This one begins interestingly enough with a bleeding Horst Frank being chased around a strange building before getting repeatedly stabbed in the back. This however turns out to be a nightmare, suffered by his girlfriend Julie. Horst does not appear to be in bed when she wakes up, and Julie jumps rather quickly to the conclusion that he's gone missing.
He's not at the loony bin where he works as a psychiatrist either, so Julie follows clues that lead her to a strange town where someone tries to kill her almost right away, and a kind old man (Adolfo Celi) takes her under his wing before trying to put the moves on her in an orphanage! Adolfo does say that Horst probably went to a villa on the coast where a lot of strange, artistic types are living. This sounds like a set up for a run of the mill giallo where a bunch of weirdos get the life jabbed out of them, but in this film things tend to move in strange directions.
Well, they are weirdos, however. In charge seems to be Greta, who has a heroin addicted toy boy who lounges about all day, then there's Franco Ressell seemingly playing Andrew McKenzie of the Hafler Trio, going around all taking with a tape recorder making field recordings, and then there's Sybil Danning, who likes to take pictures of everyone's feet, and last of all there's a thespian couple, and if you think something ain't quite right about the wife, then you sir, are correct.
The thing is, everyone denies that Horst was ever there, but then Franco has a field recording of Horst talking, Sybil has a picture of Horst's scarred hand, and if he really, really wasn't there, why is his car in the garage? Someone's hiding something and perhaps only the strange kid/man painter guy who likes to spy on the ladies may hold the key. It also transpires that Horst may have been a jerk of the highest order too.
Mainly what everyone does is lie about sunbathing, so maybe it was too hot for an all out massacre. There is however a neatly unfolding mystery that doesn't rely on set-piece kills to keep things moving. Adolfo Celi (the bad guy from the Bond film Thunderball) stands out here as the seemingly passive old man who is smarter than everyone else involved, but maybe not as smart as he thinks. The version I watched also had the loudest 'sawing a head off' noise I've ever heard in a film – surely that was put in for a laugh?
Lead actress Rosemary Dexter does quite well too, but doesn't seem to have acted in too much else. Director Mario Caiano would trash things up a bit for his next film with the kung fu/western hybrid the Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe!
He's not at the loony bin where he works as a psychiatrist either, so Julie follows clues that lead her to a strange town where someone tries to kill her almost right away, and a kind old man (Adolfo Celi) takes her under his wing before trying to put the moves on her in an orphanage! Adolfo does say that Horst probably went to a villa on the coast where a lot of strange, artistic types are living. This sounds like a set up for a run of the mill giallo where a bunch of weirdos get the life jabbed out of them, but in this film things tend to move in strange directions.
Well, they are weirdos, however. In charge seems to be Greta, who has a heroin addicted toy boy who lounges about all day, then there's Franco Ressell seemingly playing Andrew McKenzie of the Hafler Trio, going around all taking with a tape recorder making field recordings, and then there's Sybil Danning, who likes to take pictures of everyone's feet, and last of all there's a thespian couple, and if you think something ain't quite right about the wife, then you sir, are correct.
The thing is, everyone denies that Horst was ever there, but then Franco has a field recording of Horst talking, Sybil has a picture of Horst's scarred hand, and if he really, really wasn't there, why is his car in the garage? Someone's hiding something and perhaps only the strange kid/man painter guy who likes to spy on the ladies may hold the key. It also transpires that Horst may have been a jerk of the highest order too.
Mainly what everyone does is lie about sunbathing, so maybe it was too hot for an all out massacre. There is however a neatly unfolding mystery that doesn't rely on set-piece kills to keep things moving. Adolfo Celi (the bad guy from the Bond film Thunderball) stands out here as the seemingly passive old man who is smarter than everyone else involved, but maybe not as smart as he thinks. The version I watched also had the loudest 'sawing a head off' noise I've ever heard in a film – surely that was put in for a laugh?
Lead actress Rosemary Dexter does quite well too, but doesn't seem to have acted in too much else. Director Mario Caiano would trash things up a bit for his next film with the kung fu/western hybrid the Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe!