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“The Corpse That Didn't Want To Die!”
Following on from The Night Evelyn Came Out Of The Grave (1971),
writer/director Emilio P. Miraglia once again dived into the glamorous pool of
the lurid European murder mystery with The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (otherwise
known as The Lady In Red Kills Seven Times), a violent clash of morals set
against a fractured backdrop where two worlds collide: that of a Gothic castle
and that of a modernist fashion house. This is a film consumed with ideas of
wealth and the inevitability of hereditary sin...
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“I suppose it was a heart attack, but it looked as
though he were terrified of something.” Tobias Wildenbruck (Rudolf
Schundler, Suspiria) is the patriarch of an aristocratic family
haunted by the tragic curse that looms over their clan like the Grim Reaper.
Long ago there were two sisters – The Red Queen and The Black Queen – and it
was the latter who, after years of being tormented by her sister, plotted
revenge and murdered the Red Queen by stabbing her seven times. A year later
seven people were slain in mysterious circumstances, and then another seven met
grisly ends an entire century later. The pattern of the curse was established
and now another century of waiting is almost over! Sure enough, one dark night,
a psychotic figure draped in a red cloak strikes and Tobias' heart gives out. Much
as he had feared, the curse has returned right on cue.
“It's dog eat dog, sweetheart, so wish me luck.”
Kitty (Barbara Bouchet, Amuck!), one of Tobias' granddaughters,
is a fashion photographer in the glamorous world of the nouveaux riche, while
her sister Franziska (Marina Malfatti, All The Colours of the Dark)
has been suckling at the family teat for years with her feeble husband Herbert
(Nino Korda) within the heavy stone walls of Castle Wildenbruck. But how
exactly did Tobias die? Herbert claims he saw Evelyn – Kitty and Franziska's
other sister – fleeing the scene, but it simply cannot be, for Kitty and
Franziska have a terrible secret. While everyone else believes Evelyn emigrated
to America, she is in fact dead and rotting in the dank, rat-infested cellar of
the Castle. Kitty and Evelyn, much like the Red Queen and the Black Queen
before them, had spent their entire lives at each others' throats until a year
ago – when Kitty accidentally killed Evelyn. Has Evelyn really come back from
the grave to seek vengeance? Quite possibly, as soon the bodies begin to pile
up.
“You can't sell them the 70s with the ideas from the
60s.” Gialli often sought to comment on socio-political issues that
were prevalent at the time, and Miraglia's 1972 offering certainly has some
interesting ideas that it plays with. Amidst the high style and complex story,
the film illustrates the distinct friction of the old and the new. Here, as
witnessed via Kitty's harrowing descent into a real-life nightmare, no matter
how far you escape into sleek and modern surroundings, your nature will catch
up to you eventually. Sin – particularly greed, lust, and envy – runs rampant
here and is reflected in the literal family curse of the Wildenbrucks (Kitty,
Franziska, and Evelyn's parents are curiously absent, too).
In one scene, Kitty – wrought with fear over the deadly
events trailing in her wake – is given an expensive watch by Martin (Kitty's
lover, played by Ugo Pagliai), but it merely provides a moment's respite
from the towering sense of guilt that is threatening to tear Kitty asunder.
Indeed, wealth – specifically that of the aristocracy – is seen as part of an
inherited doom, one that perseveres through the centuries with a sense of
inevitability. Miraglia's film speaks of old world European royalty and the
well-to-do, as if the ghosts of the French Revolution hover nearby, and it is
here that the small pockets of old money families are shown to be consuming
themselves in private through hereditary mental illness (gene paddling pools?)
and that classic deadly sin of greed. For another example of a screwed up
aristocratic family in an Italian genre picture, check out the sexploitation
flick Satan's Baby Doll (Mario Bianchi, 1982), and for more
gothic giallo goings-on then you might want to give Seven Deaths In The Cat's Eye (Antonio Margheriti, 1973) a spin.
“All men are filthy beasts, don't come near me.”
