christopher-underwood
This starts very well, indeed, startlingly so with surreal quality about it as we proceed from outlandish and vivid killing to child finding body in trunk of car and something strange going on with eyes. Various persons emerge from secret doors and there is emphasis upon dark glasses and limited sight with some weird sound going off to suggest something untoward is about to happen. Things calm down and killing become a bit mundane, very bloody but not very involving until the end when things spark back into life. Along the way, Anton Differing is effective, if a little one note and Dagmar Lassander lovely as ever. Veteran actress, Valentina Cortese puts in a great little performance and Italian movie stalwart Luigi Pistilli is most effective. Great shots of Dublin and Switzerland along the way and if this is not the finest giallo, it is certainly entertaining enough.
MARIO GAUCI
After having been instrumental in introducing the Fantasy genre (which would thrive for close to 40 years) in Italy, with four classics to his name – I VAMPIRI (1956), CALTIKI, THE IMMORTAL MONSTER (1959), THE HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK (1962) and THE GHOST (1963) – much like James Whale in 1930s Hollywood, Freda's enthusiasm for the genre seems to have run out. Even so, towards the end of the 1960s, he dabbled in a new and flourishing branch of the horror/thriller genre, albeit with diminishing results: the pretty good (if derivative) DOUBLE FACE (1969); the film under review which, while not bad, is essentially uninspired; and the hilariously inept TRAGIC CEREMONY (1972); a measure of the director's own increasing disenchantment with his work is the fact that, in the case of the latter two, he chose to be credited not under his usual (thus recognizable) Anglicized alias of Robert Hampton but rather as the obscure Willy Pareto! For the record, after almost a decade of silence, he would return for one last fling with yet another Giallo i.e. the as-yet-unwatched MURDER OBSESSION (1981) featuring Softcore starlet Laura Gemser! To get back to the matter at hand, I have always found myself in two minds when it comes to this type of international production: while I generally lean towards the Italian dialogue because in all probability the script would have been written in that language, I know that, in most cases, the actors deliver their lines in English!; here, then, since the narrative is set in the Irish city of Dublin anyway, it would be natural to take this route. The thing is that I first laid my hands on an English-dubbed version (though, at least, both Anton Diffring and Valentina Cortese lend their voices to its audio track) but then also came across one in Italian which, however, I did not feel inclined to acquire (the irony is that, on the English-language print, the credits are still presented in their native language!); in fact, quite a number of Gialli I got hold of in English have been turning up in Italian (online or on TV) but I rarely, if ever, bother to 'upgrade' anymore! Anyway, here we get the usual flurry of vicious murders (of the throat-slitting or acid-splashing variety right from the very opening sequence – unfortunately, while the gore is plentiful, it looks ultra-fake!) countered by a Police investigation, set against stylish backdrops and accompanied by a delightful score (courtesy of Stelvio Cipriani). The other notable cast members, both genre stalwarts, are leads Luigi Pistilli and Dagmar Lassander (as the fast-living daughter of globe-trotting ambassador Diffring and drug-addled Cortese). Typically, the complex plot yields suspects galore, since most of the characters generally have something to hide (Diffring is a lecher, thus prone to blackmail, while ex-cop Pistilli's violent streak during interrogations has driven a suspect to suicide, etc.) but, as often happens, once the villain's identity is revealed, we get a motive that is all but flimsy (here, this figure had actually been so peripheral to the narrative that one's reaction to the finale is extremely muted and downright indifferent)! The surprising carelessness on the film-makers' part is evidenced in an early banal dialogue exchange relating to the use of acid as a murder weapon, which suggests that the killer may be either a woman or a colored person(!) and the fact that the music is allowed to go preposterously over-the-top when it wants to direct our attention – fruitlessly, as it turns out – to would-be vital clues like sun-glasses or razor-blades! Besides, there is additional gratuitous gore (an effectively graphic shot of a suture being applied to a gash on Pistilli's head) and nudity (apart from the obligatory love scene between Lassander and Pistilli, there is also a somewhat disturbing shot of Pistilli's underage daughter in the nude{!} being pursued by the killer inside their home – but, truly, why on earth should Pistilli's relatives be targeted?), some bizarre comic touches (provided by Pistilli's elderly amateur sleuth of a mother, who is repeatedly told that she cannot hear properly unless the woman has her glasses on – WTF, right?! – except that a colleague of mine, who I am sure is unfamiliar with the film, actually makes of that assertion a running gag!) and an unusual prevalence for foul language (especially on Diffring's part)! Although this is somewhat better than the reviews I have read of it would have you believe, the end result satisfied neither the director (who also edited the film under the afore-mentioned alias) nor prolific German co-producer Artur Brauner who decided it was not worthy of a theatrical release in his native country! Having said that, it was rather ingenious of the screenplay to have Cortese's supposed assassination attempt turn out to be a bungled suicide and that the seemingly scot-free Diffring is revealed at the film's very end as having actually murdered the first victim and that Justice will be catching up with him shortly upon making his return to Switzerland!
The_Void
The title of this film is one of the most ludicrously lurid in the whole Giallo sub-genre, and that gives the viewer the right impression of this film. Some Giallo's strive for artistic merit, while others are more than happy to depict graphic, violent murders and make the sleaze and trashiness the main ingredient; this film is one of the latter. The film gets off to a very promising start, with a bloody murder that sees a young woman have acid thrown in her face before having her throat sliced open with a razorblade. While this sequence is poorly brought to the screen and suffers from really bad special effects, it's at least entertaining. However, from there the film quickly moves downhill, and director Riccardo Freda bombards the viewer with tedious sequence after tedious sequence, until the ending in which the film gets back on track. The plot after the initial murder sees the mutilated corpse turn up in the boot of the Swiss Ambassador's car. The Ambassador refuses to cooperate with the police as the girl was a former lover of his, and hard-bitten ex-cop John Norton is soon drafted in as the murders continue...If Riccardo Freda could have made the middle of the movie as trashy and violent as the beginning and end, this could have been a pristine slice of Giallo sleaze; but the fact that the plot gets far too convoluted means the film gets boring too quickly, and despite a couple of decent scenarios in the centre of the film, there really isn't much to remember it for. The best sequence in the movie sees a young woman being chased through the streets by the murderer. The scene setting is good as the smoke filled pathway looks absolutely gorgeous, and the total lunacy of the conclusion to the chase bodes well with the trash theme of the movie. The acting leaves a lot to be desired and the poorly dubbed voices don't help. Of course, this isn't an actor's film; but considering the talent involved, this part of the movie should have been better. The murder scenes feel a little too much like an excuse to show blood and guts, and the fact that they aren't very well realised helps to ensure this. The climax is good, however, and while the identity of the killer doesn't really matter after watching the ninety minute ordeal, the revelation scene is good trashy fun. There isn't a lot I can recommend this for other than the obvious cult value; but fans of lurid cinema may find something to like.
