Description:
Carroll Baker (Baba Yaga) plays Martha Caldwell, who, as a young girl, saw her parents killed in a train station. Since then, she’s been mute, and periodically has flashbacks to the event, obviously still traumatized by it.
We’re introduced to her as she, now an adult, is on her way to live with her Uncle Ralph (Geroges Rigaud of Case Of The Bloody Iris) and her cousin Jenny (Ida Galli of The Whip And The Body) in the countryside, where things should be nice and peaceful. Unfortunately, soon after Martha’s arrival, Jenny is found stabbed to death in the garage of the mansion.
As it turns out, there
Carroll Baker (Baba Yaga) plays Martha Caldwell, who, as a young girl, saw her parents killed in a train station. Since then, she’s been mute, and periodically has flashbacks to the event, obviously still traumatized by it.
We’re introduced to her as she, now an adult, is on her way to live with her Uncle Ralph (Geroges Rigaud of Case Of The Bloody Iris) and her cousin Jenny (Ida Galli of The Whip And The Body) in the countryside, where things should be nice and peaceful. Unfortunately, soon after Martha’s arrival, Jenny is found stabbed to death in the garage of the mansion.
As it turns out, there is a sex maniac with an affliction for the occult running around the countryside, or at least it seems that way, as another pretty young girl turns up dead shortly after. The police think that Martha might be next on the killers list, but once they arrest the English hippy that they though was guilty, they realize the mistake they’ve made, as the murder don’t stop and Martha is obviously more involved than she or anyone else could have possibly imagined.
Director Umberto Lenzi (Cannibal Ferox) crafts a slick and classy Giallo that scores high points for it’s excellent visuals, but ultimately fails to deliver much in the way of shocks, suspense, or mystery. The cinematography is pretty impressive with some nice use of shadow and captures some of the unusual locations used in the film very effectively, but the film, outside of that, was strictly a PG rated, mediocre thriller. It’s surprisingly unsleazy for a Giallo. For a genre often associated with gratuitous sex and violence, Knife Of Ice delivers very little of either, save for some very minor bloodshed in a couple of scenes, and an all too real scene involving an unfortunate bull who ends up on the receiving end of a matador’s sword at a bullfight.
Not to say that a good Giallo must require sex and violence to succeed, but seeing as Lenzi is, a lot of the time, associated with these elements makes this worth noting.
It wasn’t terrible, Baker puts in a sympathetic and believable performance as the mute Martha Caldwell, and the supporting cast includes a nice assortment of Euro Horror regulars who also turn in reasonably good turns as well. But without much of a mystery (I personally found this one pretty predictable, story-wise), it was a little hard for me to get into, no matter how good it looked and despite the decent acting.
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Manufacturer: Trash Mountain
Release date: 9 October 2003
Number of discs: 1
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