An Ideal Place to Kill

An Ideal Place to Kill

"You're under the delusion that you can handle a delicate situation my yourself."

Dick Butler (Ray Lovelock) and Ingrid Sjorman (Ornella Muti) are a freewheeling young couple, paying for their romp through Europe by smuggling and selling porn out of their groovy yellow convertible. But after getting busted by the police in Pisa, getting robbed by a biker, and being mistaken for German bank robbers, the couple seeks refuge in a country estate. At first, the house's owner, Barbara Slater (Irene Papas), is terrified by her unwelcome guests but they soon charm her and things get very friendly. But what dark secrets is Barbara hiding? The situation quickly turns as Dick and Ingrid take Barbara prisoner in her own home... or is Barbara the one in control, keeping the young couple trapped for her own purposes? 

An Ideal Place to Kill (also frequently called Oasis of Fear) gets rolling with a lot of potential, showing Dick and Ingrid's Bonnie-and-Clyde adventures, breezing through Europe and flaunting the law. Then it slows to a halt when the action is confined to Barbara's house. The movie has a few good moments of suspense and is sexy and stylish, but it's not a great giallo if you're into blood and murder scenes. The first murder occurs before the action of the movie starts and isn't revealed until 54 minutes in. The girl killed in a car accident is incidental to the plot and isn't shown. Instead, this movie aspires to be one of those claustrophobic mind-game suspense movies like The Cold Eyes of Fear or Sleuth but, sadly, doesn't achieve their sustained level of tension.

• The movie isn't great, but the cast is spectacular. You may remember Ray Lovelock, who would go on to star in Lucio Fulci's Murder Rock. Ornella Muti is best known as Princess Aura in 1980's Flash Gordon and Irene Papas was in Zorba the Greek, The Guns of Navarone, and Fulci's giallo Don't Torture a Duckling.
• This movie includes an excellent example of "inept police," too lazy to follow up an important lead in the garage after a simple distraction.
• There's a lot of yellow going on in the costumes and production design - the car, the clothes, the wallpaper, flowers, art... tons of yellow and gold. There's so much that it doesn't really serve a storytelling function (like in a Lamberto Bava movie), rather, it's a constant remind to the viewer that this is a giallo movie.
• The title makes ironic sense. Most of the other titles make more literal sense – except maybe for the Japanese video title, Love Stress.

What the Hell am I Watching?

Living free and flush with cash at the beginning of the movie, Dick and Ingrid celebrate life by going to a fancy restaurant and throwing birds at the other patrons.

Fashion Moment

During that drunken fowl-chucking escapade in the restaurant, the couple parties Donnie and Marie style in matching white fringed bell-bottom leisure suits.

Here's their awesome yellow roadster, covered in daisy decals.

...and one more point of interest: Do those yellow curtains look familiar? That swirling wrought iron bannister on a spiral staircase in a circular foyer? That's because this same house was used as a set for both Lucio Fulci's Perversion Story and Dario Argento's Cat O'Nine Tails.

So Sweet... So Perverse

So Sweet... So Perverse

"Danger brings out the best in a man."

Jean Reynaud (Jean-Louise Trintigant) is bored with his upper-class Parisian life – bored with his job, bored with his wife, Danielle (Erika Blanc), bored with his mistress, and even his hobbies fail to challenge him. So when he hears his beautiful blonde neighbor Nicole (Carroll Baker) getting beaten by her boyfriend, Klaus (Horst Frank) Jean comes to the rescue and runs away with her, thrilled to have some excitement back in his life. But is Nicole the innocent victim she appears to be or is she the bait in a deadly trap? Jean soon finds that his life is in danger but who is it that wants him dead? And who can he trust? It all turns out to be more adventure than he bargained for.

So Sweet... So Perverse (not to be confused with So Sweet, So Dead) isn't your typical giallo in that it doesn't have a mysterious black-coated killer. Instead, the mystery is in unraveling the complicated con game and figuring out who is behind it. It's a sexy (rather than scary) giallo and the script is full of swanning, melodramatic dialogue and overwrought romantic proclamations. Carroll Baker gives the standout performance in a role that is custom-fit for her talents, alternating between demure, innocent victim and cold-blooded vixen.

