Crazy Desires of a Murderer

Countess Ileana De Chablais (Isabelle Marchall) invites her swinging pals to her father's castle to get tipsy on expensive champagne and play sexy charades. When one of the young women, Elsa (Patrizia Gori), turns up stabbed to death and minus her eyeballs, a police inspector (Corrado Gaipa) tries to unravel the mystery and identify the killer, the many suspects including scoundrel Pier-Luigi (in trouble with the local mafia), Ileana's insane secret half-brother Leandro (a dab hand at taxidermy), a creepy uncle, and stern housekeeper Berta (Annie Carol Edel).

Part gothic horror and part giallo, Crazy Desires of a Murderer fails thanks to a muddled, meandering plot and a set of characters that it's difficult to care about. The film also includes subplots about heroin smuggling and the theft of a valuable emerald necklace, but it's all so confusing that trying to keep track of what's going on isn't worth the headache. Director Filippo Walter Ratti tries to compensate with a couple of bloody deaths and a fair amount of nudity from some attractive young women (with Berta actually proving to be quite the hottie), but the whole thing is so slapdash that it is hard to remain invested for the duration. By the time the identity of the killer is revealed, you'll have long given up caring.

N.B. Pier-Luigi moulding a candle into a phallus while gorgeous brunette Gretel (Adler Gray) lies naked on a bed suggests that there might have been a 'sexier' version available at some point.

I couldn't explain the rapid crammed in ending if I wanted to, Until the last 5 minutes I was ready to give it a seven.

I've been on a binge of the "Giallo" genre this summer of 2024...It reminds me of my love of 1940s-early 60s Film Noir, with soft core simulated sexual acts, and hysterical "gore" it's rare to truly be repulsed with how fake a stabbing and decapitation look.

The films in the genre that I truly like, are in the original language. It's incredibly rare that a predominantly French/Italian/Spanish film is dubbed well AT ALL. I've had to turn off promising ones not because of lip synchronization but I find a disconnect in mannerism, and facial expressions.

This goes on to this day, they should get experienced Animation voice actors to do it.

With subtitles I will come across something loosed in translation, too literal, or a coma or something is missing, but from the overall story, I can gather the gist.

I'm glad many of these films survived yet, very perturbed by the lack of streaming option in languages that exists more on Netflix.

I am not kidding, I had this movie for almost two decades and I began watching it at least five times but the first 20 minutes or so never really caught my interest enough to keep watching for some reason. Now, finally I watched it to the end and can conclude that if you get past the opening 25-30 minutes you are in for a quite entertaining and good looking little giallo with quite some eerie atmosphere. Corrado Gaipa is the most memorable in the role of the inspector, along with Isabelle Marchall as the young countess. The opening and ending theme, which I believe is by Piero Piccioni (he is the credited composer here) is an incredibly atmospheric piece, but the rest of the soundtrack is a mystery to me. I hear themes from at least two other earlier giallo movies not scored by Piccioni. It would be nice to see these themes accurately credited.

A group of hip friends gather at a Gothic castle owned by a wheelchair- bound older relative of one of the girls (Isabella Marchall). One couple in the group, unbeknownst to the others, is smuggling heroin in some Chinese artifacts the protagonist has brought back from the Orient to give to her elderly relative. Meanwhile the deranged uncle of the protagonist, who supposedly killed the protagonist's mother (his own sister)and cut out her eyes, is wandering the catacombs spying on everyone. When one of the guests (Patrizia Gorzi) is murdered and her eyes subsequently disappear, suspicion naturally falls on the mad uncle. But is he being set up?

The plot here is actually pretty lame. There's also a real lack of recognizable acting talent compared to other gialli. (Patrizia Gorzi had been in "Emanuelle's Revenge" and "Possessor", but she only has a small part and the rest of the cast are virtual unknowns). The eyeball murders are gory but pretty low-tech and nothing to write home about frankly. This movie has style to burn though, and that's where it really succeeds. The old castle makes for an interesting setting. The visual are top-notch (with very good cinematography and editing) and the music is very memorable. In some ways it's kind of an old-fashioned Gothic horror movie (like "Tomb of Torture" or "The Virgin of Nuremberg"), but definitely with a late 70's sensibility as far as sex and gore go.

Gialli were really never known for their great plotting, but for their visual style and music. And if you compare this movie to "Sister of Ursula" the next year and "Play Motel" the year after that, it's clear that the genre faded not so much because the stories got dumber (or because they basically turned into softcore porn flicks), but because their unique style slowly drained away over the years. As far as a late 70's gialli goes this is actually pretty good. I'd recommend to giallo fans at least if no one else.

It's a rather silly idea but it just about holds together with several lovely girls stripping off while somebody is killing and taking out their eyes. It is a rather nasty and bloody business but doesn't really get what is happening. There are a lot of footsteps and people going down to the cellar although it is the inspector who is trying to find out what is going on and he seems to have an amusing time.