Fulci's first giallo, is a hit out of the park, and controversial to boot. No supernatural hijinks are afoot here gents. It's pure murder mystery, as someone is bumping off the local young boys. Is it the dirty witch? The priest? Who can it be?
Fulci hadn't found his niche with gore set pieces yet, as he was still experimenting here, but there is still some eye catching gore for the gore fans. The first, is in a scene that's downright both beautiful, and grotesque. A lovely song (Quei Giorni Insieme Te) is turned on a car radio, as a group of vengeful men savagely beat the witch with a chain, in a cemetery. Pre-empting Fulci's own chain whipping of Schweik in The Beyond, this one is all the more unsettling, as the whipping doesn't kill her, and she drags her self up a hill, and onto the side of a mountain road.
The other deals with the villains death. Another scene that was reused later on in The Psychic, deals with the killer priest (spoilers!) as he plummets to his death.
There in lies the controversy. A killer Catholic Priest. This film deals with a psychotic priest who kills the young boys, because he doesn't want them to become corrupt. He wants to keep them innocent, just as he's known them previously.
Thomas Milian and Barbara Bouchet are great leads, and so is Florinda Bolkan, (the star of Fulci's great hallucinatory giallo, A Lizard In A Woman's skin), as the witch, and Marc Porel, of The Psychic is also great as the Priest.
Not a lot of gore for the fans of Fulci's later creative period, but a great flick nonetheless for Fulci completists, and fans of giallos.
Fulci hadn't found his niche with gore set pieces yet, as he was still experimenting here, but there is still some eye catching gore for the gore fans. The first, is in a scene that's downright both beautiful, and grotesque. A lovely song (Quei Giorni Insieme Te) is turned on a car radio, as a group of vengeful men savagely beat the witch with a chain, in a cemetery. Pre-empting Fulci's own chain whipping of Schweik in The Beyond, this one is all the more unsettling, as the whipping doesn't kill her, and she drags her self up a hill, and onto the side of a mountain road.
The other deals with the villains death. Another scene that was reused later on in The Psychic, deals with the killer priest (spoilers!) as he plummets to his death.
There in lies the controversy. A killer Catholic Priest. This film deals with a psychotic priest who kills the young boys, because he doesn't want them to become corrupt. He wants to keep them innocent, just as he's known them previously.
Thomas Milian and Barbara Bouchet are great leads, and so is Florinda Bolkan, (the star of Fulci's great hallucinatory giallo, A Lizard In A Woman's skin), as the witch, and Marc Porel, of The Psychic is also great as the Priest.
Not a lot of gore for the fans of Fulci's later creative period, but a great flick nonetheless for Fulci completists, and fans of giallos.
