Nelle pieghe della carne

Adrian Luther Smith, writer of the 'Giallo Bible' Blood and Black Lace describes this film as a "trash masterpiece" - and I pretty much agree with him! The film is sometimes labelled as a Giallo, although for me it fits more into the exploitation genre as although there is some murder mystery, it's clear that director Sergio Bergonzelli was much keen on delivering as much sleaze as possible! The director also ensures that the film feels rather arty, and this makes In the Folds of Flesh even more of a gem, as the locations offset the frankly ridiculous story brilliantly! The plot is overly convoluted (to say the least), and focuses on the residents of an old castle. An escaped convict witnesses a woman burying her husband by a statue in the back garden. We then move to thirteen years later. A couple of unwelcome visitors stop by and are promptly killed by two of the younger castle residents. Then the escaped convict turns up and begins demanding money to stop him going to the police and reporting the body in the garden...another murder and a police investigation ensue.

The film can be described as a hodgepodge of popular Italian exports. We've got a light Giallo tone, as well as an exploitation theme; and then there are also mentions of Nazi's and ancient skeletons. Naturally, all the women are very nice to look at; and while the acting from Eleonora Rossi Drago and Pier Angeli isn't great; it hardly matters as they deliver the performances required of them. The best thing about this film is the way that Sergio Bergonzelli constantly chucks in another twist to make the already questionable plot more ridiculous at every opportunity. The film is also rather nasty, and features a whole host of gruesome morsels - including the aforementioned murders, an acid bath and a plethora of decapitations! (The director obviously loves them...). It has to be said that In the Folds of Flesh falls down in some areas - there's no sex or nudity, and by the time you get to the end; it all feels rather pointless as it's impossible to care about the fates of any of the characters. Still, this is certainly a film worth seeing and I don't regret wasting ninety minutes of my life on it!

Well there's a homicidal 35 year old woman (I think they're trying to pass her off as 20-something and it really does not work out) and she's completely mentally incompetent. She has an incestuous relationship with her artistic brother, and while the mother looks continually disapproving she just allows all of the murder and mayhem to go on, even bothering to clean up the bodies for her kids. And as I've pointed out, she must have had her daughter when she was 9, because she can't be more than ten years older than the murderous loony in the blonde wig.

There are hints of giallo in the flashbacks and the death of the father at sea, but I do not consider this a giallo at all. It's some weird cult film from the late 1960s that took a bunch of ideas and threw them together in a salad of shame. It kind of reminds me of how The House of Exorcism is an inferior version of Lisa and the Devil. I honestly wish there was a coherent, superior version of In the Folds of the Flesh in the same manner of the ludicrous House of Exorcism, but I guess this is it.

This is one strange movie - it combines Nazi elements, a police procedural, a giallo, a psychological examining of identity and even comes close to a Last House on the Left vibe.

Severin released this film several years ago, but it's sadly out of print. It's certainly one of the oddest entries in the genre and one you should track down. I've only barely touched on the many twists and turns of the plot because I believe that you should enjoy them for yourself.

an above-average mystery/suspense thriller (almost a 'giallo') by Sergio Bergonzelli, with an engrossing story, dubious characters galore (including a main role played by the late Pier Angeli, credited here as Anna Maria Pierangeli), by turns wacky & stylish direction, and a half trippy/half creepy atmosphere about it. kept me guessing almost till the very end, always coming up with a twist, a revelation, or a grabbing visual up it's sleeve (it's even got a scene with WW2-era featuring Nazis!). gotta love a movie that begins with some Freud psycho-babble text, and immediately cuts to a shot of a severed head on a carpeted floor! somebody needs to release this crazy film on DVD pronto (hello Blue Underground, NoShame, Synapse, etc...). anyone with even a passing interest in this kind of film would be well adviced to check out this little known gem.

rating: 8/10

On a dark and stormy night an escaped convict on the run witnesses a beautiful woman burying a body while a young boy looks on. He is captured by the authorities and returned to jail. Flash forward to several years later where the boy, now a young man, lives in a villa with his Mother and a girl who is either his lover or his sister, it's hard to say. His Mother was the mistress of a criminal who disappeared years before. Or is that "disappeared"? Is everything as simple and straightforward as it first appears? A guest arrives claiming to be a long lost relative. Are they telling the truth or do they suspect something about a hidden secret? So begins 'In The Folds Of The Flesh' an almost forgotten Spanish exploitation thriller that continually twists and turns. Full of surprises, trippy imagery, and an unexpected Nazi flashback, this is recommended to fans of Jess Franco's classic 'Succubus' and similar 60s/70s European sexploitation. It may not reach Franco's over the top absurdity and sheer strangeness, but it has a lot of fun trying, and I enjoyed it a great deal.