Director: Lucio Fulci
Year: 1972
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: Non si sevizia un paperino
Genre: Giallo
Plot:
Following a child's death in a small town, a reporter and a woman from a nearby city try to solve the strange killings that continue to be carried out on the children and once they find the demented culprit at the center they try to stop the rampage from continuing as they suspect the killer is getting closer.
Review:
This was quite the enjoyable and underrated Giallo. The biggest factor here for this one is the film flying boldly along and feeling comfortable in it's rather strong and confrontational themes that may be quite uncomfortable. Its initial premise is tied around a serial killer offing children that alone gives it some courage to be unique and brave, but there's more to that here as several scenes here with the opening strangling scenes or a rather chilling scene finding another drowned in a town well, though the fact that this features even more types of similarly controversial scenes is what really sells this one. The type of plot here is one thing, but to have the kids smoking, bullying the town retard and the film's showpiece scene of a fully naked woman openly toying with him, teasing him with her figure and about sleeping with her makes for quite a sleazy, depraved time in a truly memorable scene.
Beyond this, the film is a fantastic Giallo that features a lot of stylistic elements usually associated with these as the stalking scenes come off incredibly well regardless of their target. The cemetery stalking here is impressive through the driving rain before the killer strikes, a chase through the open woods out into the mountains to corral a suspect and a later scene where the suspect is viciously and brutally beaten in retaliation for what happened all come together to give this one some really enjoyable scenes. As well, there are some great times in the big brawl at the end which gets fun with the action as well as the location playing into it for some fun here.
These here make this good enough to overcome the flaws. The biggest issue here is the flimsy plot line for a Giallo, where it jumps around to the different suspects here without any reason only to start doing investigative work in the final minutes as the rampage continues despite the supposed death of the killer which starts it up again. This might be a revolutionary ploy for the style, but it causes the film to flip around pretty constantly here. Along with the subject matter being a little tough for some to take, there here are the film's only flaws.
Overview: ****.5/5
Entertaining Euro sleaze of the highest order, this is one of the better genre efforts ever and makes for a standout entry in just about every way with hardly any genuine flaws holding this one back. Give this one a shot if you appreciate the style, this particular brand of Eurohorror, or are fans of the creative crew while most others out there should heed caution.
Comments
Post a Comment