La morte negli occhi del gatto [Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye] (1973)

(In French, On TV, November 2020) Giallo goes gothic (as if it wasn’t already) in Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye, a serial murder mystery heading for a castle in the Scottish Highlands and its fog-shrouded surroundings. The castle, handily enough, comes with a sinister backstory, hidden passages, a dungeon and an ominous ginger-haired cat that conveniently witnesses every murder that takes place over the film’s running time. (It’s what you should expect from the film’s title!) Stylish, but in a way that’s a bit different from the usual urban giallo excesses, Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye feels more interesting than many of its contemporaries… and compares relatively well to newer films in the same vein. The international cast is intriguing and even stars noted French singer Serge Gainsbourg, no doubt because of having his longtime companion Jane Birkin in the lead role. Technically, the film is rough around the edges (something magnified, I suspect, by the muddy dubbed version I’ve seen) and the reliance on atmosphere means that the plot doesn’t seem to move forward until the very end. Still, I expected worse and got something a bit more attuned to my own haunted-house tastes than the usual giallo genre that this film belongs to. Not a bad result for an impulse watch.