"In the Folds of the Flesh" is a textbook example of an (Italian) horror movie that looks fantastic on paper, and sounds like a genuine must-see for obscure cult- chasers, but then when you actually find yourself in front of the screen, you quickly start wondering stuff like: "what in the Lord's name am I watching here?".
Allow me to illustrate via copying and pasting the plot synopsis integrally: The guests of a villa are killed off one by one by their hosts. Incest, decapitations, and a cyanide bath feature amongst the other bizarre delights.
Does that not sound like something every fan of gialli (or Italian horror cinema in general) is desperate to see? And the description isn't even lying, in fact! Every juicy aspect also actually features. There is incest. There are decapitations. There are acid baths. Heck, there even are Nazi concentration camp hallucinations! The only issue, however, is that everything happens so randomly and unstructured. A first guest arrives at the villa, there's a lot of boring blah blah, and then he gets killed spectacularly. A second guest arrives, and the same routine gets repeated. And then a third guest. There isn't a slightest attempt at coherence in the script, the film is totally devoid of suspense, the characters are one-dimensional, and the dialogues are dull. The psychedelic elements are just plain annoying.
Many fellow reviewers around here, whose opinions I usually concur and agree with, state that "In the Folds of the Flesh" is a genuine must-see, but I have forgotten most of it already.
Allow me to illustrate via copying and pasting the plot synopsis integrally: The guests of a villa are killed off one by one by their hosts. Incest, decapitations, and a cyanide bath feature amongst the other bizarre delights.
Does that not sound like something every fan of gialli (or Italian horror cinema in general) is desperate to see? And the description isn't even lying, in fact! Every juicy aspect also actually features. There is incest. There are decapitations. There are acid baths. Heck, there even are Nazi concentration camp hallucinations! The only issue, however, is that everything happens so randomly and unstructured. A first guest arrives at the villa, there's a lot of boring blah blah, and then he gets killed spectacularly. A second guest arrives, and the same routine gets repeated. And then a third guest. There isn't a slightest attempt at coherence in the script, the film is totally devoid of suspense, the characters are one-dimensional, and the dialogues are dull. The psychedelic elements are just plain annoying.
Many fellow reviewers around here, whose opinions I usually concur and agree with, state that "In the Folds of the Flesh" is a genuine must-see, but I have forgotten most of it already.