Double Face

  
Double Face

 

She's just like her mother... rich, moody, wicked.

 

Shortly after marrying his wife, Helen (Margaret Lee), John Alexander (Klaus Kinski) discovers that she is having an affair with her friend Liz (Annabella Incontrera), but divorce would mean financial ruin. Despite this, John is distraught after Helen is killed in a car crash and when he finds a strange but flirtatious woman, Christine (Christiane Krüger) in his home, he is in no mood for games. But when Christine shows John a sexy movie featuring herself with a mysterious veiled woman, John becomes obsessed - the other woman is wearing Helen's ring and has the same scar on her neck as John's late wife! If the film was made just a week before, does that mean that Helen faked her death? Or has John's grief made him lose his grip on reality? Either way, his search for answers will lead him on a dangerous path!

  

Double Face (not to be confused with The Double) treads the same ground as some other, more widely-known gialli and I'd say that while it's more coherent than Spasmo, it's not nearly as well-made as Perversion Story. Even though the body count is low, the mystery is baffling and the nudity is abundant, making this an eminently watchable bad movie. 

• The script, based on the novel "A Face In the Night" by Edgar Wallace, was co-written by Lucio Fulci (which may explain some resemblance to Perversion Story).
• Luciano Spadoni, who plays Inspector Gordon, was also the set and costume designer in this production.
• Two years after this production, Klaus Kinski, Annabella Incontrera and Margaret Lee would reunite on screen in Slaughter Hotel.
• None of the titles really make sense. "Double Face" would make more sense if there was a Vertigo-esque identity switch and the lesbian affair is a minor sub plot, making "Liz & Helen" just as out of place. The title "Puzzle of Horrors" belongs on a film with more gore and far more murders.

 
What the Hell Am I Watching?

What Double Face lacks in good writing it makes up for in crazy moments. For example, the wild hippie warehouse party where two motorcyclists have an indoor jousting tournament, ripping off an article of clothing from a dancing girl with each pass.

Then there are the hilariously inept special effect sequences, which cut from footage of real cars and trains to HO-scale models crashing into each other.

Something that confused me from the start: John is trapped in his unhappy marriage with Helen because of financial necessity, but what advantage does Helen gain in staying married to John? Why does she insist that they stay together?

Finally, who handcuffs a suspect without frisking him for weapons first?

Fashion Moment

In the scene preceding Helen's car crash, we see that she's ready to shuffle off this mortal coil in high style, wearing a chic white dress, gold chain belt, go-go boots and a rich oiled leather coat draped over her shoulders.

    

Later, Liz vamps it up with some Elizabeth Taylor realness in this sexy off-the-shoulder low-cut fringe number.  Perhaps her shredded white dress is worn in memory of her dead lover?

 

  

New York Ripper

New York Ripper

Don't accept rides from anyone with two fingers missing on his right hand, okay?

A serial killer is on the loose in New York City and Lt. Frank Williams (Jack Hedley) is on the case. The victims are all beautiful young women, but that seems to be the only factor they have in common. As the bodies pile up in the morgue, the killer grows bolder, calling Lt. Williams before each murder and taunting him with a squeaky Donald Duck voice and quacking noises. Could the deranged killer be Mickey Scellenda (Howard Ross), a brooding eight-fingered man? Could it be jealous husband Dr. Lodge (Cosimo Cinieri)? With the help of psychology professor Dr. Paul Davis (Paolo Malco), Lt. Williams must find the answers before the duck-voiced killer strikes again!

New York Ripper isn't Lucio Fulci's best movie (that would be supernatural thriller L'Aldila), it's not his best giallo (that would be Perversion Story) and it's not the most fun to watch (that would be Murder Rock), but it's the Fulci-est Fulci movie ever, featuring all his signature moves: beautiful women in mortal jeopardy, lots of blood, close-up gore, zoom-ins on peoples' eyes, the killer's POV, Donald Duck, creepy and inappropriate sexual encounters, eyeball injuries, a gritty setting, helpless police, and a plot that hinges on a childhood trauma. This movie was made at a time when traditional gialli were being eclipsed in popularity by slasher films and Fulci gives his audience what they want, with slow-motion, blood-soaked shots of razors cutting off a woman's nipple and slicing through her eyeball. The plot may not make sense, but gore fans will cheer.

