28 March 2024

Carpathian Eagle (1980)
50 min.
Airdate: November 8, 1980
Directed by Francis Megahy.
With Anthony Valentine, Suzanne Danielle, Sian Phillips, and Jonathan Kent.
Jose Cruz
An attractive woman is killing loose men around town, carving their hearts out with a curved blade as they lie in bed waiting for their coupling to commence. Inspector Clifford (Valentine) is on the case, and he enlists the aid of an author (Danielle) who is writing a book on an historical countess famed for murdering her lovers.

After hearing the legend from a descendant (Phillips) of how the countess’s pet eagle tore out her husband’s heart after he shamed her for cheating on him, Clifford tries to hone in on the killer.

However it becomes evident early on that the murderess is none other than authoress Danielle. Donning a new disguise each time, she engages her prey in some naughty hijinks as a pretext for staging an impromptu organ removal.

With our investigator falling for the winsome writer, will he find out her true identity in time? Or will love lead to some painful heartache?

The story is workable (and a great improvement over director Megahy’s last effort for the program, Growing Pains), but it’s Danielle’s transformative role that keeps us glued to the screen.

Not only incredibly easy on the eyes, Danielle plays up her character’s deranged qualities brilliantly, her smile a flash of panther’s hunger and her eyes glinting with murderous lust. She can go from demure butterfly to poisonous black widow with a mere look. The last few shots of her play up the link between passion and death quite nicely.

There’s not too much else to recommend here (barring a moment where actor Kent performs a short number in drag), but the episode does turn into an interesting look at the fascination we have with serial killers towards the end. It probably would have been more stimulating had that been made the focus of our tale.

© copyright 1998-present | The Terror Trap; www.terrortrap.com | all rights reserved