Jean’s (Juan Logar) fiancée Jacqueline (Annie Sinigalia) dies of a strange ailment in the middle of surgery. On their wedding day, no less! How does this happen? How does one decide to schedule surgery on the same day as a wedding? Who can say, but Jean decides to stop being a medical student and start attacking his former classmates, cutting off their hands so they can never operate again.

The dude is doing all of this four years before Dr. Phibes, too.

Directed by Enrique López Eguiluz (Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror, Santo frente a la muerte) and written by star Juan Logar, who also produced and composed the music, this has some grisly murders and some gore, more than you’d expect from Spain under Franco in 1968.

The detective trying to solve this case? It’s one of his earliest roles, credited as David Molba, but that’s Paul Naschy. 

This feels more slasher than giallo. It’s set in France — not Spain, as there’s no way the government would allow that — and at least they set up the doomed romance well in the beginning.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Based on The 13th Man by Murray Teigh Bloom, this is a hell of a role for Roy Scheider, who plays Harry Hannan, a government agent whose job intrudes on his family life, as an informant appears too early — Joe Spinell appearance! — and the ensuing gunfight takes the life of his wife. He spends five months in an institution and worries that he’s being frozen out by the agency and has become expendable.

When he goes back to his apartment, he finds that Ellie Fabian (Janet Margolin) is living there. A note has been left for him under the door. It’s in Hebrew and reads “Avenger of Blood.” Meanwhile, as he visits his wife’s grave, he fights with her brother, Dave Quittle (Charles Napier). Despite being told that he’s safe, Harry is marked for death by Quittle and his boss, Eckhart (Christopher Walken).

Between having to deal with people trying to kill him at every turn, he works with Sam Urdell (Sam Levene) to solve the notes that he’s been left.

“It begins with an ancient warning. It ends at the edge of Niagara Falls. In between, there are 5 murders. Solve the mystery. Or die trying.” What a tagline. Director Jonathan Demme cast Lynn Lowry as Ellie in this, but Schneider wanted his girlfriend, Janet Margolin, in the movie. The producers dropped her against Demme’s wishes, but she still got paid and continues to earn residuals from it.

This is a Hitchcock cover from start to finish, even having Miklós Rózsa do the score. He worked with Hitchcock on Spellbound. And the end, while darker than North by Northwest, is similar. Yet this surprised me; between how raw Scheider is and the darkness of the murders, it’s excellent.

You can watch this on Tubi and get it from Vinegar Syndrome.

 Based on one of The Love List’s 2024 Best Unproduced Romance Scripts, this film — directed by Stephen S. Campanelli (a camera operator on everything from The Vindicator and Vanilla Sky to several of Clint Eastwood’s films) and written by Kaitlin Reilly and Dorian Keyes — How to Lose a Popularity Contest is about Ellie (Sara Waisglass), who is about to graduate and go to a major college, leaving behind her horrible high school years and the nickname she hates, Max, given to her by Nate (Chase Hudson). This being a teen romantic comedy, she may just fall in love with him before then.

Somehow, that involves a class president contest, playing flip cup and dealing with parents who don’t understand who their teens really are. Plus, you get characters like Streaker Dupont (Aiden Howard), who gets his first name because he likes to get naked constantly.

This is a cute teen romance that’s all about learning that people you don’t like or look down on can be very close to you. There are some nice lessons in here, and Tubi has been really getting into making films like this. Sure, I’m old and way out of high school, but I get it. 

You can watch this on Tubi.

Editor’s note: Cinematic Void will be playing this movie tonight at 8:00 PM at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA. You can get tickets here. It’s also playing on January 31 at 7:00 PM at The Sie Film Center in Denver. You can get tickets here. For more information, visit Cinematic Void.

Also known as Ecology of Crime, Chain Reaction, Carnage, Twitch of the Death Nerve and Blood Bath, Last House on the Left – Part II and New House on the Left, this is the most violent and nihilistic of all of Mario Bava’s films. It started as a story idea so that Bava could work with Laura Betti (Hatchet for the Honeymoon) again, with the original titles of Stench of Flesh and Thus We Do Live to Be Evil, but had a virtual litany of writers get involved, including producer Giuseppe Zaccariello, Filippo Ottoni, Sergio Canevari, Dardano Sacchetti (who co-wrote all of Fulci’s best films, like Zombi 2 and House by the Cemetery) and Franco Barberi.

Bava was devoted to the film, and its low budget meant he would also serve as his own cinematographer, often creating innovative tracking shots with a toy wagon and relying on in-camera tricks to make the location seem much more expansive than it was.

There are thirteen murders in the film — many of which are incredibly gory, thanks to the skill of Carlo Rambaldi — as several characters vie to inherit the titular bay. The film divides critics and fans: some see it as pure gore, while others see it as the nuanced films Bava is known for. For example, Christopher Lee went on record saying he found the movie revolting.

