Cast: Edwige Fenech , Anita Strindberg , Luigi Pistilli
Director: Sergio Martino
Country: Italy
Genre: Crime | Horror | Mystery | Thriller
Official Trailer: Here
Editor's Notes: The following review is a part of Matthew Blevins' weekly series Cult Pics and Trash Flicks
Out of focus bodies are enraptured in tangled and out of focus bliss while a harpsichord driven score builds intrigue and mystery. It is unclear where one body begins and the other one ends as the camera subjectively explores the distorted spaces of an unknown bedroom. We have entered the world of the beautifully strange vices of Italian director Sergio Martino with his unforgettably titled Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key. Giallo is a wonderfully strange and diverse genre that stands alone with its own cinematic rules and narrative tropes. Where else would you be able to combine mystery, erotica, unspoken and uncertain supernatural forces, Edgar Allen Poe’s The Black Cat, and a wide array of camera techniques, driven by a softly deranged harpsichord score and the dubiously angelic features of Edwige Fenech? Cast off all conventional logic and join me in my exploration of the strange vices of Sergio Martino as we take a look at one of my favorite giallo films and one of the most gratuitously lengthy but unforgettable titles in the history of film.
When approaching a Sergio Martino giallo there are a few things that one should keep in mind. You aren’t going to get a taut narrative where all the loose ends tie together neatly and cohesively. Don’t try to outguess the film as it has no real interest in providing clues to create a “solvable†mystery. It is best to lose yourself in the atmosphere and pay as little attention as possible to the obligatory inclusion of plot. These are exercises in aesthetics and camera movement, drenched in J&B scotch and obfuscated by the cigarette smoke of casual hedonists from the upper class. It is pulp entertainment brought to the screen from the tattered and yellowed pages of forgotten dime store novellas. Giallo worlds are occupied entirely by sadists, maniacs, empty-eyed harlots, bumbling inspectors, black-leather gloves, and phallic stainless-steel straight razors that rape the flesh of its victims, creating stark compositions of unrealistically bright blood, black leather, and lustrous metal. It is a world with no innocents, and the occasional decent soul that does appear is usually dispatched in short order.
It is best to lose yourself in the atmosphere and pay as little attention as possible to the obligatory inclusion of plot. These are exercises in aesthetics and camera movement, drenched in J&B scotch and obfuscated by the cigarette smoke of casual hedonists from the upper class.
The real power of Your Vice… arrives at about the thirty minute mark when the incomparable Edwige Fenech makes her first appearance in the film. Her soft pale features grant her an undercurrent of virginal sexuality, but behind her expressive eyes hides a seductress, femme fatale, and flawed protagonist that brandishes her sexuality like an inescapable weapon of catastrophic destruction. The false innocence of her beauty lures men and women alike, bending the will of anyone (sometimes resulting in incestuous pairings) that dares to stare into her eyes. It is a unique dynamic that comes from the natural beauty and seductive prowess of Fenech herself, and it results in one of the most intriguing and dangerous femme fatales in the genre.
Her soft pale features grant her an undercurrent of virginal sexuality, but behind her expressive eyes hides a seductress, femme fatale, and flawed protagonist that brandishes her sexuality like an inescapable weapon of catastrophic destruction.
Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key is a film that is drenched in sexuality, mystery, and intrigue. It comes from a genre in which anything is possible as long as it is stylish, and atmosphere is more important than how much (or little) sense the exposition filled diatribes of its deranged characters makes. The narrative meanders and takes illogical pauses that seem like superfluous excuses to point the camera at something visually interesting, but that is the beauty of giallo. The entire genre is about creating contrived scenarios that result in unforgettable compositions, and it makes no apologies and holds no interest in your banal style versus substance debate. You shouldn’t even try to guess the outcome because a Sergio Martino giallo is less concerned with narrative than it is in visual experimentation, seduction, mystery, pulp morality, and creating an atmospheric world that exists outside of the stifling constraints of narrative tautness and logic.
EDWIGE FENECH out of 100! Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key is a film that is drenched in sexuality, mystery, and intrigue. It comes from a genre in which anything is possible as long as it is stylish, and atmosphere is more important than how much (or little) sense the exposition filled diatribes of its deranged characters makes. The narrative meanders and takes illogical pauses that seem like superfluous excuses to point the camera at something visually interesting, but that is the beauty of giallo. The entire genre is about creating contrived scenarios that result in unforgettable compositions, and it makes no apologies and holds no interest in your banal style versus substance debate.
