Sergio Bergonzelli must have gone to a showing of Kill The Fatted Calf and Roast It and noted in his little giallo director book 'Family not weird enough...also...not enough dead dog action' and then went on to make this film, which contains enough twists for a hundred gialli as well as a barrage of weird imagery to boot.
The films starts right away with a family confronted by a decapitated corpse and the problem of disposing of it, while an escaped convict (Sancho) happens to run by the estate and witness not only the burial of a corpse, but the suspicious sending of an abandoned boat out into the ocean. Apprehended, Sancho heads off thoughtfully for jail, taking in what he's witnessed.
As far as super rich families who live in isolated huge villas are concerned, this one is by far the worst. There's Colin the artist, who has the hots for his step-sister Falesse, both of whom are kept in check by mother Lucille, who tries to keep them both from humping each other whilst also trying to cover up the horrific murders both of them seem to conduct on any stranger visiting the property.
Falesse seems to do so because of some childhood trauma about being raped by her dad when she was a kid, plus Colin I guess strangled that dog because it discovered the shallow grave of their murdered dad. Except of course that none of that may be true at all!
By the point we've established that this is not a family you wish to mess with, what with them killing folk and dissolving them in an acid bath, Fernando Sancho gets out of jail and is determined to extort money out of the family as he witnessed the burial of a murder victim. He doesn't get his way but as he has a gun I guess them chicks gonna have to give up something, especially seeing the grave he saw now contains a dead dog that's waved in his face!
What I have described so far is only the first forty minutes of this weird, weird film, and from then on twists are thrown into the mix so often that I swear I hade a headache by the end of it. Characters aren't who they are, characters appear from nowhere claiming to be characters you though were dead, and there's a lengthy Holocaust flashback that leads to one of the most bizarre deaths in a giallo film. Worst of all, you get to see Fernando Sancho's arse! Here's comes that chilli I had for lunch!
This is the first time I've seen Sancho outside of a spaghetti western but to be honest he still plays the same character - a cigar smoking jerk who threatens women, noisily eats food, and gets killed.
This is one truly mental film with a trippy vibe that takes the weirdos in the mansion vibe to the ultimate extreme.
The films starts right away with a family confronted by a decapitated corpse and the problem of disposing of it, while an escaped convict (Sancho) happens to run by the estate and witness not only the burial of a corpse, but the suspicious sending of an abandoned boat out into the ocean. Apprehended, Sancho heads off thoughtfully for jail, taking in what he's witnessed.
As far as super rich families who live in isolated huge villas are concerned, this one is by far the worst. There's Colin the artist, who has the hots for his step-sister Falesse, both of whom are kept in check by mother Lucille, who tries to keep them both from humping each other whilst also trying to cover up the horrific murders both of them seem to conduct on any stranger visiting the property.
Falesse seems to do so because of some childhood trauma about being raped by her dad when she was a kid, plus Colin I guess strangled that dog because it discovered the shallow grave of their murdered dad. Except of course that none of that may be true at all!
By the point we've established that this is not a family you wish to mess with, what with them killing folk and dissolving them in an acid bath, Fernando Sancho gets out of jail and is determined to extort money out of the family as he witnessed the burial of a murder victim. He doesn't get his way but as he has a gun I guess them chicks gonna have to give up something, especially seeing the grave he saw now contains a dead dog that's waved in his face!
What I have described so far is only the first forty minutes of this weird, weird film, and from then on twists are thrown into the mix so often that I swear I hade a headache by the end of it. Characters aren't who they are, characters appear from nowhere claiming to be characters you though were dead, and there's a lengthy Holocaust flashback that leads to one of the most bizarre deaths in a giallo film. Worst of all, you get to see Fernando Sancho's arse! Here's comes that chilli I had for lunch!
This is the first time I've seen Sancho outside of a spaghetti western but to be honest he still plays the same character - a cigar smoking jerk who threatens women, noisily eats food, and gets killed.
This is one truly mental film with a trippy vibe that takes the weirdos in the mansion vibe to the ultimate extreme.