Formule pour un meurtre

A very suspenseful giallo from the director of "L'Anticristo"(1974),this one begins with a brilliantly-handled sequence involving a priest,a little girl,and a broken doll.However the main story is about maniac(David Warbeck)marrying a traumatized cripple to kill her for her money.The plot,whilst not original,is really suspenseful,the acting is good and there are several skillful and gory murders.The score by Francesco de Massi is quite effective,some of which can also be heard in Lucio Fulci's "The New York Ripper"(1982).Highly recommended for fans of Italian cinema!

A passable Giallo containing thrills , chills , bloody effects , and gory body-count. An instructor: David Warbeck marries a sad woman : Christina Nagy hooked on a whelchair . As a little girl the deranged wife suffered a traumatic event that is still unsettling her . Later on , various people start being murdered and a high body count begins to mount , resulting in fateful consequences .

A stylish and late Giallo packing suspense , thrills , effective easthetic , brief nudism, gory scenes , twists and turns . Functional and routine Giallo but delivering the goods with mystery and tense enough . There's a stunning final in which several terror set pieces happen and shot in eye-poping style . The movie is a fair murder mystery in which a lot of grisly killings occuring here and there with people are reletlessly butchered . 7 Hyden Park is slim on story and a bit too talky , though it makes up for a thrilling climax . Stars the unknown Christina Nagy as the unfortunate wife and the British David Warbeck who starred various B films in Italy. Accompanied by some Italian familiar faces as Loris Loddi, Andrea Bosic and Rossano Brazzi. It is an Eighties's Giallo , this sub-genre got its maximum splendor in the Seventies with "Mario Bava" films : A bay of blood , The Girl who knew too much , Kill baby kill, Hatchet for the honeymoon, 5 dolls for an August Moon and "Dario Argento" : The cat of 9 tails , 4 flies on Gray Velvet , Bird with the crystal plumage , Creepers , Suspiria , Deep Red.

Here stands out the thrilling and suspenseful musical score by Francesco De Massi, he was a prolific musician who composed a large number of scores in the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties and in all kinds of genres . As well as the colorful cinematography by Gianlorenzo Battaglia, shot in the United States . The motion picture was regular but professionally directed by Alberto de Martino . This Italian writer/director was a good artisan who wrote and directed several movies in all kinds of Italian sub-genres and exploitation movies , and various straight rip-offs with little attention to plot detail . He often shot flicks to cash in other hugely boxoffice hits as "The Exorcist" Martino made "Anti Christ" , "The Godfather" he made "The Counsellor" , and "the Omen" he filmed "Holocaust 2000" . As Martino shot Peplum or Sword and Sandals movies : "Spartan Gladiators" , "Invincible Gladiator" , "Seven Spartans" , "Valley of Stone men" , "Secret Seven" . Spaghetti Western sub-genre : "Django shoots first" , "Providence", "Charge of Seven Cavalry" . Euro-Spy sub-genre : "Ok Connery" , "Operation Lady Chaplin". Wartime : "Dirty Heroes" .Terror : "The AntiChrist" , "Miami Golem" , "Horror", "Holocaust 2000" or The "Chosen" . And Giallo : "The killer is on the phone" , "Blazing Magnums" , "7 Hyden Park" . Rating : 6/10, acceptable and passable. The pic will appeal to Giallo followers .

One of the least known of the gialli but it is rather different. It doesn't have much logic to it and certainly not the most sexy giallo and it does have rather a lot of hallucinations but it does have more one or two priests, good, bad or unfortunate. There are some rather nasty kills even if we are not too surprised they really are bloody. Carroll Blumenberg only had this one film and Christina Nagy really worked in TV in the UK. David Warbeck was born in the New Zealand but well known in the UK with TV and with Twins of Evil (1971) and Duck, You Sucker ( 1971) and with Lucio Fulci and The Beyond and The Black Cat both in 1981. This was Alberto De Martino's last film but had had a couple of gialli also with Exorcist inspired, The Antichrist (1974) one of my favourites. He made a decent effort to make this swan song and it should be better known.

A Formula For Murder isn't a well known Giallo, but that isn't to say it's not a very good one! The film is directed by Alberto De Martino, the man behind cult classics such as The Antichrist and Blazing Magnums. The film was released late on in the Giallo cycle, but more than stands up to many of the films released around the 'golden' period in the early seventies. Despite a lack of logic in some areas, the film works mainly due to the competent way it mixes Argento style death scenes with some genuinely surprising plot twists, and a host of well defined characters. The film is, perhaps, not as exciting overall as many other films in the genre; but this is more than compensated for by the assured way that the central situation is fed to the audience, and the tension resulting from that. The plot begins by showing a fake priest raping a young girl named Joanna, before pushing her down a flight of steps. We then fast forward several years and the girl is now a woman, who is unfortunately in a wheelchair. She is being trained for a sports event by Craig; a man who also has romantic designs on her. However, his proposal isn't met with glee by Joanna's personal assistant, who also has romantic designs on her.

The film features a plot twist half way through that makes up the backbone of the movie, and while it's not exactly logical; it's good to watch and hints that you're in for an interesting movie. Director Alberto de Martino is clearly not afraid to show a few outrageous gore scenes, and the best of which in this film features a priest being battered to death by a spade - and I personally wouldn't hesitate to name that sequence as one of my favourite Giallo murder scenes! The plot can be a little uneven at times, but generally the action is very good. The director spends what seems like an eternity on the conclusion to the film; but it's absolutely packed with tension, and the way that it plays out is good in that it takes advantage of all the plot points that have gone before it. The musical score, taken from Fulci's The New York Ripper, works well in this film also and, breaking a Giallo tradition, de Martino's film also features some rather good acting performances from cult veteran David Warbeck and Christina Nagy, in her only feature film role. Overall, this film isn't one of the easiest Giallo's to come across; but its well worth tracking down and comes recommended to fans of this sort of film.

My review was written in October 1986 after a screening at Selwyn theater on Manhattan's 42nd Street.

"Formula for Murder" is an above-average Italian thriller. Concurrent with its U. S. theatrical release, pic is available on video cassette under the slightly different title "Formula for a Murder" from Lightning Video.

Set in Boston, where most of the film was shot, pic falls loosely into the "Gaslight" genre, as Craig (British thesp David Warbek, dubbed with an American accent) trains paraplegic Joanna (Christina Nagy) for special athletics events to be held in New York City. They fall in love and plan to marry, which makes Joanna's lovely live-in companion Ruth (Carroll Blumenberg) very jealous.

Carried by fine acting by Christina Nagy, pic drags a bit halfway through as Warbeck procrastinates while Blumenberg urges him to kill Nagy, but it picks up again with okay twists. Tech credits are okay and, except for the post-synchronized dialog, pic adequately passes for a U. S.-style production.