Vinegar Syndrome has released five Forgotten Gialli sets. You can check out my articles on the others here:
This box set has the following movies:
Death Carries a Cane (1973): If death carries a cane, isn’t it weak? With that thinking, aren’t the alternate titles — Dance Steps on the Edge of a Razor, Maniac At Large, The Night of the Rolling Heads and Devil Blade — so much cooler?
Well, that’s because whoever the killer is, he or she has a limp. That’s what Kitty (Nieves Navarro, billed here under her boring Americanized nom de plume Susan Scott) sees when she watches a murder through a coin-operated telescope. That’s just the first of many killings and it just might be her boyfriend Alberto, who has the misfortune of having a limp and a cane when that’s what’s being profiled. I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again, defund the giallo police.
Navarro also made two other similarly titled movies, Death Walks at Midnight and Death Walks On High Heels, so if you’re confused, well, this doesn’t have Nieves Navarro in it.
Director Maurizio Pradeaux also made another Grim Reaper referencing giallo, Death Steps in the Dark, which has a scene where the protagonist has to wear drag to escape the police.
Naked You Die (1968): Naked…You Die (AKA The Young, the Evil and the Savage) is a pretty fun early giallo with good direction by Antonio Margheriti.
Yet it was very nearly was a Mario Bava movie.
According to Tim Lucas’ Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark, Bava was hired by Lawrence Woolner — the distributor of Hercules in the Haunted World and Blood and Black Lace in America — to direct a movie about a killer stalking a school. Cry Nightmare was going to be the title and Bava wrote the script with Brian Degas and Tudor Gates (Barbarella, Danger: Diabolik).
Lamberto Bava told Lucas that “Just a short time before the filming was to begin, Mario Bava had an argument with the producers and he abandoned the film.” As for Margheriti, who met Woolner when he distributed Castle of Blood, he said “I think Mario was busy at that time, working on Diabolik or something.”
Either way, locations were already secured, cast and crew had been hired and a theme song had already been recorded.
The drowned body of a woman is placed in a truck going to St. Hilda College. There, only seven students, two teachers — Mrs. Clay (Ludmilla Lvova) and Mr. Barrett (Mark Damon — Headmistress Transfield (Vivian Stapleton) and gardener La Foret (Luciano Pigozzi) are present.
Soon, the killing begins with Betty Ann being strangled and found by Lucille (Eleonora Brown in her last film until coming out of retirement in 2018), who is having an affair with Barrett. When she tells him to come see the body, it’s already gone, so they decide to leave the school.
The killings kick into gear with Cynthia (Malisa Longo, Ricco the Mean Machine) being killed in front of the gardener, who is soon killed as well and Denise (Patrizia Valturri) too. There’s also amateur detective Gillie (Sally Smith) on the case and Inspector Durand (Michael Renne from The Day the Earth Stood Still) trying to stop the killings.
All the girls wear similar uniforms — and outfits that change scene by scene — and nobody wonders why an older teacher can play Big Bad Wolf with Little Red Riding Hood and get away with it.
The aforementioned theme song “Nightmare” by Powell and Savina (Don Powell, who played Emanuelle’s father in Black Emanuelle 2 and did that film’s soundtrack, along with Carlo Savina, who composed the music for The Killer Reserved Nine Seats, Lisa and the Devil, Fangs of the Living Dead and so many more) and performed by Rose Brennan owes royalties to Neal Hefti.
Perhaps even wilder is the fact that the movie informs us that Gillie may be the daughter of James Bond.
Giallo would change in a few years to be bloody, sleazier and stranger. That said, this is a great example of an early version of this style of movie.
The Bloodstained Shadow (1978): One of my favorite things about giallo are the alternate titles. As if The Bloodstained Shadow isn’t a great name, this movie also goes by Solamente Nero (Only Blackness), which is a way better title. The other thing I love about this genre is that just when I think I’ve seen every good one, I find another to enjoy.
This is the kind of movie that tells you exactly where it stands in the first minutes, as a killer strangles a girl in a field before the credits even start. That murder has never been solved. Years later, a college professor named Stefano has a nervous breakdown. To recover, he comes home to visit his brother Don Paolo, who has become a priest that hates all of the immorality in their small town.
Oh what immorality — there’s a gambler, a psychic, a combination atheist/pedophile and an illegal abortionist with a mentally challenged son who lives in a shack top the list, along with your typical sex and drinking that happens in any town.
Meanwhile, murders have been piling up and whoever is behind it, they’re leaving notes to the priest, warning him that if he reveals who the killer is, he’ll be next. That’s because on Stefano’s first night back home, Don Paolo saw the killer murder the town psychic in the courtyard.
Stefania Casini (Suspiria) also appears as the love interest, Sandra, who helps Stefano come back to normalcy. Well, as normal as a town filled with murder can be. I’m kind of amazed that she wears a belly chain all day. When you get to the love scene, you’ll know what I mean.
There’s also some amazing religious imagery in this one, like a skinned and bloody animal that has been placed in the sacristy to warn the priest that he’s getting too close, or the communion scene that reveals who the real killer is.
Finally, Goblin plays some great music in here, created by composer Stelvio Cipriani. It’s really a great package, thanks to director Antonio Bido, who directed one other giallo, Watch Me When I Kill. I love how the past childhood trauma that the brothers endured continues to permeate their lives as they try to grow up. This is a very adult giallo and by that, I mean that it doesn’t need nudity and gore to tell its tale.
You can get this set from Vinegar Syndrome.
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