The Red Queen Kills Seven Times

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972)

Dir Emilio Miraglia

Written by Rabio Pittorru, Emilio Miraglia

Starring Barbara Bouchet, Ugo Pagliai, Marina Malfatti, Sybil Danning

WARNING: WE TALK BRIEFLY BUT BLUNTLY ABOUT SEXUAL ASSAULT IN THIS ONE. DON’T BLAME ME, BLAME ITALY.

THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES is a pleasantly convoluted, handsomely appointed giallo with what may well be the single most quintessentially giallo title ever designed by man. I guess I’d feel a little safer if there was an animal in there somewhere (“The Red Serpent Kills Seven Times”?), and I admit that it has to contend with the existence of the greatest single title of any artistic work, any genre (YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY), but just from a technical standpoint it’s hard to imagine how you could top it. Baroque, sensual, and suggesting an obscure sort of poetry, while at the same time being utterly indecipherable nonsense (a description which, now that I think about it, would be a fitting conspectus for the genre itself). All the more stunning, then, that THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES is a rare giallo with a title that gets satisfactorily explained within the first five minutes, and actually literally describes the events of the movie! Except the "queen" part, I guess, I don’t know what that means, but they do say it on-screen.

 Before we’re introduced to anyone who may or may not kill seven times, the threat of brutal violence is already in the air: the movie begins with five whole minutes of escalating savagery as a little blonde girl and a little brunette girl violently contest the ownership of a doll (who, of course, is dressed in red) like they're auditioning for the damned fight scene in THEY LIVE. As their duel escalates from playful sibling rivalry to BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99, their grandfather (Rudolf Schündler, SUSPIRIA*) intervenes. He seems a little shaken by what he’s seen, (though not nearly enough considering his intervention was necessitated by one of them grabbing a knife) and subsequently regales them with a calming story about their ancestors, whom a lavish oil painting depicts in a similar murderous confrontation (the children immediately identify with them). “Now then. The explanation of that awful picture. I swore you’d never be told, however, perhaps you’re old enough now,” says Grandpa (they look to be around 10, so I guess he didn’t have to swear they’d never be told for all that long).

It seems that the two women in the portrait were also sisters, who we’re told, “over the years... have become known as the Red Queen and the Black Queen.” Long story short, Grandpa breathlessly exposits that the two hated each other from childhood, and that the Red Queen was a real bitch, and the Black Queen finally stabbed her seven times in revenge. Pretty routine stuff, I bet pretty much every Italian family that resides in a menacing, dilapidated castle has a couple stories like that. What gives this one legs is that subsequently the Red Queen returned from the grave and committed seven murders -- six of random, hapless strangers, and the seventh, the Black Queen herself. The origin of the curious royal nicknames here will remain obscure, but there you have it: less than five minutes in and we already have a Red Queen Killing Seven Times. I’ll be damned.

Anyway, this turns out to be relevant for more than purely thematic reasons. It seems that “the same thing happened a hundred years later --seven murders-- and the same thing a hundred years after that. And always, always in this castle. And always involving two sisters.” It’s true that three incidents does establish a pattern, and grandpa eyes the two kids significantly before telling them to forget about it, it’s just an old wives tale that he’s sure isn’t true. Although I can’t help but notice that when the kids mention it could happen again he knows the exact year off the top of his head.

That year, of course, will be 1972. (Incidentally, I looked into 1672 to see if I could figure out the historical context for the inaugural sister-stabbing. If there was anything going on that would explain it, it didn’t make the wikipedia page for that year. Maybe they were just bored?). A credit sequence set to an A+ spooky-funky track by composer Bruno Nicolai (ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK, EYEBALL) reinforces what we already suspected: this was not an isolated incident of homicidal violence between the two sisters. So when the fateful year rolls around, we’re ready to see some merciless sister-on-sister smackdown, and are surprised and suspicious when only one sister is in evidence. In fact, it seems that the blonde one has already prevailed over her brunette counterpart, bashing her head against a stone pillar and dumping her body in a nearby pond. That seems like it would have solved things pretty neatly, except that some mysterious black-gloved red-cloaked figure has recently murdered Grandpa, and one can’t help but reflect on the circumstances of his “old wives tale” now appearing unexpectedly germain.

