A castle in Italy, a married couple who hate each other, a few knives, plenty of blood, a zoom lens and inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat”. Put ’em all together and you’ve got a giallo. A pretty good one, too, cooked up with lots of lush Eurotrash vibes. Shadows, harpsichords, gratuitous nudity. You know the drill.
It opens with a little spousal abuse at a boozy wake for Luigi Pistilli’s dead mother that culminates in a hippie singalong and a naked girl dancing on the dining table. After that, our married couple continue to spit venom at each other. She (Anita Strindberg) resents him for being an alcoholic writer of little success. He resents her because she doesn’t measure up to mama. They even like different pets. He’s a cat person, she’s a dove person. There’s no reconciling that.
In the middle of this, people around them start to die violently by the hand of a mystery slasher, which isn’t helping. She thinks he’s doing the killing; he claims to have no idea what’s going on.
Sounds like a good time for Luigi’s young niece to visit! She’s the heart-stopping Edwige Fenech, whose flawless features and crazy screen charisma suggest Audrey Hepburn with more “bad girl” vibes. She sleeps with almost everybody else in the movie who isn’t dead, yet, male or female, and hooray for that. These people need it. All of this fun stuff builds up to an ending that doesn’t let you down. Directed by Sergio Martino, who knew what the hell he was doing.