Desejos Loucos de um Assassino

I am not kidding, I had this movie for almost two decades and I began watching it at least five times but the first 20 minutes or so never really caught my interest enough to keep watching for some reason. Now, finally I watched it to the end and can conclude that if you get past the opening 25-30 minutes you are in for a quite entertaining and good looking little giallo with quite some eerie atmosphere. Corrado Gaipa is the most memorable in the role of the inspector, along with Isabelle Marchall as the young countess. The opening and ending theme, which I believe is by Piero Piccioni (he is the credited composer here) is an incredibly atmospheric piece, but the rest of the soundtrack is a mystery to me. I hear themes from at least two other earlier giallo movies not scored by Piccioni. It would be nice to see these themes accurately credited.

Pros: Better than average script for this type of movie. There are some interesting subplots. Some of the locations are nice. I really liked the music - it's simple but effective!

Cons: Poor direction. No style. The shots waste locations. The acting is pretty bad across the board. The inspector comes across as the best of the bunch, but he can't carry the whole movie. There is a bunch of gratuitous bad sex scenes. I've been more turned on watching paint dry. Also, it takes awhile to get to the first murder.

Overall: It's a low budget mess created by a director who can't direct a bunch of actors who can't act.

I couldn't explain the rapid crammed in ending if I wanted to, Until the last 5 minutes I was ready to give it a seven.

I've been on a binge of the "Giallo" genre this summer of 2024...It reminds me of my love of 1940s-early 60s Film Noir, with soft core simulated sexual acts, and hysterical "gore" it's rare to truly be repulsed with how fake a stabbing and decapitation look.

The films in the genre that I truly like, are in the original language. It's incredibly rare that a predominantly French/Italian/Spanish film is dubbed well AT ALL. I've had to turn off promising ones not because of lip synchronization but I find a disconnect in mannerism, and facial expressions.

This goes on to this day, they should get experienced Animation voice actors to do it.

With subtitles I will come across something loosed in translation, too literal, or a coma or something is missing, but from the overall story, I can gather the gist.

I'm glad many of these films survived yet, very perturbed by the lack of streaming option in languages that exists more on Netflix.

It's a rather silly idea but it just about holds together with several lovely girls stripping off while somebody is killing and taking out their eyes. It is a rather nasty and bloody business but doesn't really get what is happening. There are a lot of footsteps and people going down to the cellar although it is the inspector who is trying to find out what is going on and he seems to have an amusing time.

A bunch of people converge in a large old castle and before long they start getting murdered and have their eyeballs removed! There's a paralyzed, clairvoyant patriarch, a returning countess, her deranged younger brother who is obsessed with taxidermy. There's drug smuggling via antique vases and one member of the party who is being pressurised by gangsters. Who could be guilty of the murders and why! A dogged detective arrives and starts sleuthing.

This is one of the gialli which combined a gothic element into its contemporary story. To that end we have the interiors of the old castle as the backdrop to much of the usual sex and violence recipe. Like most in this sub-genre, it has some nice cinematography and music by Piero Piccioni (with some Ennio Morricone music taken from A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, oddly enough). Unfortunately, the story isn't as interesting as it should be, given the ingredients and it often feels a bit half-hearted. There's just enough giallo craziness to take it over the line though.