Lizard in a Woman's Skin [DVD]

It may be gorehound heresy to say this, but I think I prefer this early, London-set giallo to the later HP Lovecraft-inspired, gut-busting zombie epics Fulci churned out (spewed out?) during the late 70s and early 80s. Florinda Bolkan, a rare giallo lead actress who's as watchable with her clothes on as off, plays the wife of a rich lawyer whose vivid dreams involving her sexually liberated neighbour eerily come true when the neighbour turns up murdered. Brit acting legend Stanley Baker is the detective assigned to the case which, in best giallo tradition, turns out to be fiendishly complicated...
As interested in story and character as sex and violence (you get that too...), the giallo staples, Lizard's story is involved and actually makes perfect sense when all the plot pieces are finally put together. Fulci fanatics will enjoy spotting the links with his later works, from the spaced out, pale faced hippies stumbling around like extras from the Beyond, to the gore for gore's sake (the infamous vivisected dogs aren't even connected to the mystery), and the, shall we say, slightly 'troubling' attiude to women (a brutal, New York Ripper-style killing is shot in gloating close up...). Fulci displays a very conservative attitude to the counter culture, portraying hippies as drugged crazed wasters who kill with little compunction, but he's not above stealing a few tricks from the new wave directors making a splash at the time, utilising all kinds of subjective camera moves that help the viewer understand the troubled mind set of Bolkan's character. And did Mr Fulci actually drop some acid before shooting those amazing psychedelic dream sequences? The best scene recalls an older master, Hitchcock, and delivers the expected stalk and slash thrills while throwing in the best bat attack I've ever seen as a sort of double whammy of horror for the heroine to cope with. The score by the maestro Morricone is excellent, mixing the staccato jazz rythms and deceptively soothing melodies so effectively utilised by Argento for his 'Animals' trilogy.
The transfer is quite superb, among the best I've seen for a film of this type and vintage. A couple of slghtly lower quality, subtitled scenes have been inserted to give us the most complete version possible, though they're so short I hardly noticed the difference. Italian and English language tracks are available, and I recommend the English track. Stanley -- Zulu -- Baker dubbed into Italian? It's just wrong... Completists will bemoan the lack of extras, but the cheap price still makes this an essential buy.

This film is normally grouped together with other Italian based films under the banner of Giallo. Which having now seen this film, does it a serious disservice. Many of the Giallo films feel like an excuse for naked writhing ladies, stalking killers, and psychadelic soundtracks. While not always a bad thing(!) the plot and acting tends to come way down in the pecking order.

Not so with this film. Visually this movie is stunning. Lots of superby thought out hallucination scenes show the main character's decent into possible madness with really quite jarring effect. Yes there's the naked beauties and 60's soundtrack, but neither of these feel like they've been shoehorned in for the sake of it. In fact the psychadelic party at the start of the film only adds to the uneasiness of everything.

The script has more twists and turns than a basket full of snakes. You're left wondering what's going to happen right up to the very end of this film.

Forget about movie genres and pigeon holes, this film is quite simply just a cracking ride from start to finish.

I had the good fortune to see this version at Frightfest in Glasgow, and although the restoration wasn't quite complete the cut was - and wow was it something! The most complete version available anywhere (more complete than in the previous Shriek Show releases), and all in widescreen! Fantastic. This release includes the Italian and the English audio, and even uses gorgeous original poster artwork on the cover!

An absolute must own for fans of Giallo, fans of Fulci, fans of fantastic film in general!