE

Sergio Bergonzelli, 1970
Starring: Eleonora Rossi Drago, Pier Angeli, Fernando Sancho, Alfredo Mayo

One night a man is decapitated and a woman, Lucille, hides his body in a motorboat, unaware than a wanted killer fleeing from the police is spying on her. The killer, Pascal, is caught, but the woman escapes. Years later, she lives in the same seaside villa with her adult son, Colin, and Falesse, her deceased husband’s grown daughter. A series of men arrive at the villa and attempt to seduce Falesse, but she murders them. It seems that Lucille is keeping a deadly secret and Falesse’s violent tendencies are connected to some dark trauma from the past…

It’s almost not even worth writing a plot synopsis of In the Folds of the Flesh, the sole giallo outing from B-movie director Sergio Bergonzelli, who mostly helmed westerns, adventure films, and softcore erotica (School of Erotic Enjoyment, Our Lady of Lust, The Young Bride, etc.). He would go on to make one more horror film, the absolutely demented Blood Delirium (1988), and that and In the Folds of the Flesh certainly share a penchant for violent, perverse, and completely bonkers plots. In the Folds of the Flesh is essentially part giallo and part psychosexual horror film with overwrought Freudian themes that follows a murdering threesome who are basically the smut equivalent of the Addams Family. In addition to an absurd number of beheadings and lots of implied incest, they have two pet vultures, live on top of an Etruscan burial ground and collect “artefacts,” and have a basement vat specifically designed to dispose of corpses.

And did I mention the fabulous outfits? The clothing worn by Pier Angeli and Alfredo Mayo is some of the best (and most absurd) you will see in any film from any decade. Their outrageous attire is one of the film’s elements that remains closest to a traditional giallo – though of it course it goes way over the top.

In the Folds of the Flesh was written by Bergonzelli, with input from Mario Caiano – responsible for Nazi Love Camp 27, Milano violenta, and Nightmare Castle, among other Italian cult movies – and Fabio De Agostini, writer and director of Red Nights of the Gestapo. Why mention Nazi Love Camp 27 and Red Nights of the Gestapo? Because, unlike nearly any other giallo film, one of In the Folds of the Flesh’s most unexpected subplots is that – sort of a spoiler – Lucille is a concentration camp survivor. She watched her female family members go to their deaths and was spared from a gas chamber at the last moments by a licentious SS guard. She uses some of her experiences learned surviving the camp to murder a particularly stubborn guest who attempts to blackmail the family.

In the Folds of the Flesh came out before either Nazi Love Camp 27 or Red Nights of the Gestapo, both released in 1977. It actually followed on the heels of Love Camp 7 (1969), which ushered in a decade of Nazisploitation cinema. The latter is American, though most of those films were made in Italy. While In the Folds of the Flesh is far from a Nazi exploitation film, the concentration camp scene is little more than an excuse to show a room full of (improbably curvy and well-endowed) topless women and to add to the film’s dark, violent tone. While the pseudo-giallo Baba Yaga (1973) has strange dream sequences featuring Nazis, this may be the only giallo that uses Nazi extermination methods – cyanide capsules released while someone is bathing – as an inspiration to kill.

And while most giallo films focus on whodunit, In the Folds of the Flesh makes this clear within the first ten minutes of the film. Instead, the film slowly unravels the motivations of the killer and the identities of the victims. Like several key giallo films, such as All the Colors of the Dark and The Perfume of the Lady in Black, as well as many of Dario Argento’s films, the focus is on female psychosis and the madness that obviously leads back to the murder that opens the film. There are themes of mental illness, including a subplot set in an asylum, and the film hints at rape, child abuse, and incest – heady topics even for the often lurid giallo genre.

I hadn’t gotten around to seeing this gem until recently and it is definitely a new favorite. There are certainly flaws, including a number of twist endings that all seem to occur within five minutes of each other. You’ll want to pay close attention, as there are a number of characters pretending to be other people and it’s easy to lose your way in the murky plot towards the second half. If you need a direct, easy to follow plot, the giallo genre is probably not for you in the first place. But if you like your horror as seedy as possible – while still being dizzyingly stylish – then this is definitely the film for you. Luckily it’s available on DVD from Severin and, in my opinion, it’s a must see. Hopefully someone will give Blood Delirium the same treatment – though look for a review of that at the bitter end of my giallo series.

P.S. The lurid title is not a thinly veiled reference to vaginas; rather it comes from a Freud quote that opens the film: “What has been remains embedded in the brain, nestled in the folds of the flesh. Distorted, it conditions and subconsciously impels.”

