Im Schloß der blutigen Begierde (1967)

... aka: Castle of Bloody Lust
... aka: Castle of Lust
... aka: Castle of the Creeping Flesh
... aka: Das Schloß der Gehenkten
... aka: In the Castle of Bloody Lust

Directed by:
"Percy G. Parker" (Adrian Hoven)

A poor example of Euro Gothic horror; even fans of the subgenre might want to skip this tedious West German production. At a party, handsome and wealthy Baron Brack (Michel Lemoine) invites some of the others to take a horseback ride and continue the festivities back at his beautiful country home. Coming along are lascivious redhead Vera Lagrange (Janine Reynaud) and her raven-haired sister Elena (Elvira Berndorff), along with Elena's fiancé Roger (Pier A. Caminnecci, one of the producers), the Baron's virginal fiancée Marion (Claudia Butenuth) and Marion's brother George (Jan Hendriks). The Baron and Elena decide to ride ahead of the others, which turns out to be a big mistake on her part when the insatiable Baron decides to rape her ("You're disgusting, you dirty swine!").

When the others show up, Elena doesn't mention the rape at all and Marion tells them a story about the mysterious Earl of Saxon, who lives in a remote castle with his beautiful daughter, Katharina. Several days earlier, Katharina was attacked and raped, prompting the Earl to release his pet bear into the wild. Distraught over what happened to her and annoyed by a comment made by Roger (who claims the Earl's daughter possibly enjoyed getting raped), Elena decides to take off on a horse. Brack, Roger and Vera head out after her. As night falls, they arrive at the Saxon castle... just as the Earl's daughter has passed away from injuries inflicted upon her by her attacker. They're brought inside by manservant Alecos (Vladimir Medar, from the wonderful TORTURE CHAMBER OF DR. SADISM) and come inside to meet the Earl (THE AWFUL DR. ORLOFF's Howard Vernon), a physician who offers them a place to stay. Elena's there already - having a rest in one of the bedrooms.

Graf Saxon tells everyone a tale about his cursed family lineage. Many years ago, marauders invaded the castle and raped and killed the daughter of his forefather as his wicked mistress (a "nasty, mischievous little bawdy bitch!" according to her lover) watched and did nothing to help. The King then slaughtered his daughter's attackers, stabbed his mistress and tried to revive his daughter with her blood. When the authorities caught on, they beheaded him. George and Marion (injured after hitting her head on a low-hanging tree branch) eventually show up at the castle looking for their friends. And wouldn't ya know it, Vera is a dead ringer for the devious mistress (and seems to be just as lacking in the moral department) and Marion is a dead ringer for both the King and Earl's ill-fated daughters. While giving a tour, Alecos even shows the visitors a room where the original crimes are reenacted by mannequins! Downstairs in the secret laboratory, the Earl and his assistant cut open Katharina's body. It looks like they used a pig carcass for the scalpel cutting flesh effect, but then swiped some actual surgery footage for the operation (which we see about 50 flashes of throughout the film).

While the other two ladies sleep, Vera decides to take this opportunity to try to seduce both Marion's fiancé and her own sister's fiancé, finally having some luck with the latter. She also has a lengthy nightmare (lasting almost fifteen minutes!) recounting the earlier crime, which is completely unnecessary since we're already had it described to use in detail twice earlier. Alecos scoops up a sleeping Marion and takes her downstairs to the lab, where the Earl and his assistant plot to do a brain switcheroo to revive his daughter. Meanwhile, Brack gets scared and leaves the castle to go get the car, but gets lost and is mauled by a man in a bear suit. He stumbles back just in time for the insufficient finale.

It's cheap-looking, bland, unoriginal, slow-moving, has continuity issues and none of the poorly-developed characters (including Vernon's rather restrained mad doctor) manage to spark even the slightest bit of interest. The violence is mild (aside from a brief decapitation), but there's a generous helping of female flesh - most provided by Reynaud - and that seems to be the real point of this entire piece. According to the opening credits, the screenplay is based on an idea by Eric Martin Schnitzler and "Percy G. Parker" (the director). However, many sources claim the was actually written by Jesus Franco; not difficult to believe since Hoven, Reynaud and Lemoine had all starred in Franco's "Red Lips" female detective films made around the same time and all three of them, plus Vernon and Caminnecci, were in Franco's well-regarded SUCCUBUS, also from 1967.

Never officially released to DVD, this was however issued on VHS by both Magnum and Sinister Cinema.

★1/2

La coda dello scorpione (1971)

... aka: Case of the Scorpion's Tail, The
... aka: Scorpion's Tail, The
... aka: Tail of the Scorpion

Directed by:
Sergio Martino

I'm American so when dealing with foreign films (this one's an Italian-Spanish co-production), I'm willing to accept it when not all of the pieces fall exactly into place, especially in light that some things can become lost in translation from the original script to the English dubbing and/or subtitles. Nevertheless, this film leaves so many loose ends behind that it's difficult not to be feel a bit cheated at the end. It does however provide less-discriminate giallo fans with exactly what they want and expect to see, so it's not exactly a total washout, either. After an (obvious toy) airplane explosion kills her husband Kurt, London socialite Lisa Baumer ("Evelyn Stewart"/Ida Galli, who was used to much better effect in the underrated MURDER MANSION) is set to inherit one million dollars from an insurance policy. Not an ideal wife to begin with (she's in bed with one of her many lovers when she hears the "bad" news), we get the strong feeling that Lisa's days are seriously numbered and get an even stronger impression of this when an ex-lover who tries to blackmail her is knifed to death inside her apartment.

Lisa flees to Athens, Greece to both escape the killer and cash in the policy but is trailed by several characters; including Interpol agent Stavros (Luigi Pistilli) and insurance investigator Peter Lynch (George Hilton), both of whom seem to think that Lisa was somehow involved with planting explosives on the airplane. While in Greece, Lisa also meets up with her hubby's obnoxious short-fused mistress Lara (Janine Reynaud), who demands half the money... or else. Lara sends her "lawyer" Sharif (Luis Barboo) after Lisa with a switchblade, but Peter shows up just in time to save. A bit flustered, Lisa goes ahead and cashes the policy in, books an evening flight out to Tokyo and decides to spend her few hours left in Greece all alone in her hotel room. Big mistake. Someone dressed in the standard mad killer outfit (black outfit, leather gloves and mask), sneaks in, slashes her throat, guts her and walks away with her bag of money. A few more characters are introduced (including blonde Anita Strindberg as a journalist who hooks up with Peter), there are several more murders (including a memorable close-up eyeball gouging with a shard of glass) and the plot twists are laid on thick and heavy (handed). And, oh yeah... the scorpion of the title refers to a cuff-link left behind at the scene of an attack, which seems to have belonged to Lisa's (dead?) husband.

I know that gialli are known for their screwy storylines, but I had a difficult time dealing with some of the plot holes and multiple loose ends in the story. Some of the twists (particularly the identity of the mystery killer) are in annoying defiance to what we've already seen and don't make much sense. But as expected, the murder scenes are directed, lit and photographed with some style. The occasional cool green and red lighting brightens things up considerably. There's also one scene that Argento lifted wholesale for SUSPIRIA, as the killer teasingly tries to open a lock from between a crack in the door with a knife blade. Gore-wise, it is barely sufficient if you don't mind bright red blood. The cast is decent, with leads Hilton and Strindberg nice to look at, yet a little on the dull side. There's far less nudity here than in similar movies, with only Anita providing some brief topless nudity. Nicely scored by Bruno Nicolai. Overall it's about average from what I've seen in the genre.

★★