Pena de muerte

Bloodless Soap Opera

This is by far one of the least bloody giallo out there. It is very slow to start. And slow throughout. It's filmed and acted in a manner reminiscent of a soap opera. There is little mystery about who the killer is. You'll figure it out quickly even if you didn't read the tagline.

There is one final twist in the last seconds of the film which I did not see coming, and I really appreciated it. That was the strongest part of the film imo.

Overall, I'd say to skip this lackluster effort.

It's not very violent, there's just a bit of blood, and there's a swimming pool but no baths in this interesting giallo from the director of The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue.

Fernando Rey is a nervous, OCD-afflicted Judge on holiday with his young wife Marissa Mell, who is trying her hardest to put up with all his quirks. Both have problems. Fernando discovers that a money order has been sent to a man he condemned to death three years after his execution, and this money seems to have been sent by the dead man himself. This not only prompts some flashbacks, but also leads him to discover that a family has been brutally murdered in the exact same way the executed man carried out his initial attacks.

Marissa Mell's problems is that her ex-boyfriend has reappeared on the scene and Fernando's behaviour isn't exactly helping her stay faithful, so while he's off trying to track down some copy-cat killer this ex of hers is giving her the eyeball, putting the moves on her, but is he legit or is he up to something? When other crimes start to be recreated, things get a bit desperate for Fernando.

If you've watched several hundred of these films already you may find that this one is easy to solve, but when you've got Fernando Rey in the main role that's okay, because he's a fascinating actor to watch. Other than that, this is a bit of a lightweight giallo without the cheese or over the top madness we've come to expect. Not a bad film though.

Seventh film of Jorge Grau that I watched, and it only confirmed he is one of my favorite filmmakers, a great auteur who, for some weird reason, has not received the attention he deserves.

Based on a work of Guy de Maupassant, the film is a breathtaking psychological thriller with one of the most intelligent plot twist I ever saw. Fernando Rey is superb as a magistrate that believes in death penalty as a way of protecting society. He is a troubled marriage, and his wife (played by the excellent Marisa Mell) is having an affair with a writer who opposes to Rey's vision and is determined to prove his thesis in a new book. Strange murders that imitate the ones committed by the criminals condemned to death by the magistrate starts to happen, and an investigation takes place. But, nothing is what seems in this sordid story written by Grau and Juan Tébar, and I can't reveal more to avoid spoilers.

Be careful with the title given to it in the USA, "Violent Blood Bath". Fans of gore may be seduced by this misleading title, and the fact IMDb puts "horror" as one of its genre doesn't help. There is no blood bath here, and the murders all occur off screen. This is the kind of movie where what matters is the character development, and it excells in this department.

Impecably shot, photographed, edited and scored, "Pena de Muerte" deals with a controversial topic without falling in the mere sensationalism or sounding preachy. It is not easy to say if the script is supporting or opposing death penaulty, and this is one of its merits. The last half hour will make you devour all your fingernails, in one of the most brilliant exercises in tension.

Thanks to Vinegar Syndrome for the excellent restoration of this masterpiece. I hope more works of the underrated Jorge Grau receives the same treatment soon.

There's a rich history of rebranding well-made Italian and Spanish crime thrillers that had perfectly good titles with a sensationalised title for release abroad. Fulci's 'One on Top of the Other' comes to mind, presented in America with the tawdry title, 'Perversion Story'. In the case of 'Pena de Muerte' ('Death Penalty'), the English title, 'Violent Blood Bath', is so terribly inaccurate, it would have scared away the intended audience and attracted an audience who would have been severely disappointed with the content.

While 'Pena de Muerte' isn't exactly a Hitchcock-level thriller, it does have an intriguing premise I have never seen: a prosecutor well-known for successfully convicting murderers (and sending them to death) suddenly has a copycat murderer recreating the crimes of the cases he's prosecuted. Played by veteran actor Fernando Rey, the prosecutor has to help the cops unravel this mystery as the deaths get closer and closer to him.

Giallo regular Marisa Mell plays his wife, and really gets to show off her acting chops. The direction is above average and it moves along at a nice pace. Other than some minor quibbles with logic, the only major flaw for me was that the twist is pretty obvious. A couple of well-placed red herrings would have helped.

While it's not exactly a 'violent blood bath', to the disappointment of horror and giallo fans, 'Pena de Muerte' does live up to its original name, which makes a lot more sense by the end of the film.

I had never heard of this one until recently, but was definitely intrigued by the involvement of "Euro-Cult" exponent Grau as well as stars Fernando Rey and Marisa Mell. The sensationalistic English moniker suggests a Giallo or even a Gangster epic, but this is a relatively serious treatise of schizophrenia coupled with a plea against capital punishment (PENA DE MUERTE being the film's original title).

The plot is interesting: Rey is a stern ageing judge who goes on holiday, only to find the crimes of people he had sentenced to the guillotine years before literally coming back to haunt him!; Mell is the man's much-younger dissatisfied wife (also irritated by his OCD!) who eventually rekindles a romance with writer Espartaco Santoni, actually there to compile data for his next book – which just happens to revolve around her husband's illustrious career! The subsequent investigation into the multiple murders also takes in a local Police inspector, a girl whom Rey had befriended and who had connections to one of the latest crime scenes, and her actor boyfriend; both the latter and Santoni himself (being familiar with the trials of the original cases, of which we are given intermittent snippets, he is obviously knowledgeable of their killers' modus operandi) are among the initial suspects.

Still, the identity of the perpetrator of the copy-cat killings is not at all hard to guess; in fact, it is virtually a replica of the latter-day Boris Karloff vehicle THE HAUNTED STRANGLER (1958) sans face-twitching antics! As I said, the film makes little concessions to the sleaze and gore which typically exemplified the "Euro-Cult" style – perhaps the presence of Luis Bunuel regular Rey inclined the director towards a more level-headed approach here (though, to be fair, this was also true of the two other efforts of his I have watched so far, and his most popular, BLOOD CEREMONY [1973; whose viewing actually followed in quick succession to the title under review!] and THE LIVING DEAD AT MANCHESTER MORGUE [1974]).