26 December 2024
Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971)
104 min.
Directed by Dario Argento.
With Michael Brandon, Mimsy Farmer, Bud Spencer, Francine Racette.
Good giallo, this!

Early Argento effort and part of his "animal" trilogy.

Michael Brandon is a musician and drummer whose friends are suddenly turning up murdered. Why? Who could the killer be, and what's their motivation?

A plot is hatched to photograph the eyeball of one of the victims in the hope the image of the killer was captured on the unfortunate's retina!

This was Argento's third film, and the techniques which would lead to his glorious films Deep Red (1975) and Suspiria (1977) are already evident here.

A master at capturing nightmarish images on film, this one contains one of our favorites: a woman is waiting in a park for someone who has been blackmailing her. Very quickly the park goes from a friendly surrounding with children playing in it, to a dark, desolate, and sinister setting, with the frightened woman now a prey for the killer.

Superb all the way.

Italian: 4 mosche di velluto grigio.

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