Director: Luciano Ercoli
Year: 1971
Country: Italy/Spain/United Kingdom/France
Alternate Titles: La morte cammina con i tacchi alti
Genre: Giallo
Plot:
Following the death of her father, a woman finds herself continually assaulted by a masked killer looking for the stolen jewels he took and the chance to escape the lifestyle brings the killer back into her life with a stronger vengeance than before and forces her to stop him.
Review:
This was a decent enough Giallo with some incredibly enjoyable elements to it. Among the bright parts here is the fact that this one really plays up the erotic and sleazy thrills into the kind of traditional genre format. The film's basic setup about the search for the missing jewels spawning the killing spree and the innocents getting caught up in the seedy underground manages to give this a thrilling start to base off of, and the initial stalking scenes featuring this kind of fun allow for the stellar opening ambush in the train-car, the encounter in her flat where the killer ties her up and torments her in a rather seductive yet still tense manner and the rather eerie series of scenes showing them being spied on in the remote villa.
These are brought about by the rather nice fact that the scenes of them being spied on are usually accompanied by scenes of her being nude at the time, and there's a great sense of erotic tension to be found within the one scene of her being tied up and tormented. Likewise, the fact that there's a lot of great fun to be had when this one featuring plenty of dance scenes showing her going about her stripteases gyrating in the nude, and it makes for a rather enjoyable time here. The final half of this one does manage to bring this one about even further as there's some fun to be had with the stalking in the hotel that comes off with a strong shocking ambush, the really frantic scene at the remote cabin where the investigation brings them into contact with the loner who offers the full-on retelling of the events that transpired the fateful night with all the true events played out and the different backstories for the characters getting revealed all make this one quite enjoyable. With a strong final revelation and the nice twist that comes off as a nice shock, there's plenty to like overall here.
There are a few minor flaws to be had here. The film's biggest issue here is the fact that there's just not a whole lot of action overall as it turns out rather bland at times with the utterly incessant travelogue footage showing them going around the village and generally just being there without featuring any kind of big stalking activity. The low body count doesn't do this one many favors without the chance to offer up that kind of action, and the plodding pace ambles around without direction for a large portion of the time here not giving this one much help, and with the low-key action not coming along until the finale this one does tend to stumble around for a while. Otherwise, this one does have some solid points for it.
Overview: ***/5
An enjoyable if slightly flawed Giallo, this one manages to be likable enough with the more favorable positives here overwhelming the few but damaging detrimental factors. Those who enjoy this type of style of giallo, are big Eurohorror fanatics, or are fans of the creative crew will be the most likely to enjoy this one while most others that don’t enjoy any of these factors should heed caution with this one.
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