• Jean-Louis Trintigant is a French acting legend who regained the public's attention just last year when his movie Amour was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
• So Sweet... So Perverse is the second of three Lenzi-Baker collaborations. The trilogy also includes 1969's Paranoia (a.k.a. Orgasmo) and 1970's A Quiet Place To Kill which, technically, is not a giallo due to a lack of mystery in the plot.
• Co-writer Ernesto Gastaldi would go on to become one of the greatest screenwriters in the world of giallo, creating such films as The Case of the Bloody Iris, Death Walks at Midnight, and Torso.

 What the Hell Am I Watching?

Early in the movie, we're treated to a crazy psychedelic flashback/dream sequence, rendered in bold colors and wild, spinning camera moves. The short segment really stands out in what is otherwise a conservatively-shot film and it presages the more innovative work of both Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento.

Danielle throws a fancy cocktail party for the Paris elite and, for some reason, invites a stripper as the entertainment. She's quick to show off the goods. How was this a good idea?

Apparently in France, mistresses can claim their lovers' inheritances. Seriously? Even though we're talking about the French, I find it a little hard to believe.

Fashion Moment

As the most dynamic and interesting character, Nicole gets all the best clothes. She wears this dress early in the movie and it really illustrates her fragile emotional state well – agitated, confused, and blue.

  

Later, at the cocktail party, things turn on their heads as Danielle glams it up, dripping in diamonds and bold red sequins...

 

... while Nicole shows up in a frumpy pantsuit that looks like bad upholstery.

 That's the stripper in the background, by the way, wearing only a pink boa, bikini bottoms, and butterfly pasties.

Spasmo

Spasmo

"It's all so absurd, meaningless. But what's absurd is dangerous."

When Christian Bauman (Robert Hoffman) and his girlfriend Xenia (Maria Pia Conte) discover an unconscious woman named Barbara (Suzy Kendall) lying on a rocky stretch of beach, it's only the beginning of a bizarre series of events. Christian starts an affair with Barbara at a hotel, but while he's getting ready in the bathroom he's attacked by a thug in a black suit (Dario Argento look-alike Adolfo Lastretti). During the struggle, the attacker's gun goes off, killing him, but upon returning, Christian finds that the body is gone. Christian and Barbara then hide out at a seaside castle, where they encounter an old man named Malcom (Guido Alberti) and a young woman named Clorinda (Monica Monet), who seem strangely familiar to Christian. Soon, the killer returns to stalk the castle's residents. Was he sent by Barbara's jealous boyfriend, Alex (Mario Erpichini)? Or by Christian's brother, Fritz (Ivan Rassimov)? And who is staging murders in the woods with life-sized rubber mannequins? Nothing is as it seems as Christian tries desperately to untangle the mysteries that surround him.

Spasmo (not to be confused with the giallo Orgasmo, which, in turn, is not to be confused with Trey Parker's super hero comedy Orgazmo) is a big sweaty fever dream for its entire first hour.  It follows an incomprehensible, disjointed story line, features absurd, wooden dialogue comprised largely of non-sequiters, and has characters whose actions have no basis in reality. It's like ten different screenwriters each wrote five pages on their own, which were then shuffled up and filmed. Things come together in the last 30 minutes and, though it's never completely coherent, at least it attempts to explain the preceding story elements and draw the film to a reasonable conclusion. This movie is cocoanuts.

• The title is as meaningless and incomprehensible as the plot and Ennio Morricone's dissonant, chaotic score captures the lunacy well.
• Ivan Rassimov, who is billed third, doesn't show up until over an hour into this 93-minute movie.
• After two scenes, Xenia disappears from the movie. This is never explained.
• I do appreciate how the movie comes full circle, with a body on the beach.
• Four of the six fake murders are committed on rubber dolls.

What The Hell Am I Watching?

The dialogue in this movie is bonkers.  Before heading to a hotel for their rendezvous, Barbara asks Christian to shave off his beard. He politely offers to rape her in the car instead and she laughs it off like he's just said something charming. WHAT?

Later, when Christian stumbles out of the bathroom with a gun in hand after apparently murdering a random attacker, Barbara reacts by asking "What's the matter?" instead of "OH MY GOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH A GUN?"

