The very Italian giallo meets burgeoning blaxsploitation in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in the 1972 crime mystery Tropic of Cancer (sometimes also referred to as Death in Haiti or Peacock’s Palace), directed by Giampaolo Lomi and Edoardo Mulargia (both also co-write along with star Anthony Steffen). A couple on the rocks, Fred and Grace Wright (Gabriele Tinti and Anita Strindberg), make their way to the island paradise to seemingly rekindle their relationship... yet the husband also plans on meeting up with long unseen friend Doctor Williams (Anthony Steffen). Unbeknownst to them (or is it), the M.D. and veterinarian by day and scientist by night (this guy can do everything) has discovered a rather desirable aphrodisiacal hallucinogenic drug formula that everyone is out to get – some legitimately, others not so much.
A sugar stalker, milk chocolate peeping Tom, juice sucker, and cookie cadaver all mean... well, absolutely nothing, but they sure do sound like they would fit nicely in the 1969 giallo So Sweet... So Perverse, directed by Umberto Lenzi. Inspired by the movie that started the whole twist-ending trend, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Les Diaboliques (1955), the narrative follows Jean Reynaud (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a wealthy businessman living in Paris. Married to disenchanted Danielle (Erika Blanc), he is more interested in playing the field (from what we hear, so is his wife), rather than spend time in their expansive third floor apartment together.
A bit like Rosemary’s Baby on Viagra – well, not really. . . there’s no way this quickie production could afford anything other than no name brand, 1978's Satan’s Blood, written and directed by Carlos Puerto (uncredited direction comes from producer and horror auteur Juan Piquer Simón), brings horror sexploitation all the way to a bloody climax. It's also a wonderful guide in what not to do in a horror movie:
Building upon ages of vampiric lore whilst finding its own creative place in a lengthy fang toothed oeuvre, Spain’s Count Dracula’s Great Love (1973), co-written and directed by Javier Aguirre, aims for fusing sensuality and sensitivity with a mesmeric gothic atmosphere. . . and let’s not forget some 70s era gore (for good measure). Following a group of four women: Senta (Rosanna Yanni), Karen (Haydée Politoff), Elke (Mirta Miller), and Marlene (Ingrid Garbo), and a male friend, Imre Polvi (Víctor Barrera), they are unfortunate enough to have carriage trouble whilst traveling through the Carpathian Mountains (though, at least, the women all seem to have a ridiculous amount of lingerie – priorities, right?).
Only Bong Joon Ho’s second movie, 2003's Memories of Murder already shows the masterful brush strokes of a confident young artist, writing a thought provoking, multi-layered script (based upon a series of real life murders as well as Alan Moore’s graphic novel “From Hell”) that is paired with a mesmeric visual onscreen presence. Set in a rural town in South Korea, this is a location that has been left behind. Usually a peaceful, quiet place (except when the trains pass through), October 1986 has brought with it the dead body of a young woman – both raped and murdered. Riots and protests routinely pop up in this fractured time and setting.
Perhaps the most wild and audacious opening ever seen in a giallo, 1975's Autopsy, co-written and directed by Armando Crispino, starts with a rotisserie of people committing suicide in both shocking and outlandish ways. . . only for the camera to then take us into one of the last taboo places in film, the morgue, to show us the bodies piling up in the life of half American/half Italian Simona Sanna (Mimsy Farmer) – this is clearly not the Rome we normally see in movies. Now, you may be wondering what all these bodies have to do with her. . . well, she is a young doctor working on a research project revolving around the difference between suicides and well hidden murders made to look like the former. As you might imagine, it is grave subject matter. . . so much so that she is struggling in her romantic relationship with photographer Riccardo (Ray Lovelock) and is even hallucinating that those dead bodies are coming back to life.
Walking a narrow tightrope between giallo and horror, 1972's Murder Mansion, by then first time director Francisco Lara Polop, pulls from films like The Cat and the Canary (either the 1927 or 1939 edition) and House on Haunted Hill (1959), as well as sources like Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None” and maybe even Scooby-Doo, to create a bizarre concoction that mostly works. Opening in a most unexpected way for either a giallo or horror feature, motorcycle meets sports car in a blistering country road race, the former driven by calm, cool, and collected Fred (Andrés Resino), while the latter is floored by cocksure Mr. Porter (Franco Fantasia – talk about a name). Only fueling the fire, sultry fashionista Laura (Lisa Leonardi) is spotted hitchhiking. . . the motorist winning the pick-up over the biker, the chase continuing as they weave in and out of sporadic traffic. . . only for the biker to convince her to join him at their next gas station stop (as Mr. Porter is a tad too handsy).