• The movie starts with a standard Law & Order opening. A man is going about his day, walking his dog along the river when he stumbles across the first body.
• Fulci makes a cameo as Lt. Williams' police chief.
• There's a scene of a cool radio DJ warning people about the killer on the loose between songs and asking him to "leave those ladies alone." The way it's shot and acted, it seems to be an obvious homage to the DJ in The Warriors.
• Fulci also seems to be paying homage to Bava and Argento when he lights the third murder scene in saturated greens and reds.
• Killer's POV is a pretty standard giallo move, but I can't recall seeing Police POV before New York Ripper. 
• You may remember Andrea Occhipinti from his starring role in the great Blade in the Dark.

What the Hell am I Watching?

In a weird subplot, Jane Lodge (Alexandra Delli Colli) keeps getting herself into more and more dangerous sexual situations, recording them on a mini tape player, and giving them to her husband to listen to. She doesn't seem to enjoy doing it, and it's implied that she's making the tapes to aid her husband's sexual disfunction. In the weirdest and most disturbing scene, she flirts with and is assaulted by two guys in a pool hall.

Fashion Moment

There's not a great shot of it, but I love Fay's (Almanta Suska) white cashmere scarf and the way it's elegantly draped over her shoulder in the subway scene. Great hair, too.

Perversion Story

Perversion Story

"What do you know about me, after all?"

When Dr. George Dumurrier's (Jean Sorel) sickly wife Susan (Marissa Mell) dies, he is able at last to be with his girlfriend, Jane (Elsa Martinelli). But one night, George receives an anonymous phone call, directing him to the Roaring 20's Club, where he encounters bombshell stripper Monica Weston (also Marissa Mell) who, aside from her blond hair and green eyes, is a dead ringer for his late wife. Did Susan somehow fake her own death and take on a new identity? If so, why? And who did he bury? George soon becomes obsessed with finding out – an obsession that will uncover a sinister conspiracy.

Perversion Story is a giallo re-imagining of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo and is Lucio Fulci's first giallo. The focus is on sex rather than violence and, just as this film was inspired by Vertigo and Diabolique, it lays the groundwork for sexy thrillers such as Basic Instinct.  But Fulci really shines as a writer here, using the switched-identity mystery as a jumping off point for a fantastically twisted plot that unfolds with clockwork precision. He hooks us in the first half with nudity and reels us in in the second half with a roller coaster ride of double crosses and ingenious con-game manipulations.

• Perhaps the title refers to a "perversion of justice" rather than a sexual perversion. Even still, that's a terrible title for such a good movie. The original title, One On Top of the Other, presumably describing George's chain of lovers, isn't much better.
• You may recognize the Demurrier house in Perversion Story, with its yellow curtains, white marble foyer, and spiral staircase with wrought-iron bannisters. The same set was used as the Terzi house a few years later in Dario Argento's Cat O'Nine Tails.
• One Marissa Mell just doesn't seem to be enough! After Perversion Story, Marissa Mell played double roles in 1971's Marta and  Luciano Ercoli's Umberto Lenzi's 1972 giallo Seven Bloodstained Orchids.
• Are Monica and Susan just two reflections of the same person? Throughout the film, Fulci plays with the mystery of their identities with a mirror motif, repeatedly showing the two women reflected in mirrors or windows.
• Fulci gave himself a small role as a handwriting expert at the police forensics lab.
• Everyone say hello to giallo all-star and frequent supporting player George Rigaud, as George's lawyer!

What the Hell Am I Watching?

Fulci gets creative early on with a mattress-eye-view shot, the likes of which I have never seen before or since. The characters are in bed doing the grownup and we have a perspective from below, looking through the sheets. It's this kind of creativity and willingness to experiment that really defines the genre.

Have you ever seen a movie that takes place in a foreign country but everyone speaks English? Perversion Story is like that, but in reverse. It's set in San Fransisco, but everyone speaks Italian. And it's not like the characters are all in the Italian expatriate community living in northern California – everyone, from gas station attendants to prison guards speaks Italian.

