Sam Panico
If you were a well-to-do woman in Italy in the 1970s, chances are — based on the movies that I have seen — that you are about to killed, have killed someone, are having a lesbian affair, are on drugs or all of the above.Carol (Florinda Bolkan, Don't Torture a Duckling) is one of those wealthy women. She lives with her father, rich lawyer and politician Edmund Brighton, husband Frank and step-daughter Joan (Edy Gall, Baba Yaga, The Devil is a Woman). Carol's been having dreams that cause her to see a doctor. It seems next door neighbor, Julia (Anita Strindberg, Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, The Antichrist) is having all night sex and drug orgies that at once repulses and excites Carol.All sorts of rich people shenanigans are going on — Frank is having an affair with his secretary. And Carol may or may not be having a lesbian affair with her neighbor. Her dreams have become so intense, she can't tell fact from fiction. What worries her the most is that her latest dream ends with her stabbing Julia in vivid Fulci splendor while two hippies watch. That dream turns out to perhaps be true, as Julia is dead and Scotland Yard is on the case. The room and condition of the dead body match Carol's dream. The hippies that she remembers from her dream don't remember seeing her kill Julia. But Carol's prints are on the murder weapon. As she waits for her trial in an insane asylum, one of the hippies breaks in and chases her. What follows is an infamous scene where she happens upon a room full of vivisected, still alive dogs. It's a dream sequence unconnected to the rest of the film, but it landed Fulci in prison. Carlo Rambaldi, the amazing special effects artist of E.T., Alien and more, saved the director from a two-year jail sentence by bringing the fake dog props to the courtroom.Read more at http://bit.ly/2xfNe5K
Scott LeBrun
Carol Hammond (Florinda Bolkan) is a sexy but frustrated housewife, married to a successful attorney named Frank (Jean Sorel). She has a sexual obsession with a sleazy neighbour, Julia Durer (Anita Strindberg), and soon dreams that she has murdered the woman. Then Durer turns up dead in reality. Suspicion passes from one suspect to another while the dedicated Inspector Corvin (Stanley Baker) works the case.The much admired director Lucio Fulci does well with this sometimes trippy addition to that genre of Italian murder mysteries known as the Giallo. The story, co-written by Fulci, is nothing particularly great, but the presentation is attractively done. Horror fans will be pleased to note the graphic killings and the abundance of female nudity. Fulci begins the film with a major flourish, as we watch what turns out to be a dream sequence. It's sometimes surreal and overall stylish, although the script does tend to be rather talky. (At the conclusion, we're given quite the dose of exposition just to make sure that we understand the plot.) One major set piece has the imperiled Carol fleeing from a menacing character; it goes on for several minutes and is riveting. Ennio Morricone once again works his magic in terms of the music score. And the costumes and sets are amazing; the colours just leap off the screen.The international cast chosen is all a pleasure to watch. Baker is particularly engaging as the grim faced detective. Penny Brown and Mike Kennedy (as the hippie characters), lovely Ely Galleani (as Franks' headstrong daughter), George Rigaud (as Carols' psychiatrist), and Leo Genn (as Edmond Brighton), all leave favourable impressions.There's one sequence right before the one hour mark that's distressing (and the special effects creators were obliged to prove in court that these were just effects), but overall this is a solid Giallo that newcomers to the genre should take a look at.Seven out of 10.
lastliberal
O goody, Anita Strindberg (Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, Women in Cellblock 7, The Eroticist) is back as a wild partier next door to Carol (Florinda Bolkan). Carol keeps dreaming of being ravished by her neighbor.However she wants to be ravished, she is torn and kills her in the next dream. She is, of course, a suspect when her neighbor turns up dead the next day.Nice touch with the bats in the belfry. If Carol wasn't crazy before, she certainly would be after that scene.As is usual in Giallo, there is always a twist at the end when elaborate plans are revealed and mistakes found.Great Fulci thriller.
BA_Harrison
I've tried to like cult director Lucio Fulci's films, I really have. I've seen his 80s gore 'classics' (House By The Cemetery, The Beyond, Zombi 2, City of the Living Dead, The New York Ripper), his later splatter films (Cat In The Brain, Touch of Death) and his one brief foray into crime thriller territory (Contraband); none of them have really impressed me. Now I'm giving his giallos a go; they're supposed to be good, aren't they?Lizard in a Woman's Skin is a trippy hippy early-70s thriller which sees a woman accused of murdering her promiscuous neighbour. In typical giallo fashion, nothing is quite as it seems, until the final scene when the truth is divulged. Once again I believe that I am destined never to be a Fulci fan, finding the film rather dull and extremely dated.With only a couple of murders, which take place off-screen. and plenty of scenes depicting boring police procedure, Lizard in a Woman's Skin is yet another disappointment from the Italian 'godfather of gore'.In true Fulci fashion, the film manages to shock (most notably with a scene featuring several dissected, but still living, dogs; with their bloody organs and guts on display, these whining canines are very effective and are the highlight of the film), but it also bores.And even when Fulci manages to occasionally impress, his hard work is blown with some truly awful moments. For example, during a chase scene in which a woman is pursued through a church by a knife wielding maniac, the tension so carefully built up by the director is quickly dissipated when the woman reveals her momentary hiding placeby resting on a switch which activates a huge church organ. And not much later she gives herself away again by screaming at the body of a dead bat. Duh!I'm going to give Lucio one last chance at impressing me with Don't torture A Duckling, another of his giallos. I'm not expecting it to be great though!
AD
