... aka: Au dela du desir (Beyond Desire)
... aka: Crime
... aka: Das Grauen kommt nachts (The Horror Comes at Night)
... aka: Death at the Villa
... aka: Delirium
... aka: Hot Delirium
... aka: Sexe en délire (Sex in Delirium)
"Ralph Brown" (Renato Polselli)
At a bar, a man who can't keep his eyes off a girl's legs offers to give the young lady a ride to a nightclub. Instead, he drives her out into the country, chases her through the woods to a stream, rips all of her clothes off, starts strangling her and then beats her to death with a club. It's the seventh of such murders in less than a year and an eighth victim, a woman in a phone booth who's strangled with the telephone cord, is claimed soon after. The killer, at least of the first victim, is immediately revealed to be Dr. Herbert Lyutak (Mickey Hargitay), who's a respected psychologist who actually works for the police and is able to help cover up his own crimes. He is still a suspect, however, as he's questioned when a bartender recognizes him as the man who gave victim #7 a ride the same night she was killed. He tells the chief inspector, Edwards (Raul Lovecchio, billed as just "Raoul"), that he dropped her off at the nightclub and that's that.
Herbert is in a childless marriage to the pretty Marcia (Rita Calderoni), who also seems to have her fair share of mental problems. She really, really loves her husband to the point where she has no issue at all turning a blind eye to whatever it is he's up to and putting up with his psychotic behavior. Herbert has a small chest that he keeps locked and carries the key with him at all times. Marcia breaks into it, finds mementos of his various crimes (including names of victims on envelopes) and a blood-stained shirt, but keeps that all to herself. In bed, he starts to strangle her and she's OK with that, too, informing him that he can do whatever he wants to her. She has kinky nightmares where she has lesbian three-ways and is whipped with a chain and gets off on it. It appears as if she's the ideal match for ol' Herb.
As is often the case in these movies, Herbert's frustrations stem from the fact he's impotent. Apparently he and Marcia have never even consummated their marriage and she's still a virgin! A botched attempt at having sex ends with him cutting up her back and looking in the mirror screaming that he's a "bastard!" and a "hyena!"
In one of the most head-scratching police stings ever seen in one of these films (and, believe me, many of them are incredibly stupid), Herbert calls up Edwards and states that he's been doing his own "meteoropsychic" (?!) investigation into the crimes and now knows the exact time and location where the killer will strike next. It will be in an hour at the park near a swimming pool. The police get a policewoman - Miss Heindrich (Katia Cardinali) - to pose as a hooker and stand around by the pool hoping to bait the killer. Knowing full well there are a bunch of cops around, Herbert walks up to her, starts saying bizarre things and puts his hands around her throat (?!) However, before he can kill her, another hooker is knifed nearby by someone else! Yes, there's likely more than one killer at work here. Parking lot attendant John 'Crocchetta' Lacey (Tano Cimarosa), another suspect found near one of the earlier crime scenes, just so happens to be at this park in the middle of the night, too, which further throws suspicion off of Herbert. Groan.
After the hooker's body is discovered, Miss Heindrich sees the murder weapon on the ground and recognizes it as belonging to Herbert. Instead of informing the other cops, she picks it up and hides it in her purse (!?) Edwards sees what she's doing and instead of, ya know, calling her out on it on the spot or at least pulling her aside to ask her, he allows her to just take the knife from the crime scene (?!) and tells his assistant, Willy (William Darni), that he'll ask her about it later. Whaaa!? Naturally, before they can even get to her home, the killer has already paid her a visit, whipped her and drowned her in the bathtub. To taunt the cops, the body is placed in the window and falls down eight stories after a string is triggered.
Meanwhile, the police go to arrest Crocchetta but he runs off and finds a rusty hatch on the side of a fountain to hide in. That leads to underground tunnels that lead to a secret torture chamber hidden in the basement of the Lyutak house. Gee, whatta coincidence! There, he sees Dr. Herbert's maid Laurel (Cristina Perrier), who's a frequent presence in Marcia's sex dreams along with her niece (!!) Joaquine (Christa Barrymore), stripped nekkid and knocked out by "morphine gas." Crocchetta calls the police. While he's waiting for them to show up, he gets locked in the basement and is then strangled with a chain by Herbert. When the police arrive, they again take Herbert's word for what happened... and just leave the unconscious maid there! Tensions rise between Marcia, Herbert and Joaquine as the identities of the killers are finally revealed.
Some people seem to enjoy this but I wasn't a fan. It's illogical and incredibly stupid, slow-moving, horribly written and plotted and has terrible acting, terrible dialogue, near-bloodless kills, minimal directorial style and the dumbest cops this side of Mayberry. The only possible points of interest are the female nudity and minor S&M content but even then you can see all of that elsewhere in movies that don't also simultaneously insult your intelligence. BLOODY PIT OF HORROR (1965), which also stars former Mr. Universe Hargitay and has sadomasochistic themes, is rated lower on most movie websites but it's a hell of lot more fun to watch than this was.
There are many different cuts of this one available. First, there's the American version, which contains Vietnam war stock footage and newly-shot war scenes (turning the Herbert character into a demented war vet instead of merely a demented psychologist), plus two additional murder scenes and changes the identity of the killer(s). This one played theatrically in the U.S. and is English-dubbed, with Hargitay doing his own dubbing, but omits a lot of other stuff and clocks in at just 85 minutes. Second, there's the 102 minute Italian-dubbed "international cut" which contains many other scenes not seen in the American cut, with a greater emphasis on nudity, sadomasochism and lesbian sex. I watched the latter and, seeing how it constantly dragged with needless, overlong dialogue scenes, I'm now thinking I may have preferred the shorter version. Maybe I'll give it a look sometime and see.
There was also a third cut released in France called Au dela du desir, which has even more explicit nudity and sex than what's seen in the Italian-language version, runs about 104 minutes and was released on VHS there on the Empire label. Some of the other European VHS releases are a mishmash of footage from both the U.S. and International versions, running anywhere from 79 to 99 minutes. The Dutch and German releases also contain the Vietnam angle.
Both the American and International versions were released by Anchor Bay in 2002, which was the first time these films were available on a home viewing format here in America. A later DVD from Blue Underground came with the documentary featurette The Theory of Delirium, which features interviews with Polselli and Hargitay.
★1/2
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