(1970)
Dir - Paul Vecchiali
Overall: MEH
Lingering in the dense muck of forgotten giallos that continue to be rediscovered for contemporary genre enthusiasts, The Strangler, (L'étrangleur), serves as an aloof, French cousin to its more flashy Italian counterparts. Focusing on a mercy-killing antagonist played with detached tranquility by Jacques Perrin, he seeks out women who give off an aura of not wanting to live, strangling them with a scarf after he witnessed a murder at a young and impressionable age. On top of this, a police psychologist has chats with the killer without arresting him, a thief trails Perrin's actions so that he can make off with the victim's jewelry and whatnot, and a young woman is desperate enough to be used as bait so she embarks on a relationship with the aforementioned masquerading inspector. Deliberately paced, director Paul Vecchiali affords minimal sensationalism as the kill scenes are done with an eerie calm and everyone involved seems in no hurry whatsoever to get to the bottom of things. It creates an odd tone for what would otherwise be a conventional exploitation movie, (if "conventional" is the correct word), standing out from the crowd even if it is too indifferent to connect.
(1971)
Dir - Andrzej Żuławski
Overall: MEH
A busy and ambition debut from Polish filmmaker Andrzej Żuławski, The Third Part of the Night, (Trzecia część nocy), presents a Nazi-occupied urban landscape that is both grim and maddening in its cognitive navigation. A collaboration between Żuławski and his father, (the latter of whom worked at the Weigel Institute in Lviv, Ukraine during World War II, where lice-breeding vaccines were produced via experimenting on desperate locals in exchange for protection from deportation), the director's penchant for the surreal co-mingles with the war-torn backdrop. Early on, one of the characters proclaims that everything under such harrowing conditions is increasingly melding together, becoming the same oppressive torment from day to day. This plays in to the narrative focus on doppelgängers, particularly the prominently uni-browed Leszek Teleszyński's continual hallucinations of seeing virtually every woman that he encounters as his recently murdered wife. After a comparatively more straight-forward opening, things grow increasingly murky as the film plays out, leading to a barrage of set pieces that lose coherency while still remaining viscerally intense. A sub-conscious nightmare of grave historical sufferings, it is a heavy watch even without the nebulous plot line frustrating things, but it is also a fully-realized vision for Żuławski that comes right out of the gate in his mostly renowned career.
(1974)
Dir - Pierre Grunstein
Overall: MEH
For whatever reason, both Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing headed to France during the mid 1970s to make unfunny vampire comedies with actor Bernard Menez, the first of which was Tendre Dracula, (The Big Scare, Tender Dracula, or Confessions of a Blood Drinker, La Grande Trouille), followed by Dracula and Son two years later. This one has the further novelty of Cushing making his only on-screen appearance as the titular Count, (kind of); a roll that his good buddy and frequent co-star Lee became famous for and would reprise for the final time in the aforementioned Dracula and Son. As far as this head-scratching romp goes, it boasts an incomprehensible plot, delivered as a series of nonsensical set pieces like Cushing randomly looking like Béla Lugosi and wandering around outside while spying on people, Alida Valli carving her name into Menez' calf, two musical numbers out of nowhere, a hulking butler beating a chicken to death on a swinging rope, dream sequences involving a woman cut in half and dangling her legs, a film crew showing up out of nowhere while wearing white sheets, and a random orgy to close things out. The nudity is liberal in quantity, nothing that happens is remotely funny, one-time director Pierre Grunstein stages everything awkwardly and lets the camera linger on shots for too long, and Cushing is miscast by spouting meandering monologues and having outbursts of rage against his usual pleasant demeanor. On the plus side though, the crumbling Gothic château set design is fantastic with gigantic statues everywhere, blank masks adored on walls, mummified mannequins, plus tables and chairs made out of stone.
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