On the lam, late in the movie, Christian hitchhikes with a young woman who tells him "You remind me of a dying chicken." Have I been taking crazy pills? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

For most of her time on screen, it's unclear weather or not Clorinda is a robot.

Fritz has edited together a very specific set of home movies for the end of the film. Why would you want to watch Super-8 footage of your father's funeral? Or document your trip to the insane assylum? Weird!

Here's a Spasmo drinking game: drink every time some exclaims "Look!"

Fashion Moment

The Killer (whose name, we later learn, is Tatum) wears this black suit with a red shirt. It's basically a standard-issue hitman uniform.

Later, once the movie turns a corner, Christian puts on the suit, taking over the tough guy role.

Eyeball

Eyeball

"I was like you... before this friend of mine ripped out my eye playing doctor with me... 

leaving an empty socket!"

A group of American tourists from Burlington, Vermont is visiting Barcelona, but a mysterious killer dressed in red is murdering them one by one before gouging out the victims' eyes.  The tour group includes Paulette Stone (Martine Brocharad), whose married lover, Mark (John Richardson) has joined her. The murders bring back uneasy memories for Mark, who recalls similar killings back in Vermont and he suspects that his wife, Alma (Marta May) is responsible. Did she follow them to Spain? Or could the killer possibly be some other member of the tour? Maybe it's Reverend Bronson (George Rigaud), the minister with the creepy smile or the interracial lesbian couple. Inspector Tuleda (Andrés Mejuto) is on the case – and he's a hard-nosed old-school cop, a week away from retirement, who doesn't take any guff from his young partner or any American tourists. Can he solve the case before the killer strikes again?

Eyeball (not to be confused with Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll) is one of those gialli that goes by many different names. It's just as well-known under its Italian title, Gatti Rossi In un Labarinto di Vetro (literally, "Red Cats In a Maze of Glass") or as Wide-Eyed In the Dark or just The Eye. The film is really an old-fashioned drawing room murder mystery, but with a more glamorous setting. Director Umberto Lenzi usually has a gonzo, sensationalist sensibility, but this movie is unusually artful and relatively subdued.

• Composer Bruno Nicolai is a superstar of giallo film scores, perhaps second only to Ennio Morricone.
• Lenzi's use of color is brilliant in this film. The killer's signature color is red (using red gloves and a red rain poncho instead of the traditional all-black look) and sharp red accents are found everywhere in the film – clothes, lamps, the handrails at the pool, a tablecloth, a suitcase. It's never dominant, but always stands out in  the background as an omen.
• The whole movie takes place in Barcelona and there isn't a single shot of Gaudí's Basilica de la Sagrada Familia, the most famous building in town.

What the Hell Am I Watching?

 Man, that Reverend Bronson just pops up out of nowhere.

When one of the tourists, Robby Alvarado (Daniele Vargas), is doing a crossword puzzle, notice that he crams the 6-letter word "muerte" into a four-square space.

Inspector Tuleda asks one of the tourists to try on a rain poncho left behind by the killer. Why? To see if it fits? It's a rain poncho – of course it's going to fit. In the meantime, it's a great way to smear fingerprints and blood samples and destroy valuable evidence.

The same framed abstract drawing appears in Reverend Bronson's hotel room and in Naiba's hospital room.

Fashion Moment

COVER GIRL!

You work those Daisy Dukes.

Knife of Ice

Knife of Ice

Zombies, voodoo, demons, and Afro-Cuban witches.
There's enough here to rob you of a month's sleep!"

Martha Caldwell (Carroll Baker), mute and skittish since she witnessed her parents killed in a train crash as a child, is being stalked by a mysterious killer who leaves behind satanic clues. As the people around her die, Martha wonders if the killer could be the creepy driver, Marco (Eduardo Fijaro), Dr. Laurent, her doctor (Alan Scott), or even her frail Uncle Ralph (George Rigaud), whose interest in the occult may be more than academic.  Or maybe it's the crazy-eyed morphine-addicted Satanist hippie who keeps popping up everywhere she goes.

