“I must kill a man.”
The 1980s were a bit of a lean time for gialli (the heyday of which was the
early 1970s) what with splatterific American slasher movies dominating the
horror genre at that time, but there was still room for Italian murder
mysteries amidst the Jasons and Freddys and Michaels. Alberto De Martino's
slow-burn killer thriller combines the priesthood, repressed memories, and that
old motivator money in a story about a wealthy paraplegic sportswoman who spirals into a
whirlwind of love and murder...
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“There is no reason on
Earth that justifies murder.” Joanna (Christina Nagy) is in love
with her sports coach Craig (David Warbeck, The Beyond), much to
the frustration of the quietly possessive Ruth (Carroll Blumenberg).
Timid but determined, when she was a little girl she endured a horrific attack
at the hands of a phony priest – a trauma that left her paralysed and with the
memories locked deep away inside her mind. The doctors theorised that her weak
heart wouldn't last long, but she proved them wrong. Now grown up and fizzing
with positive energy, Dr Sernich (Rossano Brazzi, The Italian Job)
advises against Craig marrying her as the wedding night could trigger her
repressed memories to burst forth and break her weak heart.
Naturally, Craig ignores the
advice and hurriedly marries Joanna, and while her heart survives the
consummation, she is soon plagued by hallucinations of a mysterious priest
holding a bloodied doll – the same creepy-looking doll that was used to entice
her into the clutches of her attacker when she was a child. So far it's
sounding a little bit like Les Diaboliques, and the comparisons don't
stop there, as it is soon revealed that Craig and Ruth are conspiring to scare
Joanna to death so they can inherit her father's money, which she is determined
to split with the church. Will the deadly duo get away with their murderous
plan?
“The last thing I want is
pity.” More of a psychological thriller with hints of gialli sprinkled
throughout, Alberto De Martino's Formula For A Murder (co-written
with The New York Ripper's Vincenzo Mannino) is a far cry from the
heights of the genre, but nevertheless it stands as a perfectly solid flick in
its own right. While it opts more for character drama (despite a few clunky
exchanges) over exploitative elements, when the bursts of violence do come,
they tend to explode with fury. The first kill – in a confessional booth, no
less – wields a nice dose of tension, while a later kill (death by garden
spade) is brutally blunt, and the classic image of a razor clasped in the
black-gloved hands of a black-clothed killer pleasingly gifts the film enough
of the 'giallo feel' to satisfy fans of the genre.
“You'll never go home
again.” The film offers some moments of intrigue, such as a mid-point
sequence that (briefly) unsettles the viewer's sense of reality, and
some strong visuals: a grand old church hunched at the foot of a gleaming
skyscraper promises some smarter commentary, but sadly Formula For A Murder
eschews bigger ideas by opting to focus explicitly on the more personal realm.
Still, though, there is a decent amount of tension throughout, best exemplified
by the extended climax that goes from a frantic covering-up of an impromptu
murder to a war of attrition as Joanna employs her wits and fighting spirit.
Ultimately, though, Formula For A Murder is a somewhat middling effort
in the genre, lacking the sleazy murder 'n' mayhem of films like Mario Bava's A
Bay of Blood or the big ideas and social commentary of, for example, Lucio
Fulci's Don't Torture A Duckling. It's far from the giddy heights of the
giallo movement, but is still worth checking out for die hard fans.
“She looks gorgeous.
Marriage has done wonders for her.” Shameless Screen Entertainment's
2014 DVD release returns this somewhat lost film to the spotlight, gifting it a
good and solid visual and aural presentation. Extras wise you're out of luck –
just an 'anecdotal audio commentary' and a gimmick: the 'Shameless Yellow
Killer Mac'. Basically it's one of those flimsy freebies you'd get to keep the
rain off you at a music festival, with it clumsily crammed inside a normal DVD
case. It's a nice idea, born out of the gimmicks used to rope in audiences of
decades past to cheapo exploitation movies (fake insurance forms, barf bags
etc), but how many collectors are really going to bother even unpacking it?
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