This Halloween, RL!Sian’s movie marathon is Italian in theme, a giallo-ween, if you like. On Friday, she is hosting a watch party for a double bill of some of her favourite stabby gialli. But she actually started last night, with a rewatch of one of the Platonic examples of the form, The Red Queen Kills Seven Times, AKA La dama rossa uccide sette volte (1972).
And look, Sian could wax lyrical about some of the other picturesquely titled examples of the giallo form. She could tell you why Italian slasher films are called “yellow” (giallo) films in the first place [1], or she could talk about All the Colours of the Dark, or Footprints on the Moon, or The Perfume of the Lady in Black, or The House with Laughing Windows, or any of a dozen more brightly coloured stabby opuses. She could talk about the iconic performances of Edwige Fenech, Mimsy Farmer, and Florinda Bolkan in some of the greats of the form. But let’s just stick to this one. It’s not the best, but it is possibly the most perfect example of what a giallo horror movie is about. If you watch this one, you will know whether this most Italian of horror genres is for you or not by the end. Sian guarantees it.
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| (Barbara Bouchet as Kitty in The Red Queen Kills Seven Times) |
A delirious mix of Gothic stylings and exploitation sleaze, this tale of a mysterious serial killer taking on the guise of a fabled ancestral spirit of vengeance has it all: gory killings, iconic music, a string of slaughtered fashion models, a creepy castle and a twisty Scooby-Doo-style ending that makes no sense whatsoever. The killer takes out one victim with a ladder and a fence. Two characters in a row say “I know who the killer is, give me a minute while I go and do something important, and then I’ll explain,” and get murdered seconds later. There’s a random fashion shoot montage. This is a delirious, unhinged film, a brightly-coloured hallucination of sex and death. The bloody red cherry on top is that the director, Emilio P. Miraglia, who, after making this and the possibly even more bonkers The Night Evelyn Came out of the Grave, vanished from the scene. No one appears to know why. What happened to him? It is a mystery. He may or may not have died in 1982.
Sian is not really cut out to be a final girl. But a giallo villain? She could do that. All you need are leather gloves, a knife, a hat and somewhere in Europe to stalk your victims.
Anyway, for a bit of Halloween dressup, she presents to you her own little moment of Cinema Schifoso: Una Bambola in Giallo.
One Doll, in Yellow.
Featured Outfit:
AVEC TOI Agatha Boots (Leather pack); Cranium Earrings; Panacea Coat & Jacket (Leather pack), Panacea Gloves (Leather pack)
Lux Voxel Mafia Fedora
[SMG] The Shape Stabbies (knife)
