A better than average giallo with a blockbuster climax
What They Say:
At the height of the Italian giallo boom in the early 1970s, scores of filmmakers turned their hand to crafting their own unique takes on these lurid murder-mystery thrillers.
In The Red Queen Kills Seven Times, an age-old family curse hits sisters Kitty (Barbara Bouchet, Milano Calibre 9) and Franziska (Marina Malfatti, All the Colours of the Dark) following the death of their grandfather Tobias (Rudolf Schündler, The Exorcist, Suspiria). Every hundred years, so the legend goes, the bloodthirsty Red Queen returns and claims seven fresh victims. Was Tobias just the first… and are Kitty and Franziska next?
Director Emilio P. Miraglia (The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave) once again combines a conventional giallo whodunit narrative with supernatural chills, concocting a gripping horror/thriller hybrid which moves effortlessly between the world of high fashion and creepy gothic locales. Co-starring B-movie legend Sybil Danning (Grindhouse, Howling II), The Red Queen Kills Seven Times shows that there’s more to gialli than black-gloved killers!
The Review:
Audio:
The DTS-HD Master 1.0 soundtrack offers a rather straightforward presentation that cleanly matches the action on the screen.
Video:
The 2K restoration from the camera negative provides a rich color palate that sets the tone in most scenes. It makes the most of the cinematography and the red visual theme.
Menu:
A dynamic menu plays scenes from throughout the film. It offers a glimpse at the emotional states of characters without giving away spoilers. All main features are available through the top level menu.
Extras:
New audio commentary by Alan Jones and Kim Newman
Exclusive interview with actress Sybil Danning
New interview with critic Stephen Thrower
Archival introduction by production/costume designer Lorenzo Baraldi
Dead à Porter – archival interview with Lorenzo Baraldi
Rounding Up the Usual Suspects – archival interview with actor Marino Masé
If I Met Emilio Miraglia Today – archival featurette with Erika Blanc, Lorenzo Baraldi and Marino Masé
My Favourite… Films – archival interview with actress Barbara Bouchet
Alternative opening
Original Italian and English theatrical trailers
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx
The Red Queen Kills Seven Times is one of two movies directed by Emilio Paolo Miraglia that Arrow Video has released in 2017. After watching The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, I expected another psychological mind trip, but instead, we get something more akin to a 1970s serial killer movie with a giallo plot twist… and Sybil Danning. Like most giallos, there is a lot of misdirection in the film and that is what the director uses to build up to the ultimate climax.
Miraglia’s story seems simple. Two little girls fight. One seems to be psychotic, hyperviolent in a way that would make Alex from A Clockwork Orange cringe. The other seems to be white bread, a child so normal she becomes untrustworthy by her banality. They come to see themselves as the modern players in a curse of two sisters from the past, one who was murdered and returned to kill seven people including her sister who was her murderer. Sound complicated?
Much of the film feels like a detective procedural. There are two settings. First is the gothic home of the aristocratic family that bred the curse. It seems that there are actually more than two offspring in this generation. Like many gothic stories, the curse seems juxtaposed against inheritance and power.
Viewers shouldn’t expect something isolated. Most of the action takes place in a modern fashion house where models sit topless in front of their mirrors between shoots. Quickly, the gothic gets overshadowed by a world of working women, jaded in their jobs. Enter Sybil Danning playing the sex loving prostitute turned model who wants to sleep with the boss.
We see her and the boss drive to a park to pick up a prostitute for a threesome, but uh-oh, he is murdered. Quickly, the movie turns into a predictable serial killer piece. It seems the Red Queen of the curse comes back to kill seven people, the seventh being the normal girl who has grown up to be a photographer for this agency.
Not to give away any of the plot, there are murders of people close to normal girl, mostly connected to people she works with at the agency. These murders seem somewhat random, but there is a tiny thread that runs through them to allow a narrative resolution at the end. Nothing about the narrative seems more thought out than the average TV thriller, but the film does some interesting things by invalidating many narrative tendencies.
This film plays against modernist expectations. Without explicitly stating it, the film shows “modern” working women free of moral constraints targeted by the killer. This would be the tendency of American slasher films later in the decade, but almost as if predicting the glut of T & A movies to come, there is an undercurrent that degrades the gratuitous nudity and moral murders of Jason and Michael. In fact, an off-camera rape scene leads to a baddie trying to make up for his sins by warning the victim of the violence to come.
Red Queen‘s cinematography adds to the film, even if much of it feels like a generic 1970’s movie of the week. Some sets came across with lavish mod style and location shooting created scenes as welcoming as tourism advertisements, but the biggest thrill in the movie is the climactic scene that was so well shot that it could have been used in a Hollywood blockbuster. While watching it for the first time, I thought, “This reminds me of Spielberg.” Suddenly, a low budget film ratcheted up several notches and at the very conclusion.
The highlight of the extras is an interview with Danning. Her take offers a bit of a critique from the perspective of someone involved, but it also describes the culture in which the film was made.
In Summary:
Red Queen often seems like a TV movie with gratuitous nudity, but in the end, the film absolves itself from its giallo sins. Parts of the story seem banal and disjointed, but the effect of the entire film feels like a better made movie than many of its contemporaries. And somehow, it feels smarter because it undermines the narrative tropes of suspense thrillers and gothic horror. If for no other reason, the climactic final scenes make the film worth watching.
Features:
Original mono Italian and English soundtracks
Newly translated English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack
Content Grade: A-
Audio Grade: A-
Video Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: NA
Menu Grade: B+
Extras Grade: B+
Released By: Arrow Video
Release Date: April 18th, 2017
MSRP: $19.95
Running Time:
Video Encoding: AVC
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Review Equipment:
Samsung KU6300 50” 4K UHD TV, Sony BDP-S3500 Blu-ray player connected via HDMI, Onkyo TX-SR444 Receiver with NHT SuperOne front channels and NHT SuperZero 2.1 rear channel speakers.
