La dama de la capa roja

This was the second giallo Emilio Miraglia directed after the previous year's The Night Evelyn Came Out Of The Grave. In fact it was the last movie he ever directed. On the evidence of this film that is a criminal waste because The Red Queen Kills 7 Times really is a terrific giallo. Like its predecessor, this one mixes the giallo format with neo-Gothic elements; in this case an old castle replete with a crypt populated with rats and bats, as well as a legend about an evil supernatural killer. This Gothic material is combined with a super-chic contemporary setting, where we have a fashion house populated with a selection of gorgeous girls. This set-up gives the movie a slightly different angle to most others in the genre and Miraglia makes full use of both the Gothic and the giallo conventions.

The plot is as complex as you should expect from these flicks. It is basically about two sisters who grow up in a castle. An old painting shows two other warring sisters, the evil one being the dark haired Red Queen -a girl who returns from the dead every hundred years on murderous rampages. Of course the little girls grow up and the Red Queen mysteriously appears and starts a series of killings.

It has to be said that this film has a truly awesome killer. The Red Queen has to be one of the greatest cinematic serial killers ever conceived. This sexy black haired woman in flowing red gown and scary voice is a very inspired creation indeed. She commits a series of murders of course. They aren't the most graphic of killings but they are very varied. Most original being death by fence pole, while the scene where someone is dragged through the streets by car was repeated several years later in Dario Argento's Deep Red. Aside from this, the cinematography is as lovely as you may expect from a film like this, with great widescreen compositions that make full use of both the Gothic locations as well as the modern interiors. And last but certainly not least there is an assortment of gorgeous Euro actresses to savour. Barbara Bouchet leads the picture and, as always, is phenomenal; sexy and sympathetic, she truly was one of the very best actresses working in Italy in the 70's. Also of particular note is Sybil Danning as a bad girl femme fatale.

For Euro cult viewers you just cannot go wrong here. It's definitely a very memorable entry in the giallo sub-genre.

Once upon a time in a castle...... Two little girls are playing in the garden's castle. They are sisters. A blonde little girl (Kitty) and a brunette one (Evelyn). Evelyn steals Kitty's doll. Kitty pursues Evelyn. Running through long corridors, they reach the room where their grandfather, sitting on an armchair, reads the newspaper. Kitty complains about Evelyn, while Evelyn is looking interestedly at a picture hanging on the wall. Evelyn begins to say repeatedly: "I am the red lady and Kitty is the black lady". Suddenly Evelyn grabs a dagger lying nearby and stabs Kitty's doll and then cuts her (the doll's) head. A fight ensues. And Evelyn almost uses the dagger against Kitty. The grandfather intervenes and the worst is avoided.

Later on, their grandfather tells them the legend related to the picture hanging on the wall in front of them, in which a lady dressed in black is stabbing a lady dressed in red:

"A long time ago, a red lady and a black lady lived in the same castle. They were sisters and hated each other. One night, for jealousy reasons, the black lady entered the red lady's room and stabbed her seven times. One year later, the red lady left her grave. She killed six innocent people, and her seventh victim was the black lady. Once every hundred years, the events repeat themselves in this castle and a red lady kills six innocent victims before killing the black lady herself."

The grandfather ends his tale by saying that according to the legend, sixteen years from now, the red queen should come again and kill seven times. But he assures them that this is just an old legend.

Sixteen years pass.....

This is the very beginning of the film. There are many twists and surprises in the film. It's better for you to forget about logic (if you really analyse it, the story doesn't make sense) and just follow the film with its wonderful colors, the gorgeous women, the clothes, the tasteful decor, the lighting effects and the beautiful soundtrack.

Enjoy Barbara Bouchet, Sybil Danning, Marina Malfatti, Pia Giancaro, among other goddesses. There's a nude by Sybil Danning lying on a sofa that's something to dream about. And don't forget: The lady in red kills seven times!

If you've liked "La Dama Rossa..." check out also "La Notte che Evelyn uscì dalla Tomba".

The title of this solid murder mystery from co-writer / director Emilio P. Miraglia deals with a legend surrounding the well-off Wildenbruck family. Every hundred years, the title character will claim seven victims. The current generation of Wildenbrucks consists of sisters played by Barbara Bouchet (as Kitty) and Marina Malfatti (as Franziska). Kitty is a high-fashion photographer whose circle of friends begin to be butchered by a cackling dark haired woman wearing a red cloak. And this woman would seem to be Kitty's long estranged sister Eveline, but Kitty knows that this cannot be the case.

