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In The Folds Of The Flesh
[Severin]
1970; color
Directed by Sergio Bergonzelli
Starring: Elenora Rossi Drago, AnnaMaria PierAngeli, Fernando Sancho, Alfredo Majo, Emilia Gutierrez Caba & Maria Rosa Sclauzero
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Dubbed by the box cover as "one of the most bizarre 'gialli' of all time" In The Folds Of The Flesh is indeed one bizarre slice of sexploitative sinema. A giallo, or gialli, though... not so much. (I am no expert but I feel it's lacking pretty much all the hallmarks of the genre, especially the mysterious black gloved killer.) Of course, you can't really trust a box cover. And you really can't trust this particular box cover because someone screwed up the lead actors names in the credit listing by putting the little dots in the wrong places. (There's an awesome typo in the opening sequence too, more on that later.) Conversely, the box cover does make good on it's promise of decapitations, pet vultures, creepy incest, groovy fashions, cyanide baths, swirly psychedelics, inexplicable plot twists, Nazi death camp flashbacks and more, which I suppose kind of balances things out. They left out the sexy women with scandalous skeletons in their closet, sleazy mustachioed criminals out to get what's coming to them and more beheadings than you can swing a long handled sword at! Oh wait, they did mention the beheadings; but this horror film may contain more decapitated heads than all of Al Adamson's biker flicks combined so it's worth noting twice. As mentioned a couple weeks ago, I love a good beheading so, seeing as how this movie has one in the first fifteen seconds, it kind of won me over from the start. We don't see the act of decapitation actually but the black screen that precedes the shot of the head in it's recently detached state tell us "... And Then A Sudden Violent Shock That Left A Deep Impression On The Mind And Damagen It Permanently..." so we know to expect something. (Not a hundred percent who is responsible for the quote by the way - some Freud quotes pop up later in the film - but I'm pretty sure he or she meant to say damaged.) What follows this not so sudden, more comical than violent shock probably won't necessarily "damagen" anyone's mind per se but I surmise it will leave some sort of impression on even the most seasoned Eurotrash fan. It seems a little late at this point in the review process to start detailing the plot in full - plus this is definitely one of the twistier twisty plotlines I've seen recently; I think it would have taken too long even if I'd started the plot synopses in the first sentence. Suffice it to say the first beheading sets in motion an appropriately sensationalistic series of real, surreal, flashbacked and imagined events that will keep the viewer engaged and possibly somewhat confused right up to the end.
—Bunny
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