No nudity or extreme gore in this film – it's a classy production that relies on suspense and focuses on the drawing room-style mystery at hand. There's not even a love story here, but the reason for that is apparent by the end of the film. Except for a few odd moments and the Satanist angle, this is a very buttoned-up production. The twist ending is a doozy, though, and it's one you probably won't see coming, even though it makes good sense once you look back on the film.

• The title of this film is explained away with a metaphorical quote from Edgar Allan Poe, hence my marking that it "sort of" make sense. There are no actual ice knives in the film.
• This is one of the very few gialli that has a priest character, where the priest isn't the murderer.
• You may recognize Carroll Baker from the movie Giant or from her Oscar-nominated role in Baby Doll. Or maybe from her other gialli like The Sweet Body of Deborah. Or maybe you know her as the villain in Kindergarten Cop. In any case, she brings a sweet sense of innocence and a sort of Doris Day wholesomeness to the role of Martha.
• It's also good to see George Rigaud, from The Case of the Bloody Iris and Death Walks on High Heels.
• The crazy-eyed hippie's look is clearly based on Charles Manson, who terrorized Los Angeles and caught the world's attention just a few years prior to this film's production.

Fashion Moment: Did I mention that the crazy-eyed hippie wears a velvet cape? And that at the second funeral scene, Martha wears a tight black mini-skirt? It gets its own close-up:

Seven Blood Stained Orchids

Seven Blood Stained Orchids

"That is one thing you can always be sure of. All criminals are out of their minds."

A serial killer is murdering young women around Rome, leaving a silver crescent moon medallion at the scene of each crime as a trademark. His victims include a prostitute, an artist, a patient in a psych ward, a teacher, and a housewife – but are the killings random or are these women somehow linked? One victim, Giulia (Uschi Glas) manages to survive her attack and, with the help of her husband Mario (Antonio Sabato), she follows the clues to find the murderer. Their search leads them to a crumbling villa, a hippie drug den, and a tour of Rome's Christian churches. Can the couple unmask the killer before he finds Giulia and finishes the job?

If you've never seen a giallo or if you want to show someone what a giallo is, Seven Blood Stained Orchids (not to be confused with The Blood Stained Buterfly) is an excellent place to start. It has all the classic elements: beautiful women getting murdered in elaborate ways, stylized camera work, and the classic faceless giallo killer who wears a black coat, hat and gloves. It's sexy, suspenseful, and a little bit trashy. The story is easy to follow and has a satisfying resolution. This might be Umberto Lenzi's best work.

• There are lots of little homages to Mario Bava's two greatest gialli. The harp in Kathy's apartment and the bathtub drowning scene are homages to Blood and  Black Lace and the scenes in the newspaper office and at the piazza di spagna recall The Girl Who Knew Too Much. Come to think of it, Uschi Glas looks a lot like Leticia Roman in this movie. 
• Also, the poison milk may be a reference to Dario Argento's Cat O'Nine Tails.
• Maria Tedeschi (whom you may remember from a cameo in The Bird With the Crystal Plumage and as Mrs. Moss in The Case of the Bloody Iris) shows up here as a patient in the psych ward.
• You may also remember the improbably named Franco Fantasia (Lt. Renzi) from Knife of Ice.
• Was the old woman in the opening scene murdered? It's never shown, but I think maybe she was, so I've listed her in the body count, above. The killer saw the photo of the woman he was really after on her nightstand and realized that he had the wrong woman. I suspect that he killed her to tie up loose ends, but didn't leave an amulet. That way, her murder wouldn't be connected to the case.

 What the Hell Am I Watching?

So Mario decides to keep the amulet that the killer sent to Guilia? Why? As a memento of the time she was nearly murdered? Not cool, man.

I love the scene where Elena (Rosella Falk) is screaming in her hospital room and we cut to the nurse, who just rolls her eyes and ignores it.

I also adore the fact that Mario (who is a fashion designer and presumably knows a thing or two about sketching) shows people what is essentially a stick figure and asks them if they recognize the guy.  I love it even more that several people can actually put an accurate name to his simple line drawing.

Apparently there's a law in Italy that if you have an awesome car, you can just park it anywhere.

Fashion Moment

This one belongs to Kathy Adams (Marina Malfatti) for her tiny sequined vest and harem pants.