Brief Note on Ercoli Box:
Watched Luciano Ercoli's Death Walks at Midnight (aka La Morte Accarezza a Mezzanotte, 1972) the other night. A unique 'twisted' form of the Italian Giallo genre. Should have watched Death Walks on High Heels (aka La Morte Cammina con i Tacchi Alti,1971) first, as it was made earlier. They may have been reversed, which is quite telling due to the reoccurring theme of gender reversal in Giallo--which is a 'tip of the hat' to Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) in its own peculiar way as is essentially all Giallo.
Death Walks at Midnight is psychological murder mystery, with a tad of hardcore gore and sleaze thrown in. Very well produced and beautifully photographed, however, and the print is top notch.
'Nice' homage to Mario Bava's infamous 'claw' sequence in Blood and Black Lace (aka Sei Donne per l'Assassino, 1964) right off the bat, with a woman's face being brutally punctured in with a spiked metal glove by an unknown assailant. Mostly a showcase for Giallo Queen/model Susan Scott (aka Spanish-born Nieves Navarro).
If you're unfamiliar with Giallo, but have seen the more commercially accessible Dressed to Kill (1980) by Brian DePalma with Michael Caine, it's basically along the same lines of genre in film. No long drawn out type shower sequences as with Angie.Dickinson in Dressed to Kill when it comes to Ercoli however: Ercoli is incomprehensible lunacy straight away-- from start to finish.
...under reconstruction...
also see:
Intimations (and more) of Colonialism : Dario Argento's L'Uccello dalle piume di cristallo (The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, 1970)
Click on thumbnails of these screen grabs to enlarge.
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