Director: Luigi Cozzi
Year: 1975
Country: Italy
Rating: 6.0
Aka - L'assassino è costretto
ad uccidere ancora
This film from Luigi Cozzi announces early on that it is a Giallo with the
apartment decor of an unhappily married couple. The entire apartment is steeped
in bright mustard yellow - the walls, the carpets, the couches. No wonder
he wants to kill her. Not an ounce of warmth within. This was only Cozzi's
second feature - the first being a low budget sci-fi film - but he had written
two Giallo scripts with the master, Dario Argento. Those were The Cat o'
Nine Tails and Four Flies on Grey Velvet. Now it was his time to go down
that road as a director. It certainly has all the elements one might expect
- a murder mystery, graphic violence, startling imagery, sexual content,
a psycho killer and the cops after him. But unlike many Giallo's when the
murderer is kept secret, we know right from the beginning making it a more
conventional murder. It has some scenes that are quite suspenseful but at
the same time it relies too heavily on the musical score from Nando de Luca
to generate those moments and often they turn out to be false. A tease. The
pacing also felt off - there is a long stretch in which nothing happens.
Its strength though is some wonderful montage editing that grabs you by the
throat.
Giorgio (George Hilton) is a philanderer and his blonde wife (Tere Velázque)
has caught on and has told him she is shutting off the money faucet. He goes
out driving and stops to make a phone call at a booth when he witnesses a
man drive up in a red Volkswagen and push it into the water. With a body
inside. Giorgio does the natural thing - goes up to the man (Antoine Saint-John)
whose name we never learn and makes a deal. Kill my wife and I will forget
this and pay you. I don't know if Antoine was picked up out of a line-up
of suspected murderers, but he sure looks like one with his emaciated sallow
face and scary eyes. The plan is for him to kill her but make it look like
a kidnapping. Call a few times asking for money and then Giorgio will steal
it from his wealthy father-in-law. The killer agrees. We don't know why the
man with no name killed the first woman but we can guess as we see him carry
her dead body out and deposit it in the front seat of the car - stolen -
and then feels her breast.
The killing in the mustard apartment goes off without a hitch, he strangles
her and pops her in the trunk and then has to go back into the house for
something. Oops. A young couple steals the car for a joy ride to the beach
where she plans to lose her virginity. He steals another car and follows
them. Up to this point it has been perfect - almost Hitchcockian - but on
the long drive to the beach it loses its focus and tension. The young guy
is a creep and his girlfriend is kind of stupid. We don't much care if they
get killed. A few other deaths ahead but an ending that it feels like Cozzi
could have done a lot more with it to up the suspense. The film is shot beautifully
with two particular scenes that the montage editing was worthy of a Giallo.
In the first while the wife is being killed, the husband is at a party telling
jokes as it flashes back and forth. Then in a later scene of a rape and a
seduction, it does the same. Both make you angry at the contrast and your
feeling of helplessness.