Fashion Moment

George's clothes aren't particularly notable and Monica spends most of her time naked or barely clothed. But Jane is the real fashion star of the movie. She wears some fantastic clothes, but my favorite is this Sgt. Pepper's-inspired outfit when she joins George for a night on the town.

 

She looks like she raided Jimi Hendrix's closet. There's also this black leather and silk outfit, accented with silver jewelry that she wears while seducing Monica. Just like Jane, it's a great balance of hard and soft.

Murder Rock

Murder Rock

"She's dead. It's no big deal. But we can't stop dancing."

The competition is fierce among the graduate students at a prestigious New York dance academy, but when only three parts open up on an upcoming Broadway show, someone turns to murder to narrow the field, stabbing the dancers through the heart with jeweled hat pins. Meanwhile, dance teacher Candice Norman (Olga Karlatos) is having nightmares of being murdered by a man – a man she has never seen before. When she finds him in real life, he turns out to be George Webb (Ray Lovelock), a sad, under-employed actor with a shady past. Could he be the killer? Or maybe it's Candice's estranged, jealous husband, Dick (Claudio Cassinelli) or frustrated choreographer Margie (Geretta Geretta). Corps du ballet? More like Corpse du ballet!

I can just imagine Lucio Fulci watching Flashdance and saying to himself "You know what this could use? About five or six murder scenes."  The result is Murder Rock, which brazenly copies not only Flashdance, but also Fame and When a Stranger Calls, among other movies. Who can blame him for wanting to capitalize on a phenomenon? The result is a crazy mishmash that could only have come from Lucio Fulci. The man was never known for restraint, after all.  But just because the movie is a derivative mess and doesn't make any sense doesn't mean that it isn't wildly entertaining.

• Keith Emerson (of Emerson Lake & Palmer) composed the songs and the synth-based score.
• Janice (Carla Buzzanca) must be a steel town girl on a Saturday night, because she performs a solo spotlight dance at a nightclub that copies directly from Flashdance. They spray her down with water. She does the trademark running-in-place move. She does the whipping-her-hair-back-and-forth move. I just wish the music were half as good as "Maniac."
• Candice's nightmare sequence, where she is being chased in slow motion down the wide hallway of a modern building by a hat pin-wielding George is clearly an homage to the dream sequence from The Red Queen Kills Seven Times.
• To rally the dancers after the first murder, Candice gives them a variation on Debbie Allen's famous "This is where you start paying" speech from Fame.
• If you're a horror fan, you may recognize Olga Karlatos from Lucio Fulci's Zombie. Or if you're a child of the 80's you may recognize her as Prince's mother in Purple Rain, which was released the same year as Murder Rock.
• Fulci appears in a cameo as Candice's agent.

What the Hell Am I Watching?

Where to start? How about at the opening credits, when we see shots of the New York skyline inter-cut with some kids doing rhythmless disco-breakdance pop-and-lock moves. Enjoy it because we never see those kids again.

The choreography is simply awful and consists almost entirely of high kicks, squats, pelvic thrusts, and jazz hands. But everyone treats it like it's a work of genius. Rule number one: you gotta sell it.

Does anyone else think it's weird that Candice, an American who lives in New York, carries her American passport around with her wherever she goes?

What kind of Chinese restaurant fortune teller flat out calls someone a murderer to his face? And where did he get those fortune telling chopsticks that even have that as an option?

Newsflash: the human heart is not located in the left bewb. Aim that needle a little higher, murderer.

In my favorite scene, Margie tries to kill Candice in the same manner as the murderer, but doesn't have the guts to follow through. Dick stops her just in time... and then nothing happens. I mean, Margie had chloroformed Candice and was discovered by a credible witness, kneeling over her unconscious body with a needle to the chest. Margie clearly had intent to kill. That's attempted murder right there and she just gets to walk free.

Fashion Moment

Let's have a look at those dance costumes. Pure 1980's.

Also, let me just throw this out there...

What? Doesn't everyone wear a bulky ankle-length fur coat when they're bicycling down the streets of New York?

Don't Torture a Duckling

Don't Torture a Duckling

"The killer is a maniac. But his mind works in a semi-logical pattern 

which has a reasonable meaning for him."

