Die Mörderklinik

I saw this for the first time recently aft reading Coventry's glowing review n indeed this one's a very obscure one.

The plot in short - Patients and staff of an isolated mental hospital are being killed off by a hooded figure who stalks the halls. While a doctor is busy experimenting skin grafting on animals, his wife gets concerned when a beautiful guest arrives.

I feel the Korean movie A Tale of Two Sisters n its remake The Uninvited (2009) borrowed from this movie.

Even Beneath (2007) borrowed from this one.

Mary is a new nurse at the prestigious Vance Clinic which is run by Dr. Robert Vance and his wife Elizabeth.A female thief named Giselle is put in the clinic by Dr.Vance.She begins to hear strange sounds in the attic and discovers badly disfigured woman there.In the meantime a mysterious black cape wearing killer stalks and attacks female patients with a razor.Stylish and sadly neglected Gothic giallo with splendid performance of William Berger and stylish direction by Elio Scardamaglia.Great score by Francesco De Masi plus several suspenseful and pretty violent stalking/murder sequences.It's a crying shame that "The Murder Clinic" is rather forgotten or even ignored by Eurohorror enthusiasts.7 lime pits out of 10.

Better than average giallo with an old-fashioned charm. It's a period piece with horses and wagons. The "Clinic" is a sanatorium of sorts. The good doctor appears to be part psychiatrist, part surgeon. There also appears to be many more staff than patients at this clinic.

Great locations. Great use of color. Great atmosphere. The soundtrack features a very old song by Giovanni Battista Granata called "Sonata di Chitarra, e Violino, con il suo Basso Continuo." It's a classical song, but it sounds a lot like Stairway to Heaven.

The acting was good. The story/mystery was fairly predictable if you've seen a number of these movies. Overall, I'd say it's worth a watch if you're a giallo fan.

"Murder Clinic" is one of them obscure and early (mid-60's) Gialli that you'll probably never see, unless you're willing to purchase a prehistoric VHS copy or – even worse - a bootleg DVD ripped from the aforementioned prehistoric tape. You know those things that are practically unwatchable because the original colors faded and the picture is constantly fuzzy? In other words this Giallo is only meant for the eyes of avid Giallo-buffs, as I sincerely doubt a proper release on disc will ever follow. "Murder Clinic" is a very passable Italian horror effort, but nevertheless amusing and it certainly contains a handful of potentially good ideas. It was the sixties, so Gialli movies still leaned towards Gothic settings and darkly sinister filming location. But, on the other hand, the Giallo-formula was still relatively new and thus the screenplay (penned down by veterans Ernesto Gastaldi and Luciano Martino) is very straightforward with clear twists and logical red herrings. The year is 1870 and the sinister events take place in a private clinic run by the demanding Dr. Vance and his obnoxious wife Liz. The movie doesn't waste too much time, as there quickly pops up a hooded killer who waves around a sharp razor and butchers patients as well as staff members. There are a number of possibilities for whom the killer might turn out to be, and the least you can say is that the denouement is acceptable. The murders sequences are decent, obviously not outrageously gross but definitely bloodier than I anticipated for a 60's film. There are some tedious parts and the acting performances – with the exception of William Berger as the Doc – are very much below average. The music is atmospheric and luckily the film only ran for a good 80 minutes. Not so much because I was bored to death, but because the incredibly poor bootleg disc hurt my eyes and ears.

Murder Clinic is one of the lesser known Giallo's that has yet to be brought into the spotlight like many of the better examples of the genre have been already. In my opinion, this is a film that will never get the shiny DVD release; and the reason for that is simply that it's not all that good. That's not to say that it's a terrible film; clearly director Elio Scardamaglia has an eye for Gothic visuals; the sets and atmosphere bode well with the plot line and the film does emulate the classic Universal horror style very well...but there's really not enough of the film and what there is of the plot is very clichéd and since most people that bother to seek out this film will be hardened horror veterans (like myself), no viewer of Murder Clinic is likely to find anything they haven't seen before. As the title suggests, the film focuses on murders at an English clinic and the story takes place in the 1870's. Basically, a bunch of the clinic's vulnerable residents are being picked off by a razor-wielding maniac and we get a handful of possible suspects.

The plot actually doesn't play out too badly; we get treated to a few murders before being introduced to the 'monster' of the story and the back-story behind that monster (which is actually fairly interesting but could and should have been handled in a much better way). However, the film does have a tendency to run into the melodramatic and while Elio Scardamaglia's direction is sound, the film was clearly shot on a low budget and he doesn't ever manage to make the film look anything more than a cheap affair (although in fairness, the VHS copy I saw does the film no favours). The film only runs for about eighty minutes and that's a good thing to be honest as it definitely would have started to get boring if it were any longer; although the runtime we do have only just keeps the film from becoming boring. The way that Murder Clinic handles red herrings is good and we get four main ones and to the film's credit, it's not immediately obvious who the killer is before it's revealed. Overall, this is not a great Giallo by any means and only hardcore genre fans should check it out; but it's a decent watch at least.