Films That Witness Madness

review

COLD EYES OF FEAR

If you're looking for a giallo of the "black-gloved killer" variety, you won't find much enjoyment here. If, however, you're looking for a damned good crime thriller, COLD EYES OF FEAR definitely delivers the goods. An intense giallo, Enzo Castellari's COLD EYES OF FEAR starts off slow but ramps up fairly quickly with enough suspense and intrigue to satisfy die-hard crime buffs. Though nothing particularly new is offered, COLD EYES OF FEAR manages to tell its oft-told tale so well and with so much energy that nothing about it feels stale or recycled. While the traditional giallo takes place in a sprawling city - all the better for extravagant scenery - the majority of the action here happens in a single house. The result is a film that grows more and more tense as it grows more and more claustrophobic, building to a genuinely exciting finale.

Peter, the nephew of a wealthy Judge, takes a prostitute, Anna, back to his uncle's home for a little fun. Once they arrive, they find themselves held at gunpoint by a thug named Quill. He mentions money. Peter says they have none at the house. Some time later, a policeman arrives at the home to drop off a letter to Peter from his uncle. Peter tries to tell the officer that something is wrong but the cop doesn't seem to care. In fact, for all his trouble, Peter gets socked in the jaw. The officer steps inside and closes the door, announcing himself as the other half of this criminal duo. Welt, the man posing as a police officer, has come to look for evidence that will prove that his fifteen year prison term was not a just punishment and that Peter's uncle, the Judge who presided over his trial, is corrupt.

Oh and he has also rigged the Judge's office door to explode when he opens it.

COLD EYES OF FEAR begins with a typical giallo scene. A pretty young blonde is getting undressed when a man enters the room brandishing a knife. There is a brief struggle before the man has the woman pinned down. He cuts her underwear off and begins raping her. She resists for a moment before relaxing. She seems to be enjoying it. Her hand drifts off the edge of the bed, reaching to the floor. Reaching for the knife. She raises it and plunges it into the man's back. The man screams and... The lights come up. The whole thing was just a scene in a play. As with Soavi's STAGEFRIGHT, Bava's BAY OF BLOOD and Freda's THE WAILING, Castellari uses this opening to lure his viewers in and fulfill their expectations. The sudden reversal - this is all a joke - throws the audience off-balance. From that point on, the audience has no idea what to expect.

Savvy genre fans will undoubtedly see many of the film's other plot twists coming. That isn't to say that the film relies solely on the "didn't see that coming" kind of twist for effect. It's the characters that consistently surprise here. Welt, for example, is one of the best screen villains the giallo film has to offer. Not because he is especially cunning or threatening. Rather, it is because he has seen this whole thing out and knows that there is no way in hell that he will get away with it. That simply does not matter to him. He just wants the black mark on his record erased and the record of his involvement in the crime that got him locked up set straight. His revenge is so utterly self-defeating that it borders on insanity - and, indeed, Welt doesn't have all his ducks in a row - but he feels that what matters most isn't his freedom but his pride. In a way, that makes him much more dangerous than any giallo villain ever put on screen.

The film also deals with the relationship between the robbers - obviously a homosexual one - in a way most gialli do not. In most gialli, homosexuals are purely comic relief - see THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE, FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET and THE CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS - or perverted pederasts and murderers - see WHO SAW HER DIE? and THE BLOOD STAINED SHADOW to name a few. Here, the issue is mostly kept quiet and not directly addressed but it is most definitely there. It's also completely irrelevant. Like Hitchcock's ROPE, it is played so low key and so discreetly that it barely registers at all. That fact alone makes COLD EYES OF FEAR somewhat unique. Kudos to Castellari and company for taking the high road.

Castellari directs the film with his usual verve and gusto, playing with the framing and composition on shots to help create an unnerving mood throughout. The film's finale - cross-cutting between two physical battles and an amazingly tense bomb dismantling - is one of the strongest pieces of film he has ever directed. The performances are universally fine with Gianni Garko and Frank Wolff - who is perhaps best known to giallo fans for his performances in Luciano Ercoli's DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS and Duccio Tessari's DEATH OCCURED LAST NIGHT - are the two stand-outs among the male cast. If the film has a weak link - besides the Cockney accent poor Julian Mateos was given during dubbing - it's Giovanni Ralli. Her performance as Anna is simply grating. Fernando Rey, veteran of many Bunuel films, is woefully underused here but the film does allow him the same fate - though imagined - as Bunuel did in THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE.

Highly recommended.

DISCUSS THIS FILM IN THE FORUM! JUST CLICK HERE TO VISIT!