Miraglia is good at storytelling as well as cinematic flair, giving us an engrossing mystery that offers up enough red herrings to keep things interesting. But, just like any good giallo, it delivers plenty of eye candy - of both the cinematic kind and the human female kind - to add to the presentation and make it quite watchable, even if anybody watching figures things out ahead of time. It just barely sort of flirts with the supernatural, with little surreal touches here and there, and is largely grounded in reality...albeit a stylized, sexualized reality. It can also boast a typically lovely Bruno Nicolai soundtrack; casual viewers may not recognize his name, but he deserves to be as well known as Ennio Morricone, one of the major legends of film music (Italian and otherwise).

The acting is good from the cast; there are some very handsome men and some positively gorgeous women among them. Bouchet is an engaging lead, and Ugo Pagliai is her likeable leading man. Marino Mase is excellent as the dedicated police inspector - what giallo would be complete without this sort of stock character? Rudolf Schundler is a delight as the concerned grandfather who gives us some back story, and B movie goddess Sybil Danning can be seen (clothed and unclothed) as a saucy character named Lulu Palm.

The kills are sure to satisfy gore lovers, and if you're an admirer of this genre, you'll be intrigued by the way that Miraglia switches between a traditional Gothic setting (the family castle) and the modern urban environment. One highlight is when a victim is dragged to their death by a car after their jacket gets caught in the car door.

The sixth, and sadly final, directorial outing for Miraglia, who'd been a script supervisor and assistant director for many years; previously he'd done another giallo, the equally lauded "The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave".

Seven out of 10.

"The Red Queen Kills Seven Times" follows two sisters who are faced with apparent repercussions of a family curse after the death of their aristocrat grandfather. The legend has it that every hundred years, two sisters in the family bloodline will fight, resulting in the murder of one. After the prophecy comes true, a madwoman in a red cloak begins a killing spree in one of the sisters' lives, stalking the ancestral castle and mercilessly taking lives.

The second and last effort of Emilio Miraglia after the brilliant Gothic "The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave," "The Red Queen Kills Seven Times" is a rather similar effort, but with slight modifications in both plot and tone. Where "Evelyn" treaded supernatural Gothic territory, "Red Queen" is a bit more of a heavy-handed giallo that is shamelessly over-plotted and also far more violent. Evoking the kind of giallos that Argento or Bava made in the 1970s, the film really takes its time working up elaborate murders and a faceless killer.

Tonally, it is slightly different from Miraglia's preceding film in that it was shot exclusively in Germany, and very much has a Bavarian aesthetic, featuring a German-European castle setting, rolling forests, and small mountain villages as backdrops. It is an atmospheric film, and in Miraglia's fashion, is oriented toward the Gothic.

As I mentioned, the film is a bit zany in terms of plot, and throws curveball after curveball without pause, so it is a film that demands its audience's attention in order to make sense of what is happening on screen. Barbara Bouchet and Marina Malfatti (returning from Miraglia's previous film) have the lead roles, and are both very good. The finale is fantastically elaborate and the final reveal is thematically quite dark; there is an especially memorable scene set in a flooding underground chamber that really deserves some respect.

Overall, "The Red Queen Kills Seven Times" is a solid effort, and does a fantastic job at juggling elements of the giallo with that of the Gothic thriller. It is a far less supernaturally-oriented film than Miraglia's "Evelyn," and it is also more extensively plotted. The unabashed twists and turns do become a bit redundant and exhausting along the way, but the finale is a nice payoff to an otherwise atmospheric thriller. The killer's red cloak (perhaps a foresight for "Don't Look Now"?) and menacing cackle are also not to be dismissed. 7/10.

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times is a vintage 1970's thriller about a family curse, in which there are 7 murders every 100 years, committed by one of two sisters, who picks off 6 victims and the eventually kills the other sister. Which is a bit of a convoluted legend. But anyway, Barbara Bouchet plays Kitty, the leading lady in peril, who feels that her missing and deranged sister is replaying out the legend and killing multiple people, so she soon fears that she will become the 7th victim.

The whole movie is a bit of a jumble of plot and events, as people close to or somehow linked to Kitty start to die horribly. The movie does look good, thanks to the lovely actresses who appear in it, and there are some great shots of the "Red Queen" killer (in a long red cape, black hair and white face) dashing about the place. There's also a fairly spectacular castle setting with suitable creepy rooms and dungeons. The explanation is almost impossible to piece together, but at least it's something you couldn't really figure out!

The prologue is also important as it shows how Kitty (as a child) first learned about the legend, and we get to hear the improbable story, as well as see a ridiculously gory painting which the family have deemed suitable to be hung in full view on a wall! Sadly, what doesn't work is the English dub, which is dreadful and it especially hampers this prologue, because the only thing worse than bad dubbing is bad dubbing of children, and here it's excruciating. There is a fair bit of gore, but the blood looks like tomato soup and there are no really good effects to be seen. However it's all energetic and well paced, and there is a lot of topless female nudity to keep the male audience members entertained. Worth a look.