Young boys are turning up dead – strangled to death – in a provincial Italian village. As the police work to find the killer, they must also deal with the townsfolk, who cling to old superstitions and believe in vigilante justice. Newspaper reporter Andrea Martelli (Tomas Milian) teams up with rich, visiting city girl Patricia (Barbara Bouchet) to see through the irrational fears that obscure the case and find the killer. Was it really the village idiot, Giusseppe (Vito Passeri)? Or did the local mystic, Francesco (Georges Wilson), and his daughter, Maciara (Florinda Bollcan) murder the boys with black magic? Only the kindly priest, Don Alberto (Marc Porel), seems rational enough to help. But could he be hiding a secret of his own?

Director Lucio Fulci has said that Don't Torture a Duckling is his favorite film and it's a really good choice. Personally, I think L'Aldila (The Beyond) is his masterpiece and that A Lizard In Woman's Skin is his best giallo, but Duckling has a lot going for it. Besides his handful of gialli, Fulci is best known for his gore movies and Duckling acts as a bridge between the two worlds, with plenty of blood and shocking edits throughout.

• The clash between the modern world and old-world superstition is a major theme throughout the movie, exemplified by the modern highway that passes by the village and the contrast of free-spirited Patrizia in the town full of villagers in traditional clothes.
• The other recurring theme is women taunting and emasculating men. We see this when Giusseppe is turned away by the prostitutes, when naked Patrizia teases the young boy, and later when she teases Don Alberto.
• The "cliff-hanger" finale is an homage to Hitchcock's North By Northwest.
• You read correctly - someone actually dies of natural causes in a giallo (though that's not without precedent). In this case, it's Maciara's baby, who was born 15 years prior to the start of the film of complications from a birth defect.
• The title makes no sense at all. But you're going to say "What about the Donald Duck doll that the little girl beheaded as a way to communicate the killer's identity?" My response: shut up. It's a stupid title.

 What the Hell Am I Watching?

The centerpiece of the film is the scene where Maciara, freed from prison and eliminated as a suspect, is stalked in an abandoned cemetery in broad daylight by a group of vigilante thugs. It's a stunning sequence because it plays out so slowly. And because the beating is bloody and brutal, and because the thugs don't say a word the entire time they're bashing her with sticks and chains. But mostly because of the soundtrack – Peppy American R&B plays on the radio to contrast to the brutality, followed by a soulful Italian ballad, which gives the scene tragic emotional weight. It's clear that Quentin Tarantino applied the lessons he learned from Duckling when he made the famous ear-cutting scene in Reservoir Dogs.

Earlier, when Maciara is being interrogated, she works herself into a wide-eyed frenzy, confessing to the murders. This ends with her on the floor twitching and foaming at the mouth, while the police just stand around, give her space, and watch. This town has the most inept police force in any giallo film. In fact, they blow off crucial evidence and ignore important contradictions throughout the film.

Fashion Moment

As I mentioned earlier, the outsiders really stand out in this little village. None more so than Patrizia, who likes to wear bright colors, low tops, and high skirts. This expensive-looking outfit is a good example.

The Psychic

The Psychic

"This thing's becoming an obsession, darling. Get it out of your mind."

While driving alone to her new husband's Tuscan estate, Virginia Ducci (Jennifer O'Neill) experiences a series of psychic visions. A streak of red light... a yellow taxi...  a broken mirror... a dead old woman whose face is streaked in blood... a mysterious hole in a bedroom wall. When she finally arrives at the villa, she starts to recognize objects from her visions, but everything is slightly different than she remembers. Seeing that the spot in the bedroom wall from her vision is intact, she takes a pick axe to it and discovers a body entombed behind the bricks – the body of her husband's previous lover. Virginia struggles to remember the details of her vision, to find out how the woman died, and to clear her husband's name. But were her visions echoes of past events... or predictions of things to come?

Lucio Fulci really came up with a brilliant conceit for this film: he dumps all the puzzle pieces on the table right at the beginning of the film and then proceeds to put them together – though they may not form the picture you thought they would.  The Psychic (often known by its more apt and poetic Italian title, Sette Note In Nero) is an underrated Fulci gem, often overshadowed by his more sensationalist films, The Beyond and Don't Torture a Duckling.  The film is slow-paced and devoid of any sexuality, but Fulci is more focused on atmosphere, storytelling, and a few mild moments of bloodshed.

