Gatti rossi in un labirinto di vetro (1975) Directed by Umberto Lenzi

(Review originally written at 13 December 2010)

It's definitely true that the concept of this movie sounds more awesome and original than the actual movie turns out. But having said that, this is basically a very watchable giallo, for the lovers of the genre, that has basically every ingredient in it that you could ask for.

But this is also what's making this a very typical and standard genre attempt. Nothing in this movie really stands out, not even its killings, that are being pretty tame to watch actually, despite of its gruesome sound to it. I mean, a killer that stabs the victims in the eye sounds pretty insane and gruesome to watch but in fact it isn't anything too shocking. Probably not because they didn't wanted it to be but more due to technical and practical reasons, I would guess.

I absolutely always enjoy watching a good giallo movie from the '70's but I won't make any illusions about it that they are also being particularly great movies. Absolutely the most the of them are actually being quite bad and silly, once you start looking at them- and judging them seriously. It's the foremost reason why these type of movies are only still popular now days by a small group of movie-nuts and the reason why most of those movies are hard to get by now days.

One of the biggest problem giallo movies often suffer from are its characters. Not only are the characters quite weak and very often more or less all the same but the movie itself has an hard time keeping track on all of these characters, which makes the movies at times quite confusing and messy. For some reason the movies often feel the need to throw in a whole bunch of characters, probably for the reason that makes it more unpredictable and less easy for the viewers to guess who the killer of the movie is. But they are definitely being too many characters, you just don't ever care about and the movie doesn't really focus enough on any of them. There isn't really a main lead or an hero in this movie, which makes this movie storytelling-wise a bit of a mess at times.

It's also real amazing and ridicules how all of these characters keep acting as normal tourist and doing normal tourist things, while people on their tour-bus are slowly getting gruesomely killed, one by one. But oh well, like I said, basically all giallo movies don't make much sense in the real world but they still remain fun movies to watch, with a distinctive style and atmosphere and way of storytelling, that is often alike, which does work out familiar and pleasant, especially obviously when you are already into the genre.

The movie does begin very well and promising but it doesn't take long for the movie to start to drag a bit. Especially its middle part just isn't being exciting enough, which also makes you care less about anything that is happening, even still toward the ending. No lesbian love scenes, that came out of nowhere, can safe its middle part.

This movie remains a more than good enough watch for the lovers of the genre, though the movie is still not as exciting or original as its original concept make it sound.

6/10

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