Remaining sister Kitty (now played by Barbara Bouchet, BLACK BELLY OF THE TARANTULA, DON’T TORTURE A DUCKLING**) works at "Springe," some sort of nightmarish company that manufactures fashion, depicted here in the form of a motorized scooter resting on top of a small hillock of what looks to be a sheepskin taken from an animal roughly the size of a mature african elephant. Or maybe it’s a big pile of building insulation? Anyway, everyone seems to agree it’s extremely fashionable. And in case you didn’t pick up that it was now 1972 from the gratuitous shot of a newspaper dateline, you may direct your attention to literally every article of clothing or building interior in the entire movie. I’ve often heard critics identify the setting of a film as an unbilled principal character, and in this case not only is that true, but 1972 is a total ham that is simply incapable of not stealing every scene by doing some kind of ridiculous nonsense in the background. As evidence, I offer everything from an indoor statue that appears to be a blooming onion made of metal penises, to plaid suits that look like they were sewn together from the skins of errant midwestern hunters, to an all-checkerboard three-piece on a lady that frankly is a red nose away from a clown suit. Observe:

That’s a lot of 1972, right there. 

Anyway, there’s definitely some kind of Red Queen on the loose, killing multiple times without exceeding seven, and of course Kitty is understandably convinced that this is either the supernatural revenge of her sister, or a sinister impostor motivated by something fashion-related. She has no shortage of suspects, because pretty much everyone who works at “Springe” is a backstabbing cunt of the highest order. I’d like to highlight all the possible persons of interest, but that would be impossible because they’re all identical blondes (the casting director definitely had a type) and I have no idea how many of them there are, although I can confidently say that one of them is Sybil Danning, the Austrian actress and model who is so famous that both you and I immediately recognized her name, though looking at her filmography I cannot really explain why. She’s in BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS, I guess.

There’s no shortage of red herrings and fake-outs and ridiculous convoluted nonsense before we get to our appreciably ludicrous solution. That leaves the plot a little all over the place, which is fine for a giallo, and it’s abley buoyed by Nicolai's kickin’ score and the handsome photography of Alberto Spagnoli (Bava’s SHOCK, in his first film as a director of photography). It’s much more freewheeling mystery than gruesome slasher, though, so you’d better be invested in the whodunnit angle. The kills are nothing special --mostly just off-camera stabbings-- though I am absolutely a big fan of the killer’s deeply unsettling mask (the most unnatural human face since Shatner’s DEVIL’S RAIN getup) and unhinged laugh.

One thing I’m not a big fan of? The out-of-the-blue brutal rape scene. It is never mentioned again by anyone, nor does it seem to have any subsequent impact on the victim, and the perpetrator dies minutes later and nobody even realizes it, so I’m gonna have to assume this was one of those “the producers said we needed a sexy rape” situations, but if that’s true I could really have done without seeing the victim weeping and shaking and covered in blood two minutes later. The sleazy rapist is at least portrayed as a degenerate scumbag who dies painfully and unlamented a few minutes later, but then again like half the cast here dies painfully and unlamented, so I don’t see how this whole incident was at all necessary or beneficial to the film in any way. Not an uncommon plot element at the time (though this one seems especially sadistic), but definitely one little aspect of some of these 70’s films that hasn’t aged as charmingly. To which I say, frankly: good.

Other than that one sour note, though, most of the movie is light, fluffy fun, with no shortage of cheerfully dumb dialogue and confounding plotting. “I can assure you there wasn’t any negligence on our side,” says the doctor who allowed a hallucinating psychiatric patient to escape and impale herself on a fence. That sounds a little suspicious, but the dead patient’s husband seems to happily accept this assessment, even when the Doctor goes on to say, apropos of nothing, “We’ve had patients from aristocratic families. We’ve tried to preserve their anonymity, like the Gotterschaums and the Wildenbrucks.” Fortunately, when hubby asks which Wildenbruck, the doctor informs him “you’re asking for too much information.” Good to know there’s a limit. I guess in his defense, all he claimed is that he tried.