Naturally, being a giallo film, some of the beautiful women grow weary of high
necklines and brassieres (see Franziska's revealing night gown) – or
just clothing in general – but there are
some interesting sexual politics at work in the film. For instance, while
Martin initially resists the temptations of the scheming and sexually
forthright Lulu (Sybil Danning, Chained Heat), his veneer of
morality rapidly crumbles at the sight of her unclothed body. Estranged from
his wife (who is locked up in a mental asylum) and already having an
affair with Kitty, his protest is paper-thin as he hops in the sack with yet
another woman – and it's even suggested that he enjoys another tryst
with another woman immediately afterwards! In Miraglia's film the male
is depicted as an inveterate hip-thruster who is easily manipulated by
promiscuity. Sin, once again, is too good to refuse.
Furthermore, consider the case of Peter (Fabrizio Moresco)
– another male, this time quite a despicable example – who cannot resist his
lust and attacks the woman who he's blackmailing. However, as it transpires he
is entirely controlled by another member of the film's female cast, more than
one of whom displays sheer ruthlessness in the pursuit of their personal goals.
The men are creatures while the women are Devils. One could debate this as
reactionary in the wake of women's liberation, but considering the less-than-capable
men in the film (one of whom is quite literally impotent – and is
subsequently slaughtered in a park known for its working girls), it just
goes to show that women are as capable as men of grotesquely abusing their
power.
“I feel as if I'm living in the shadow of some
terrible threat. All I know is it means to destroy us and I haven't got the
strength to fight back.” But what about the good old fashioned nature
of the mystery? True to form the script (co-written by Fabio Pittorru)
slowly unravels into an increasingly convoluted series of twists, turns, and
back stories revealed late in the game. Some of the murder set pieces are quite
effective, and there are brief moments of blood gushing like geysers from
punctured flesh. A run-in with some steel railings is particularly graphic,
while just the sound of a skull being cracked open on stone steps
elicits chills. The climax takes some unpicking to fully understand what's
going on, even with a granite slab of exposition dropped into the finale, but
the bravura nature of Miraglia's direction sweeps aside unanswered questions.
Come the ticking clock of the climax, within the darkened grounds and cold
bowels of Castle Wildenbruck, an explosion of squalid revelations and violent
betrayal makes for a satisfying conclusion.
“You can keep Kitty for appearances and have me for
entertainment, and if you keep me happy, darling, I won't blow the whistle on
you.” Miraglia's film, produced during the exceedingly productive
heyday of the giallo movement, seeps out of the ether and proves itself to be
one of the finest examples of the genre. Amidst all the bloody violence, bared
flesh, and J&B Whiskey bottles (were they the official sponsors of
gialli back in the day?!) there is a stylish thriller – beautifully scored
by Bruno Nicolai (The Case of the Scorpion's Tail) – hard at work
on multiple levels and as such it merits your attention.
“You killed me and I've come back to avenge myself.”
Arrow Video's 2017 Blu-Ray – a stand alone release after the deluxe box set
that featured both The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave and The Red
Queen Kills Seven Times – is, as expected, a high quality affair. The
restoration is clean and crisp, gifting Alberto Spagnoli's gorgeous
cinematography the love it deserves, and while there are a handful of minor
flaws in the source audio (dating back to its original recording, available
in English and Italian languages), it looks and sounds the part. A solid
range of special features includes an audio commentary with genre experts Alan
Jones and Kim Newman, an excellent interview with Sybil Danning (covering
her early career and work on Red Queen), and a featurette with critic
Stephen Thrower (beware of a couple of spoilers for The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave!) which does tend towards recounting the plot.
Additionally, there are archival featurettes from a previous release circa 2006
(heavy on the credit sequences and clips, in places), and the usual
selection of trailers with an alternative opening. Fun Facts: Martin's apartment
in the film is the same location used for the Wardh's apartment in The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh (Sergio Martino, 1971), and at one point
during its North American release the film was curiously called Blood Feast.
N.B. Screenshots are captured from an alternative
source and not the Blu-Ray (as I don't have a BD-ROM drive).
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