It's fairly easy to guess who the killer is in this giallo: He's the guy with the hatchet on the train who is AT THE SAME TIME having a flashback and a hallucination who then murders a new bride and her husband. Just in case we're still not sure, he then narrates a long speech about how he's insane and likes killing and what not.
Yep, as this is a Giallo directed by Mario Bava, we now get the story from the killer's point of view. Turns out that John (as his dead mother keeps shouting in his head) is a psycho killer who has to kill brides in order to gradually reveal some sort of flashback involving his mother's death. Every time he kills, he gets a little more, but the police are closing in fast and there's that other problem.
That other problem being his wife, who hates him, loves the afterlife, and has a real bad tendency to hang around at all times, whether alive or dead. This leans the film in a really dark black comedy angle, as no matter what the playboy lifestyle loving John does, everyone sees his wife with him except him! This also leads to more scary aspects as it's not clear whether John is just mental or his wife really did come back from the dead. These scares would be further used in Bava's Shock, which is a genuinely creepy film.
Bava is also his own cameraman in this one, so we get loads of out-of- focus transition shots, loads of shots of people's reflections talking, and lots and lots of primary colours used to great effect. The music is suitably off-kilter as well, jumping between atonal madness to lounge jazz greatness.
The only downside for me would be that, just like many Gialli, the pacing isn't exactly set to 'racing'. That, and the sudden realization that Dagmar Lassander looks like the actor who plays Pennywise The Clown in the upcoming IT remake.
I've just checked again and she really does.
Yep, as this is a Giallo directed by Mario Bava, we now get the story from the killer's point of view. Turns out that John (as his dead mother keeps shouting in his head) is a psycho killer who has to kill brides in order to gradually reveal some sort of flashback involving his mother's death. Every time he kills, he gets a little more, but the police are closing in fast and there's that other problem.
That other problem being his wife, who hates him, loves the afterlife, and has a real bad tendency to hang around at all times, whether alive or dead. This leans the film in a really dark black comedy angle, as no matter what the playboy lifestyle loving John does, everyone sees his wife with him except him! This also leads to more scary aspects as it's not clear whether John is just mental or his wife really did come back from the dead. These scares would be further used in Bava's Shock, which is a genuinely creepy film.
Bava is also his own cameraman in this one, so we get loads of out-of- focus transition shots, loads of shots of people's reflections talking, and lots and lots of primary colours used to great effect. The music is suitably off-kilter as well, jumping between atonal madness to lounge jazz greatness.
The only downside for me would be that, just like many Gialli, the pacing isn't exactly set to 'racing'. That, and the sudden realization that Dagmar Lassander looks like the actor who plays Pennywise The Clown in the upcoming IT remake.
I've just checked again and she really does.