Director: Romano Scavolini
Year: 1972
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: Un bianco vestito per Marialé; Spirits of Death
Genre: Giallo
Plot:
Getting together for a special occasion, a group of friends arrive at a woman’s remote villa with her husband to spend the weekend together trying to get through her traumatic past, but when the party starts to draw a strange killer to the location, they must find their purpose and stop it.
Review:
This was a rather solid if somewhat flawed giallo. One of the better elements with this one comes from the immensely impressive and effective setup that lets this one go for a generally unexpected, if no less interesting, storyline. With the whole of the first half spent diving into the psychological realm of the main character, not just looking into the traumatic incident from her past, seeing her parents killed in front of her but also how much that has warped her into a neurotic version of herself that is kept hidden away because of the incident, this starts off on a rather strong note. That it continues this with the rather intriguing work of the friends, where this manages to bring about the basic instincts of the friends who are given life and voice in a gloriously debauched display of grievances that takes place where everyone starts to reveal their most basic instincts and purposes, which makes everything feel quite unhinged.
As a result of this setup, the film soon becomes a wholly intriguing and enjoyable display of more overtly traditional genre elements, where it manages to work the style and features more closely associated with the style. Since we’ve been deprived of the style of stalk-and-slash commonly found in the genre due to the more sedate and almost Gothic-leaning psychological deterioration in the first half, this makes for a strikingly more energetic and stylish encounter with the mysterious killer arriving to knock them off inside the house. From encounters inside the basement, in the lavish living room among an assortment of cobweb-covered furniture, or being forced into the hunting ground of vicious hunting dogs, these scenes manage to carry on from the earlier setup sequences to give the film a lot to like.
There are some missteps in this one that hold it back. The main issue with the film is the aforementioned setup geared more for a psychological meltdown than anything else. This type of focus on the different neurotic tendencies she suffers from or the other kind of interaction that takes place involving the group of friends involved in their own background setup is done at the expense of more overt genre fare, where the lack of more traditional setpieces becomes obvious. The other slight drawback here is the generally abrupt and somewhat disorienting ending, where it seems to come out of nowhere to just end while barely letting time for it to breathe or register before it just ends, so it can seem a bit quick to take everything in. These manage to be what bring this one down overall.
Overview: ***.5/5
A fun enough mix of psychological horror and giallo, this is a solid enough entry that comes together well enough for what it is and gives this one some positive points to hold it up overall. Those with an appreciation for this kind of genre entry, who are hardcore fans of either format, or who are fans of the creative crew, while most others out there should heed caution.
This review is part of our ongoing series of reviews for Italian Horror Month, every November on the site:
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