Bezenby Sergio Bergonzelli must have gone to a showing of Kill The Fatted Calf and Roast It and noted in his little giallo director book 'Family not weird enough...also...not enough dead dog action' and then went on to make this film, which contains enough twists for a hundred gialli as well as a barrage of weird imagery to boot. The films starts right away with a family confronted by a decapitated corpse and the problem of disposing of it, while an escaped convict (Sancho) happens to run by the estate and witness not only the burial of a corpse, but the suspicious sending of an abandoned boat out into the ocean. Apprehended, Sancho heads off thoughtfully for jail, taking in what he's witnessed. As far as super rich families who live in isolated huge villas are concerned, this one is by far the worst. There's Colin the artist, who has the hots for his step-sister Falesse, both of whom are kept in check by mother Lucille, who tries to keep them both from humping each other whilst also trying to cover up the horrific murders both of them seem to conduct on any stranger visiting the property. Falesse seems to do so because of some childhood trauma about being raped by her dad when she was a kid, plus Colin I guess strangled that dog because it discovered the shallow grave of their murdered dad. Except of course that none of that may be true at all! By the point we've established that this is not a family you wish to mess with, what with them killing folk and dissolving them in an acid bath, Fernando Sancho gets out of jail and is determined to extort money out of the family as he witnessed the burial of a murder victim. He doesn't get his way but as he has a gun I guess them chicks gonna have to give up something, especially seeing the grave he saw now contains a dead dog that's waved in his face!What I have described so far is only the first forty minutes of this weird, weird film, and from then on twists are thrown into the mix so often that I swear I hade a headache by the end of it. Characters aren't who they are, characters appear from nowhere claiming to be characters you though were dead, and there's a lengthy Holocaust flashback that leads to one of the most bizarre deaths in a giallo film. Worst of all, you get to see Fernando Sancho's arse! Here's comes that chilli I had for lunch!This is the first time I've seen Sancho outside of a spaghetti western but to be honest he still plays the same character - a cigar smoking jerk who threatens women, noisily eats food, and gets killed. This is one truly mental film with a trippy vibe that takes the weirdos in the mansion vibe to the ultimate extreme.

ferbs54 Viewers who sit down to watch Sergio Bergonzelli's 1970 offering, "In the Folds of the Flesh," expecting some licentious soft-core Eurosleaze may be a tad disappointed. That provocative title, surely fit for some adult fare, rather has as its provenance a quote from Sigmund Freud regarding the effects of experience on the human psyche: "What has been, remains imbedded in the brain, nestled in the folds of the flesh; distorted, it conditions and subconsciously impels." And, as it turns out, although the film does sport the talents of a trio of gorgeous women and some flashes of nudity, those flashes are decidedly de-eroticized, and the picture, although it has been called "one of the most bizarre gialli ever made," strikes this viewer more as a murderous psychological puzzler. In this Italian/Spanish coproduction, beautiful Eleanora Rossi-Drago (who I'd only previously encountered in an early Antonioni film, "Le Amiche") plays the head of a household of three in an ornate villa by the sea. She lives with two others, who we infer must be her son and daughter, although the relationships are not clearly defined and some conduct bordering on incest gives us reason to doubt. Whenever a visitor--be it a cousin, acquaintance or ex-con blackmailer--drops in, he is quickly executed by one of the three, after which Eleanora uses dissolving chemicals to dispose of the corpus. A most unusual household, to be sure, and most of the fun here lies in trying to figure out just what the characters' relationships and motivations might be. My suggestion would be to not even make the attempt, as nobody in the film is what he/she initially appears to be, and each and every character is hiding a secret. Among the assorted bits of weirdness that the film dishes out are a pair of pet vultures, some truly outlandish costumes, unusual camera angles, a disinterment, deaths by cyanide gas, and B&W flashbacks to the Nazi death camps. A repeat viewing of the film is practically mandatory to fully appreciate all its many subtleties and formal brilliance; I for one enjoyed it a lot more the second time around. And hold on to your seats as the film enters its final 20 minutes; this segment contains so many revelations and plot twists that the folds in your own mental flesh may start to unravel!

The_Void Adrian Luther Smith, writer of the 'Giallo Bible' Blood and Black Lace describes this film as a "trash masterpiece" - and I pretty much agree with him! The film is sometimes labelled as a Giallo, although for me it fits more into the exploitation genre as although there is some murder mystery, it's clear that director Sergio Bergonzelli was much keen on delivering as much sleaze as possible! The director also ensures that the film feels rather arty, and this makes In the Folds of Flesh even more of a gem, as the locations offset the frankly ridiculous story brilliantly! The plot is overly convoluted (to say the least), and focuses on the residents of an old castle. An escaped convict witnesses a woman burying her husband by a statue in the back garden. We then move to thirteen years later. A couple of unwelcome visitors stop by and are promptly killed by two of the younger castle residents. Then the escaped convict turns up and begins demanding money to stop him going to the police and reporting the body in the garden...another murder and a police investigation ensue.The film can be described as a hodgepodge of popular Italian exports. We've got a light Giallo tone, as well as an exploitation theme; and then there are also mentions of Nazi's and ancient skeletons. Naturally, all the women are very nice to look at; and while the acting from Eleonora Rossi Drago and Pier Angeli isn't great; it hardly matters as they deliver the performances required of them. The best thing about this film is the way that Sergio Bergonzelli constantly chucks in another twist to make the already questionable plot more ridiculous at every opportunity. The film is also rather nasty, and features a whole host of gruesome morsels - including the aforementioned murders, an acid bath and a plethora of decapitations! (The director obviously loves them...). It has to be said that In the Folds of Flesh falls down in some areas - there's no sex or nudity, and by the time you get to the end; it all feels rather pointless as it's impossible to care about the fates of any of the characters. Still, this is certainly a film worth seeing and I don't regret wasting ninety minutes of my life on it!

zombie-41 The Salvation films release of ‘In the Folds of the Flesh' has a very misleading cover, showing a leather clad SS vixen who in fact makes no appearance in the film. What you get is a post 1960's sleaze film that is not even all that sleazy by today's standards. It becomes a bore to sit through and you end up not caring for the characters at all who are involved in some form of incest, nazi gas-chamber, decapitation orgy or a murder mystery. There is little gore or explicit scenes though. Nearly everything is implied. Don't bother with this even if you are a fan of 70's exploitation cinema.