Les diablesses

A ravenous beast alllegedly slaughters people in a small Scottish village. And at a nearby castle appear more murdered bodies, and suspects fall upon the inhabitants. At the mysterious castle arrives a young student, Jane Birkin, to find her mother. As the strange residents are haunted by a bizarre curse involving a rare cat and a killer gorilla. Who is the murderer.. ...perhaps a suspicious servant : Luciano Pigozzi nicknamed Allan Collins or the Italian Peter Lorre, a strange young : Hiram Keller, a lecherous doctor : Anton Driffing , a priest : Franco Ressel, a beautiful girl : Doris Kunstmann, or Lady Alicia : Dana Ghia, or Father Robertson : Venantino Venantini. Later on, a police inspector, Serge Gainsbourgh-in real life married to Jane Birkin- investigates the weird deeds. Death means nothing to the beast with nine lives.This flick reveals a little known fact about felines.

Terror movie based on a novel by Peter Bryan, in which mingles ordinary Italian Giallo with Gothic horror, taking parts here and there of these genres. Creepy movie packs thrils, chills, eerie details , baroque scenarios , gore and blood. The plot is plain and simple, in a small Scottish village terrible killed corpses keep showing up, and suspicion falls on the residents of a nearby chateau. This is a very dark tale of killings with a fantastic horror backdrop and so-so filmmaking from Anthony M Dawson. It stars the beautiful Jane Birkin, she is well-suited for the role of a young girl who finds horrible happenings. Adequate cinematography by Carlo Carlini, shot on location in Castello Massimo Arsoli, Rome and Incir de Paolis, Rome, Lazio. And frightening and thrilling musical score by the prolific Riz Ortalani.

The motion picture was professionally directed by terror expert Antonio Margheritti, though it displays some failures and flaws. Antonio often used pseudonym Anthony M Dawson, he was born in Italy 1930 and passed away in 2002 . Italian writer director of horror and exploitation films, a former university engineering student who began shooting in 1956. Antonio directs with ordinary aplomb and being especially known for films as Yor, Virus and Horror castle. He was specialist in model-making, optical effects , FX, miniature as floods, scale models and explosions . He directed all kinds of genres such as wartime :The last hunter, Tornado, Codename Wild geese, Der Commander, Command Leopard . SCIFi :War of planets , Planet of the prowl, Criminal of the galaxy, Yor the hunter from the future, Treasure planet . Spaghetti Western as Joko, Dynamite Joe, The stranger and the gunfighter, Take a hard ride, Ghosts go west, Joe implacable, God said to Cain. Terror as Virgin of Nuremberg, Cannibal Apocalypse, Alien from deep, Flesh for Frankenstein. Action :Operation Goldman, Indio, The squeeze, Cyberflic. Rating :5.5/10. Acceptable and passable.

A nice Italian Gothic semi-giallo in which it is remarkable to see French singer Serge Gainsbourg play a Scottish speaking (dubbed) police-inspector. The next remarkable role is of course played by the beautiful Jane Birkin - well, not the role itself so much, but Birkin is. Hard to miss also (in a negative way) is that man in the monkey suit... who thought up that one?

Very pleasant camera-work (although some parts were a bit too dark), a highly effective soundtrack (Ortolani) and a beautiful setting in and around a Scottish castle (+ adjacent graveyard) make this a thoroughly enjoyable feat. But, as often is the case with many Italian films like these, the story is quite far fetched, and that gorilla did not help.

But, given the fact that there is also some naughtiness and gore to be enjoyed, my rating must at least be on the plus side.

"Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye" is a great giallo from the director of "School Girl Killer"(1968)and "The Virgin of Nuremberg"(1963),among others.A series of savage and gory killings take place in a Scottish castle...all watched,with a lazy eye,by a cat.A young schoolgirl Corringa(Jane Birkin)tries to discover some of the castle's secrets.Antonio Margheriti adapted this Gothic chiller from a novel by Peter Bryan.The film is very atmospheric and there's enough suspense to make fans of Italian horror happy.There are some stylish cut throat razor killings and plenty of Gothic elements(everything from hidden doors leading to bat infested,cobwebbed corridors to family curses).Check it out.Highly recommended.

Atmospheric and with some decent performances but this gets lost in it's own complicated Ten Little Indians story. Nice touch with the creepy looking cat arriving to herald each killing but it's not enough. It's all rather slow and uninvolving (till the end) but it's interesting to see a young Birkin and I'm sure I've never seen Serge to looking so young. Inconsistent to say the least, this seems to drag because there is not enough to hold the attention. Not unlike a lesser Hammer production in this respect which to some extent it does resemble. Musical score all over the place too and this doesn't help. So, very average, great poster though reproduced on the DVD cover!

Quite standard Spaghetti slasher is nowhere near excellent, but also too far from awful to merit serious critical assault. The usual Gothic castle goings-on are given no special treatment here, and the psycho-killer's carnage is strictly PG on the shocks and gore board.

This film is, moreover, surprisingly atmospheric. The mossy, rustic exterior of the castle, as well as its rich baroque antique decorum, make for a great looking European horror setting. Too bad, though, that the film never really gains much momentum...I found myself looking around the room after the first 30 minutes. Fortunately, the fairly intense closing scenes make up heartily for these shortcomings.

SEVEN DEATHS is a watchable enough seventy-odd minutes, but if you're an unwaning viewer of connate movies, then chances are you've seen all this done before, and probably more successfully.

*** Were they feeding that cat bacon-wrapped tater-tots or something? That thing was a freakin' tank!

5/10