• The stories of Edgar Allan Poe have always been a touchstone of giallo films and here, Fulci borrows from "The Cask of Amantillado"
• Some of the music from The Psychic was used in Kill Bill Vol. 1.
• Fulci's style is rooted in Gothic horror, but I can't help but think that he picked up a few tricks from the more modernist Dario Argento. Argento-esque elements include the use of forensic science in the investigation, paranormal plot elements, and Argento's signature "walking slowly through an abandoned house" scene.
• The ending of the movie is left ambiguous, but I'm calling it an "attempted murder" for the purposes of the body count, above.
• Planning the shooting of this movie must have been tricky, because objects and events change throughout the film. For example, a mirror first appears broken in a vision, then later, intact in real life. They would have had to shoot things out of order in a very specific way to get all the shots they needed.

What the Hell Am I Watching?

 Take a drink every time there's a camera zoom. Two if it's into someone's eyes

The opening scene is the most gruesome in the movie, showing Virginia's mother throwing herself off a cliff, with the rock cutting up her face as she falls.  This opening scene of The Psychic uses the same effect as the final scene of Fulci's Don't Torture a Duckling.

Fashion Moment

At the time this movie was made there was a big 1920's fashion trend, with pinstripes, fedora hats, and fitted womens' suits.  You work that gangster look, Charlie Girl.

Also, check out her two-toned Rolls Royce. That ride would make Jay Gatsby envious.

A Lizard in Woman's Skin

A Lizard In Woman's Skin

"They stabbed her three times... each one of the stabs fatal!"

Carol Hammond (Florina Bolkan) is a respectable wife and stepmother... who just happens to have frequent lesbian sex dreams about her nymphomaniac hippie neighbor, Julia (Anita Strinberg). One night, however, Carol dreams of stabbing Julia to death and later discovers that Julia was indeed murdered that very night, exactly like in the dream. Does Carol have a psychic link to the killer? Or is she schizophrenic? Is her cheating husband Frank (Jean Sorel) framing her for the murder? And are the two glassy-eyed hippies who witnessed the murder real or just part of the dream? With her senses betraying her, Carol must decide what's real and what's in her mind, before it's too late!

Lucio Fulci is best known for his visceral gore films, but his handful of gialli are some of his best work. This one is a fun, sleazy, acid-soaked psychedelic trip featuring naked orgies, lots of blood, and some fantastic surreal dream sequences. The use of forensic science in the investigation was probably inspired by Dario Argento's The Bird With the Crystal Plumage and the bat attack, when Carol hides out in a church attic, is an obvious shot-for-shot homage to Hitchcock's The Birds.

• Here's another great score by Ennio Moricone, in turns funky, wild, and haunting.
• The five animal deaths include one bat in the church attic scene and four dogs in the hospital.
• If you suffer from vertigo, be warned that there are a ton of camera zooms in this movie. You'll find a few in just about any giallo, but Fulci was never known for restraint.
• Let's hear it for giallo mainstay George Rigaud, who appears here as Dr. Kerr, Carol's psychiatrist.

What the Hell Am I Watching?

More about that dog scene: Running from an attacker in a hospital, Carol stumbles upon a room where four live dogs are strung up with their bellies slit open (we can see their beating hearts), and their blood is being drained through tubes. There's no indication what scientific benefit this serves, but it's still a very upsetting sight. In fact, Fulci was nearly charged with animal cruelty for that scene, until members of his crew testified that the dogs were all puppets and that no animals were harmed. This scene is omitted in some versions of the movie.

The dream sequences are absolutely crazy in this film. Naked limbs writhing around, a dinner party of bleeding corpses, and angry swans attacking from the clouds. Many of these images relate to artwork in the Hammond home... which is sort of ingenious in a Kaiser Soze way, if you're aware of the twist ending.

Fashion Moment

Miss Carol is working it in her wardrobe from the Carmen Sandiego collection. Check out those monochromatic wide-brimmed hats and cape coats in three different colors.