El pez de los ojos de oro

El pez de los ojos de oro (The Fish with the Eyes of Gold) is a 1974 Spanish giallo that tries to swim in the bloody waters of the Italian slasher craze, but ends up floundering in mediocrity.

The film's narrative is a tangled mess of red herrings and half-baked subplots that never quite coalesce. It kicks off with a scuba diver brutally murdering a woman on a beach, witnessed by a hapless bystander. From there, it devolves into a confusing whodunit involving a jewel heist, shady business dealings, and enough double-crosses to make your head spin.

As a giallo, El pez disappoints with its lack of stylish kills and suspenseful set pieces. The murder sequences are flatly shot and lacking in creativity or tension.

And despite the title's promise of something visually striking, the film is drab and bereft of any memorable imagery or directorial flair.

The acting is also amateurish across the board, with even the most intense scenes failing to generate any palpable sense of dread or danger. The dubbing in particular is atrocious and frequently out of sync.

There are glimmers of potential in El pez's premise of a killer using scuba gear to stalk victims underwater. But the film squanders this intriguing hook on a pedestrian plot that grows more incoherent as it lumbers towards its unsatisfying conclusion.

While it has gained a minor cult following among die-hard Euro-cult aficionados, El pez de los ojos de oro is a middling and eminently skippable entry in the giallo canon. It lacks the stylistic bravado and visceral impact of the genre's classics, leaving viewers with a muddled, tedious experience rather than a taut, chilling thrill ride.

I recently watched the Spanish giallo 🇪🇸 The Fish with Eyes of Gold (1973) on Tubi. The storyline follows an Englishman who moves to a Spanish beach town and quickly begins seducing local women. However, each woman he sleeps with turns up dead, and he soon becomes the prime suspect in a murder investigation. As the local police close in, he must try to prove his innocence-if he really is innocent.

Directed by Pedro L. Ramírez (School of Death), the film stars Barta Barri (Horror Express), Victor Israel (Horror Express), Gustavo Re (The Summer Time Killer), Wal Davis (Love Camp), and Norma Kastel (Open Season).

This is a fairly cliched, very average Spanish giallo, which is often the case for the country's contributions to the genre. The acting feels inauthentic at times, with character decisions that are frustrating and don't always make sense. One surprising aspect is the number of sex scenes that contain no nudity, which is unusual for a giallo. There are some decent stabbing sequences, and while the kills are passable, they could have been executed better. The ending does provide a bit of a surprise, which salvages the film somewhat, but it's still not enough to make it truly worthwhile.

In conclusion, The Fish with Eyes of Gold is an average Spanish giallo, recommended only for diehard fans of the genre. I would give it a 5/10 and suggest watching with tempered expectations.

Spanish Giallo in low budget packing suspense, tense, whodunit , thrills, plot twists and lots of blood carried out by a series killer undertaking a criminal spree . A ruthless murderer is spreading terror in a beach town from Costa Brava , Girona, by carrring out a criminal spree , seemingly unconnected string of people. As mysterious killings are happening , there are various suspicious people but there is a young playboy : Wal Davis as prime suspect . Meanwhile , a stubborn police inspector : Barta Barri is investigating the bloody crimes . It is diabolical! It is daring! It is stalking, it cuts, it rips!

A suspenseful thriller with Giallo elements , grisly killings , very brief nudism , twists and turns . B-entertainment with a fairly suspenseful and frightening story in which a serial murderer on the loose undertaking a criminal spree by means of slitting, deguello ,slashing and other grisly executions. Intrigue , tension , suspense appear threatening and lurking in every room , and creepy interior and exteriors as beaches . The tale about an ominous killer begins well and grows more and more until the twisted final including the ordinary confrontation in which we figure out the guilty . Stars a peculiar actor , Waldemar Wohlfahrt nicknamed Wal Davis , he plays a blonde playboy and main suspect in a series of mysteripus murders who a ruthless killer is spreading here and there . Wal was a former German private detective and actor who in the 1970s was accused of committing the crimes of the serial killer The Vampire of the Highway, whose innocence was proven, and ended up starring in a low-budget Spanish horror film of the same name. , The Vampire of the Freeway, with the stage name of Wal Davis. The also known as Autobahnmörder had started his adventures on August 16, 1964, when his first victim appeared. In 1966, on June 13, he appeared in Germany, on the Upper Rhine, the third victim of a serial killer that the German press had dubbed The Highway Vampire. Waldemar Wohlfahrt resided in Benidorm, where he was well known among the Teutonic colony. Waldemar called himself Tex, he was a wealthy young man of 1'95 in height, blond almost albino, with blue eyes, and led a playboy life. Waldemar started a legal campaign against the German and Spanish newspapers that had defamed him , as the German Der Spiegel and Spanish ABC . They had accused him of being a murderer, an arms dealer, a bad investor , and a white woman dealer . He's detained due to possession a gun , but Wohlfahrt turned out to be a private detective, so he had one. Therefore, Tex, as he called himself in the German Levant colony in Benidorm where he lived , was released on August 3, after paying a fine for the possession of firearms of 25,000 pesetas . If that was not enough, to get rid of the staff Waldemar painted a black bat on his Mercedes sports car, and began using the nickname El Vampiro. In addition, with great swagger, he recorded an album with Waldermar's stage name "El Vampiro", with the songs "Benidorm" on the "A" side and "Tú parts mi corazón". His stage name was Wal Davis, and he was introduced to the world of cinema by the hand of director José Luis Madrid, starring in the 1970 film El Vampiro de la Autopista, aka The Horrible Sexy Vampire, in which he paradoxically played the hero who he was facing a vampire. From there his career soared, although we do not know if it was up or down, with a succession of titles straddling the B series and erotic cinema and even two films for Jesus Franco : Maciste contre la reine des Amazones y Les gloutones (las glotonas), as well as a Spag western Los locos del oro negro, and others as Las protegidas, El socarrón, El pez de los ojos de oro, Vacaciones sangrientas y La hiena. Wal davis is accompanied by a cast who was usual in the Seventies acting in thrillers , horror and other sub-genres as Norma Kastel , Barta Barri , Víctor Israel, Ada Tauler , Gustavo Re , María Elena Arpón , Montserrat Prous and Richard Kendall who was producer as well.

The motion picture was regularly directed by Pedro L. Ramirez , including mediocre narration and a startling visual content , though being sometimes slow-moving. Ramirez was an expert on comedy , filming vehicles for the Spanish comic named Jose Luis Ozores such as ¨ El Gafe¨, ¨El Tigre Chamberi¨, ¨Los Ladrones Somos Gente Honrada¨, ¨Recluta con Niño¨ and directed two Chorizo Western for Alfonso Balcazar such as "Watch Out Gringo! Sabata Will Return" and "None of the Three Were Called Trinity" starred by Tito Garcia and Chris Huerta and a terror movie : ¨School of death¨ . Rating : 4/10 . Below average .