FORBIDDEN PHOTOS OF A LADY ABOVE SUSPICION aka LE FOTO PROIBITE DI UNA SIGNORA PER BENE

Luciano Ercoli, 1970

Starring: Pier Paolo Capponi, Simon Andreu, Dagmar Lassander, Susan Scott

The lovely, young Minou is a bored housewife constantly waiting for her busy husband. One night, she’s attack by a man who also warns her that her husband is a murderer. She brushes it off, but soon learns that a business associate of her husband’s — a man he owed a sizable amount of money to — has been found dead. The attacker calls Minou and plays her a recording of her husband admitting his part in the murder and he soon blackmails her into having sex with him. Soon Minou isn’t sure if there are a conspiracy against her, or if she is losing her mind.

Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion was the first collaboration between director Luciano Ercoli and writer Ernesto Gastaldi, the team that would go on to make Death Walks on High Heels (1971) and Death Walks at Midnight (1972). Like the earlier giallo films of Umberto Lenzi, these are all essentially erotic thrillers — Ercoli focused on tales of sexual paranoia, threesomes, the danger of promiscuity, and relationships gone wrong. Like star Dagmar Lassander’s earlier giallo-like exploitation film, The Frightened Woman, Forbidden Photos critically examines female desire. A woman’s desperate longing for her husband’s attention turns into blackmail, sexual extortion, and — somehow worst of all — rumors that he is a ruthless killer. The innocent, young-looking Minou has something akin to a rape fantasy involving her husband, where he becomes sexually aggressive after she teases him that she’s in love with another man.

Like The Frightened Woman, this film, which would be considered horribly sexist today, imagines the titular female character as naive, even emotionally stuck in the role of a young girl. Minou is a strangely perverse character. While giallo is host to a bevy of female backstabbers, murderers, prostitutes, promiscuous teens, and demanding upper class divas, there is something unsettling and almost prudish — a Victorian sensibility more often found in German krimi films than giallo outings — about Minou’s inherent victimhood, passivity, and helplessness. Minou entertains herself by dabbling in pharmaceuticals, drinking a good deal, and practicing dressing more scandalously (in case she looks too much like a housewife). The dialogue is hilarious, particularly her voice overs where she ponders how to be more appealing to her husband.

For all Minou’s helplessness and the film’s sexist attitudes, it’s hard to be offended, as its misogyny seems like a joke. In this way, it’s again similar to The Frightened Woman, which turns movie sexism on its head. Unlike the standard giallo, the film’s core mystery is not a question of finding the identity of a psychosexual killer, but it’s more subtle and Hitchcockian. Is Minou going mad? If not, who is conspiring against her? Her innocence and naiveté works hard for the film’s plot, making it easy to believe that everyone could be against her and red herrings abound almost effortlessly. Ercoli refuses to resolve this until the film’s conclusion and it is genuinely difficult to be sure whether we are dealing with an unreliable narrator (popular in giallo films with a sexually repressed woman in the protagonist’s role) or an elaborate plot.

Forbidden Photo’s sexual tension is another major point and acts to fuel Minou’s hysteria. Ercoli’s frequent star Nieves Navarro (as Susan Scott) had her first role in a giallo here as Minou’s bestfriend, Dominique, a woman who participates in and collects pornography. She is having an affair with Minou’s husband and attempts to pursue Minou herself. When Minou tells her about the assault and subsequent blackmail, it excites Dominique and she admits that she would like to be in a similar situation. When Minou later tells her plight to the police — at her husband’s command — they believe she has invented the entire thing to get (sexual) attention from her absent husband. There are many striking erotic moments, particularly between Minou and her attacker. For those not interested in the rape-revenge subgenre or overt moments of sexual assault, there is nothing really threatening about their interactions — which are generally the most stylized parts of the film and are beautifully lit.

Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion may not be a must-see in the giallo universe, but it is plenty entertaining and will especially please anyone who enjoys erotic thrillers. In addition to some pleasing twists and turns, there are plenty of great shots, including a scene reminiscent of Jean Cocteau (and Roman Polanski) which features an eerie wall of sculpted hands. There’s also a wonderful score from Ennio Morricone, which features some vocals from the wonderful Edda Dell’Orso. Pick it up on DVD from Blue Underground. If you like Lenzi’s giallo films or the later work of Ercoli, you’ll definitely want to check this one out.