Director Emilio Miraglia’s previous (and only other) giallo THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF HER GRAVE is more gothic and unsettling and probably the better movie overall, but who can argue with such a bounty of frothy, airheaded fun (give or take the odd brutal rape scene)? The whole thing is about as tightly plotted as The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, but there’s nearly always something colorful and ridiculous going on, and it frequently looks and sounds great (especially in the handsome Arrow Video restoration from 2017), plus you’re never far from some gorgeous blonde taking off her clothes (and for the ladies: mustaches!). So it goes down pretty smooth for anyone with an affection for the genre (and who else would ever consider watching?). Besides, while there is no shortage of gialli which feature abrupt, insane twists, this one is a real doozy. In fact, just as it seems to be wrapping up with a resolution which would be --well, logical isn’t nearly the right word, but at least imaginable -- suddenly it takes another turn out of fucking nowhere right into the craziest god damn resolution I ever heard of, involving (SPOILER) a secret identity, a faked death, a swapped sibling, a castle dungeon, and a clue that requires a flashback to a pair of tits, and that still doesn’t get us to the true culprit behind everything. That's the kind of giallo my spirit craves. It's the kind of giallo this world needs.

I close, then, with a word of caution: if the imposing castle you live in has a history of siblings murdering each other and then returning from the grave for revenge every 100 years, maybe consider just moving.

* Schündler has a filmography interesting enough to merit its own footnote: he began his career in 1924, appeared in fucking THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE (!), then stuck around Germany during the war years appearing in more films than I am comfortable with (though they look to be mostly non-political, and Goebbels banned at least two of them) only to re-emerge in the post-war years as a director, move on to a handful of German Krimi films in the 60s (THE COLLEGE GIRL MURDERS) and sex comedies (SEXY SUSAN KNOWS HOW…!, I LIKE GIRLS WHO DO, and the magnificently named SEX IS NOT FOR VIRGINS) before somehow bouncing back and winding up as “Karl” in the fucking EXORCIST and Prof. Milius in SUSPIRIA, and even turning up in Wim Wender’s THE AMERICAN FRIEND and the David Hemmings/David Bowie JUST A GIGOLO before becoming a staple on German TV until his death in 1988. He’s terrible here, but the dubbing isn’t doing anyone any favors.

** One more reason this movie should have an animal in its title.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2018 CHECKLIST!

Searching For Bloody Pictures

TAGLINE	IMDB claims The Corpse That Didn't Want to Die! But I can’t actually find any evidence in the wild that this tagline ever appeared anywhere.
TITLE ACCURACY	Almost stunning accurate, considering the source
LITERARY ADAPTATION?	None
SEQUEL?	None
REMAKE?	No
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN	Italy (though partially filmed in Germany)
HORROR SUB-GENRE	Giallo, slasher
SLUMMING A-LISTER?	None
BELOVED HORROR ICON?	Barbara Bouchet had a pretty good run on gialli, with BLACK BELLY OF THE TARANTULA, AMUCK, THE FRENCH SEX MURDERS, THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES, and finally DON’T TORTURE A DUCKLING all within two years.
NUDITY?	Plenty
SEXUAL ASSAULT?	Unfortunately yes
WHEN ANIMALS ATTACK!	None, which is, I guess, why they figured they couldn’t go with an animal in the title. But come on guys, let’s be a little creative. Was there actually a cat in CAT O’ NINE TAILS?
GHOST/ ZOMBIE / HAUNTED BUILDING?	Certainly, there is the suggestion of a vengeful ghost
POSSESSION?	A lighter suggestion that, at the very least, these ladies are fated for this.
CREEPY DOLLS?	None
EVIL CULT?	None
MADNESS?	No
TRANSMOGRIFICATION?	None
VOYEURISM?	There’s this weird stalking creep who peeps at them in one scene.
MORAL OF THE STORY	(HUGE SPOILERS!!!) If you’re concerned enough about your daughters being fated to kill each other that you would adopt a decoy, maybe just move?