It also gave rise to the slasher genre, as every film that follows owes it a debt of gory gratitude. And some owe it plenty more, in particular Friday the 13th Part 2, which copies two of the kills in this film shot-for-shot.

The story is all over the place and has a mix of dark humor and pure meanness at its core, starting with Filippo Dontai strangling his wife, Countess Federica, before being stabbed and killed scant seconds later. His corpse is dragged to the bay, where his murder goes undiscovered as detectives begin their investigation into the death of the Countess.

That’s when we meet Frank (Chris Avram, Enter the Devil), a real estate agent, and his girlfriend Laura, who plot to take over the bay. They were working with Donati to kill his wife and now need his signature, but don’t realize that he is dead.

Meanwhile, four teenagers hear about the murders and break into the mansion. One of them, Brunhilda, skinny dips in the bay until the dead corpse of Donati surfaces and touches her. She screams and runs toward the mansion, only to be killed by an unseen murderer holding a billhook. That killer uses that same weapon to kill her boyfriend, Bobby, then he impales Duke and Denise together with a spear while they’re having sex. Here’s a good lesson that I constantly yell: don’t fuck in the woods, don’t fuck in a haunted house, don’t fuck when a killer is about.

The killer turns out to be the Countess’s illegitimate son, Simon, who is wiping out everyone under Frank’s orders. Renata (Claudine Auger, Thunderball) shows up to throw a wrench in the work, as she’s the Countess’ real daughter. Along with her husband, Albert, she begins to make plans to kill her half-brother.

What follows is a near Grand Guignol of back-and-forth murder: Frank attacks Renata, who turns the tables and stabs him with a knife. Paolo, the entomologist who lives on the estate grounds, sees the killing but is strangled by Albert before he can call the police, and his wife is decapitated with an axe. Laura shows up, but Simon strangles her to death before Albert kills him. Frank shows up again, but Albert takes him out, leaving Renata as the sole heir.

They return home to await being awarded the money, but as they get to the front door, their children shoot them with a shotgun, thinking they are playing with their parents. Bored with the game and how long their parents have been playing dead, the kids run out to play another game, an ending that can be viewed as pure comedy or a sad comment on humanity. Maybe both.

Bay of Blood isn’t the art of past Bava films, but it’s not trash. It’s also been claimed to have been Bava’s favorite film that he directed. And Dario Argento adores the movie so much that he literally stole a print of it from a theater!

Roman Polanski’s first English-language film, this is part of his “Apartment Trilogy”, followed by Rosemary’s Baby and The Tenant. Strange for the time, it casts a female as a killer — there’s that spoiler — as Carol Ledoux (Catherine Deneuve) starts to melt down as she stays all alone in the small living quarters of her sister Helen (Yvonne Furneaux).

Polanski and co-writer Gerard Brach based this on a friend they knew and someone who they later learned had schizophrenia. Carol’s big issue is dealing with the rudeness of her sister’s married lover, Michael (Ian Hendry), and their lovemaking (this is the first movie with the sound of a female orgasm to play in England). Or maybe it’s every man who crosses her path. Or perhaps it’s every single person and thing she encounters that has sent her over the edge.

Is this even a real story? Seeing as how the camera zooms away from Carol’s eye and back into it at the end, are we instead seeing how she sees the world? How are we to take the photo at the end with the child looking so troubled? Has the father of the two sisters doomed Carol to be repulsed by all men?

Gorgeous black and white, overwhelming darkness and a skinned rabbit — that was supposed to be a real one before the crew talked Polanski out of it. A nightmare, but one worth seeking.

Editor’s note: Cinematic Void will be playing this movie tonight on Friday, January 18 at 8:00 PM at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA. It’s free and you can read about the film here. For more information, visit Cinematic Void.

A Hyena In the Safe might have the best-looking fashions I’ve ever seen in a giallo. Oh man, glitter eyeshadow, furs, striped suits, insane patterns — I’m in love.

Four thieves — Klaus from Germany, Albert (Sandro Pizzochero, So Sweet, So Dead) from France, Juan from Spain and Carina from Tangiers — have met up in what they think is an isolated castle to split up some diamonds. That said, their dead boss’s wife, Anna, is throwing a party. Complicating matters further, all five keys must be used at the same time to open the vault, so everyone has to keep getting along, even when Albert’s new girlfriend, Jeanine, annoys everyone. And when people start getting killed, how will anyone get their reward?

Cesare Canevari is probably better known for his scummy side, with movies like A Man for Emmanuelle, Killing of the Flesh and The Gestapo’s Last Orgy on his resume.

I kind of love these pre-Argento gialli that haven’t started aping his style and instead are all over the place in their influences. This is the type of movie I wish had shown up in Vinegar Syndrome’s last Forgotten Gialli set, because I want more people to see it. It’s got the brightest colors, the furriest upholstery, the most theatrical makeup and a soundtrack that swings. It is, well, everything.