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[
13]
The Perfume Of The Lady In Black
Written by director Francesco Barilli alongside Massimo D’Avak, who both penned Aldo Lado’s ‘Who Saw Her Die?’, there’s a familiar emphasis on the psychological. The film feels more kin to Polanski than the typical giallo, steeped in a subtle paranoia that increasingly becomes overwhelming. It’s an incredibly slow burn, we take in meticulously composed interiors, awash with blue hues, architecture, fashion, the class and sophistication of the opening a juxtaposition to a chilling cavernous denouement. Mimsy Farmer is immensely watchable, her nuanced performance holds us rapt. The symbolism at first understated, the use of mirrors, ‘the looking glass’, to give us an alternate view, provide depth, elongate, eventually seems overwrought, the recurring book and quotes by Lewis Carroll. The past and the present hauntingly coalesce, child becomes matriarch, a delirious unravelling. The Perfume Of The Lady In Black is one of the more interesting examples of the genre, playful with traditional conventions, innovating, in a similar way to Lado’s Short Night Of Glass Dolls.
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[
14]
Don't Torture A Duckling
Morality is the pervading thematic in Lucio Fulci’s Don’t Torture A Duckling. Set in a small rural town, rife with superstition, an intense distrust of outsiders, feeling almost ruled by religion. A series of child killings, the local Witch caught fleeing from the church, of course no one suspects the Priest, not in those days, and especially not in Southern Italy. We see foretelling glimpses of the Fucli to come, the corruption of a minor, a spectacularly brutal retribution as the local residents take the law into their own hands. It’s a richly layered ecosystem, possibly one of Fulci’s classiest genre efforts, alongside Lizard In A Woman’s Skin. It’s almost the antithesis of The Beyond, where Fulci creates a world that feels moribund, a decaying husk lapsing into the underworld, Don’t Torture A Duckling feels full of life, selfish, mercenary, and imperfect.
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[
15]
Amuck!
It’s easy to pigeonhole Amuck as the plot begins to unfurl, the protagonist, played by Barbara Bouchet, takes a secretarial job for a writer at his mansion in an attempt to go undercover to unearth the truth behind the disappearance of her lover, who formerly held the same position. There’s not a strand of originality to the plot, and it deals with themes you’d come to expect; the manipulation and exploitation of those from less fortunate means, but it does so in an unexpectedly elegant, if kinky, way. Not quite as sensational as its alternate title of ‘Hot Bed Of Sex’, there’s an undeniable psychosexuality. Like so many gialli of the period the cinematography is sublime, from the canals of Venice, to the remote mansion, almost feeling locked away from the outside world, the gates resembling a prison cell’s door, framed with creeping vines.
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[
16]
The Last House On The Beach
Inspired by Wes Craven’s The Last House On The Left, The Last House On The Beach is part of a wave of Italian films that would exploit it, which includes the likes of Night Train Murders and The House On The Edge Of The Park. Florinda Bolkan reprises her calling as a Nun (in quite a dramatic departure from Flavia The Heretic) in charge of a group of teens rehearsing for a play. The house becomes besieged by a group of criminals on the run; the Sister and her students become victims to abuse at their hands. It’s a fairly standard set up, but in execution never manages to be as sleazy or depraved as its inspiration or contemporaries. It still manages to shock; one character’s violation at the hands of a make-up smeared antagonist in particular is haunting. Bolkan is mesmerising, and there’s an air of ambiguity to Ray Lovelock’s character, which makes for an engrossing experience. The finale is a spectacle of overacting.
So behind as usual.
