(1972)
Dir - Giuliano Carnimeo
Overall: MEH
After being behind the lens on no less than ten Spaghetti Westerns in a row, Giuliano Carnimeo took a detour with the adequately sleazy giallo The Case of the Bloody Iris, (Perché quelle strane gocce di sangue sul corpo di Jennifer?, Why Those Strange Drops of Blood on Jennifer's Body?, Erotic Blue). Crediting himself once again under the Americanized name Anthony Ascott, Carnimeo scored genre regulars George Hilton and Edwige Fenech as the two good-looking leads. the latter who is pursued once again by a shady, hedonistic cult in a similar enough fashion as she was in the same year's All the Colors of the Dark. As is typical with Euro-trash, women are treated particularly and hilariously awful here as they are berated, seen as hysterical nuisances, objectified, smacked across the face, raped, and of course murdered. There is even a lesbian character and crotchety old woman who act as bad as the men do, just to make sure that Fenech is sparred nothing and punished in some form of another just for being gorgeous. Carnimeo throws in more humor here than giallos often allow, (sometimes effectively and sometimes awkwardly), with quite a bit of police detective padding in place of more over the top murder sequences. The film looks a lot better than it is, but it also seems to be in on its formulaic and silly nature.
(1973)
Dir - Antonio Margheriti
Overall: MEH
The Gothic giallo hybrid Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye, (La morte negli occhi del gatto, Sieben Tote in den Augen der Katzefrom), is unfortunately a lame one from director Antonio Margheriti. Atmospheric on paper only, it has a typical set up of a motley crew of people conducting themselves in a large, Scottish mansion where everyone keeps getting picked off as a gorilla is seen occasionally through a window, bodies disappear and are assumed to be vampire for no reason, women have emotional nightmares that none of the men take seriously, a cat seems to be supernaturally up to something, characters are sleeping with and back-stabbing each other, and all of it is dreadfully boring. The plotting plays out like a typical giallo, with an obvious red herring who the audience never once believes is the actual killer, only to reveal the real one in the final scene whose motivation is of course laughably convoluted and unsatisfying. Though Anton Diffring is always a nice addition to any genre film and there is a barely touched upon lesbian angle thrown in to spice things up with Doris Kuntsmann's adulteress, neither of these things is enough to ward off the persistent sense of disinterest. Margheriti has certainly done worse in his filmography, but he perhaps never did anything less memorable, at least as far as his horror works are concerned.
(1979)
Dir - Giulio Berruti
Overall: MEH
Set in the modern day and claiming to be based on the real life case of Cecile Bombeek who committed a series of murders at a Catholic-run hospital in Belgium circa 1977, Killer Nun, (Suor Omicidi, Sister Nun, Geständnis einer Nonne), is an unimpressive nunsploitation outing that arrived late in the sub-genre's heyday. The second of only two directorial efforts from Giulio Berruti who was generally an editor, it is as poorly paced as any other Euro-trash movie and sans a nasty acupuncture murder and Paola Morra's naked, well-endowed chest area, it is mostly void of excessive violence and nudity. Most of the sleaze, (which also includes lesbianism and drug abuse), is alluded to more than shown, despite the film's video nasty reputation. It managed to score a past-her-prime, appropriately over the top Anita Ekberg in the lead, along with more subdued performances from Alida Valli as the Mother Superior and Andy Warhol regular Joe Dallesandro as a dashing doctor. There is a "twist" ending that anyone who is only paying half attention to what is going on can spot a mile away and a couple of moment's where Ekberg's morphine withdraws spiral into nasty behavior for a hoot, but it is mostly a tame and monotonous affair that does not live up to its trashtacular title.
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