Brand new factory sealed 2-disc set featuring four very desirable Giallo films for the price of one. All films are widescreen but they may not be enhanced so newer TV owners may have to use your zoom mode.
RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES: Set almost entirely in an old castle, the title comes from a legend that states two sisters will be involved in a murder, represented in a painting, which decrees that every 100 years one daughter will kill her sister. As children, Kitty and Evelyn are playing and true to the legend, Evelyn is accidently killed. Kitty goes on to become a successful model.
A female figure in a red cape, looking like the woman in the painting, wanders about the castle giving people heart attacks. Is it her lover Martin (Ugo Pagliai) or did her sister survive the accident and her burial in the subterranean vaults years ago and is now seeking revenge? Since the Lady in Red was supposed to have been stabbed seven times, the legend requires her to kill seven times and the corpses--mainly of women in the fashion business--pile up.
The ending has the caped Lady in Red, awating the heroine (Barabar Bouchet) in the dank caves of the castle, eliminated when another villain floods the vaults before the heroine can escape with her lover. Barbara Bouchet gives her usual strong performance as Kitty and so does Marina Malfatti as Evelyn, they give real feeling to their roles as the ultimate in sibling rivalry. Look for a very young Sybil Danning in a cheese-cake role as a prostitute.
FIFTH CORD: Heres one that will keep you guessing up to the very end. The opening shot of a deranged voice coming over a phone line foreshadows the begining sequence in 'Tennebrae'. Franco Nero ('Django', who gets to dub his own voice) is an alcoholic newspaperman, Andrea Bild who finds himself implicated in a murder plot. John Lubbock is attacked after walking home with his ex-girlfriend, Isabel.
Andrea is discouraged by the police and Dr. Bini (Wolfgang Preiss) from probing too deep into the attack. Dr. Bini's wife is killed after Andrea interviews her thus throwing suspicion onto the reporter. Next to die, are Andrea's boss, Lubbock's girlfriend and one of the witnesses (Julia) to the original beating. Andrea uses astrology (?) to uncover the real murderer. Filmmaker Luigi Bazzoni is a talented yet quirky director. His films always look impeccable. Cinamatography here is by future Oscar winner for Coppola's the 'Godfather'.
SEVEN NOTES in BLACK a.k.a PSYCHIC: The heroine as a little girl watches her mother's apparently suicidal leap off a cliff intercut with graphic closeups of the mother's face exploding against the rocks on the way down. Years later Victoria (Jennifer O'Neill) moves with her new husband (Gianni Garko, 'Sartana') to a dilapidated villa. She continues to have visions of death and so visits a psychiatrist (Marc Porel) on a regular basis. What she doesn't realize is that her latest round of visions are a preview of her own death.
It seems her husband is planning on doing away with her so he can live with the family friend, played by Evelyn Stewart. In a nod to Poe, he walls her up at the villa only to be undone by a watch on O'Neill that begins chiming at an inopportune time. Made right before Lucio Fulci hit it big with 'Zombie', the film is another excellent example of his work that depended on plot and filmmaking skill and not excessive gore to tell an interesting story.
DON'T TORTURE a DUCKLING: Following the trend towards bloodier supernatural giallo movies exemplified by Dario Argento's work, Lucio Fulci tries here to find a new angle on an old plot by setting the action in Italy's rural south. The narrative is carried by a series of child killings in a Sicily village which Tomas Millian investigates along with Barbara Bouchet (one of the best looking women in the world). Peppered with scenes of horrendous violence: eyeless children, decapitated animals, split skulls, etc.
Local Gypsy Florinda Bolkan, who transfixes magic dolls with pins, is the prime suspect in the murders and suffers a horrible death at the hands of a screeching vigilante mob. But when the real killer is revealed, it's headlines we see all the time which really helps ground and contemporize the film, keeping it from ever becoming 'dated'.
This great set of Giallo movies is perfect for the uninitiated in Italian murder mystery sleeze and for those who already know, if you don't already have these. To collect seperately would be time consuming and expensive.