lastliberal Maybe more of a crime thriller than true Giallo. I am really not sure how this got into my queue unless I was looking for Ennio Morricone's music. At least it had a flashy intro that puts Elvira to shame.If nothing else, the movie starts with a great nightclub show featuring Karin Schubert. Almost worth the price of admission itself.After the show, Peter (Gianni Garko) snatches Anna (Giovanna Ralli) from her date and takes her home where an intruder (Julián Mateos) is determined to spoil his evening.It's all about Arthur Welt (Frank Wolff) and his search for evidence that will exonerate him. There is little action and a whole lot of talking.

Red-Barracuda This is one of the weakest Italian thrillers I've seen. It's a giallo/house-invasion hybrid but it doesn't really succeed in either genre. The film begins like a typical giallo with an opening credit sequence following a car through the streets of London to a Morricone soundtrack; this is followed by a textbook giallo stalk scene which, somewhat bizarrely, turns out to be a stage show. Up to this point the movie is perfectly serviceable but really, this is as good as it gets. The majority of the remainder of the film is about a lawyer and a prostitute who are held captive by a couple of bad guys. And, to be perfectly honest, they don't get up to anything very interesting.Unlike other weak giallos, like Slaughter Hotel for example, this movie neither delivers much sleaze or is photographed particularly attractively. And the score, while being a stronger aspect of the film, is basically Morricone-by-numbers. However, there is some fun to be had with the ridiculous dubbing, which makes the actors appear that they cannot act for toffee; and the guy called Quill has a very very silly accent. No one in the U.K. talks like this trust me.Overall, I'm not sure who I can recommend this to. Fans of giallos will find it too unsuspenseful and uninvolving and those who like house invasion movies will not find it anywhere sleazy enough. At best it offers a few laughs and some semi-inventive scenes. But really, it's not very good.

Paul Andrews Gli Occhi Freddi della Paura, or Cold Eyes of Fear as it's more commonly known amongst English speaking audiences, starts on a dark night in 70's London as lawyer Peter Flower (Gianni Garko) picks up a prostitute named Anna (Giovanna Ralli). Peter takes her back to his uncles house who happens to be the prominent & high powered Judge Juez (Fernando Rey). Once there Peter & Anna begin to get down to business but are rudely interrupted by a gunman named Quill (Julian Mateos) whom has already shot Hawkins the servant. Quill holds them both at gunpoint until his accomplice arrives, Arthur Welt (Frank Wolff). The whole situation leads back to Judge Juez but is this as simple a case of revenge as it first appears? Unfortunately it's really not worth watching to find out...This Spanish & Italian co-production was co-written & directed by Enzo G. Castellari & in my humble opinion is a really boring film. The script by Castellari, Tito Carpi & Leo Anchoriz starts off quite well with the initial plot set-up but once Welt makes an appearance it slows down to an absolute snails pace & becomes as dull as dishwater as it's just annoying character's spouting inane badly dubbed dialogue. Anna really got on my nerves, she keeps on facing up to the gunmen & telling them to kill them, excuse me love but these guys are murderers & have guns. I mean squaring up & provoking them really isn't the way to make it out alive, is it? I'd have shot her for just being so irritating. The final 'twist' revelations are far from surprising & in fact are quite obvious. I must admit I found some of the cockney dialogue rather amusing. Am I the only one who thinks Gli Occhi Freddi della Paura resembles The House on the Edge of the Park (1980)? The two are extremely similar in tone except that The House on the Edge of the Park is far more explicit.Director Castellari gives the film a nice visual look throughout & during the scenes in London it really captures the era. Unfortunately the film has zero tension, scares, atmosphere, shocks or surprises. The violence is virtually non existent, there's a fight at the end with some blood but apart from that forget it.Technically the film is well made & has a nice look & feel throughout with detailed production design. The acting wasn't up to much especially the two gunmen who were, in my humble opinion, awful.Gli Occhi Freddi della Paura had potential & starts out pretty good but goes absolutely nowhere. Very tame, very boring & very disappointing Euro sleaze, there are so many better films out there. One more thing, am I alone in thinking that this shouldn't be described as a Giallo? Giallo's are murder mysteries & Gli Occhi Freddi della Paura has neither murder or mystery...

hae13400 An Eton-graduated lawyer, Peter Flower, meets an Italian prostitute, Anna, in a London nightclub, and goes to his uncle's house with her. But soon the house's butler, Hawking, is found dead, and a stranger named Quill shows himself with gun. And furthermore, the arrival of Arthur Welt sharpens the unstableness of the strange triangle of two men and one woman... I think this Italian-Spanish co-produced film, which is sometimes called cult one because of its eccentric visualisation of one character's confusion of fancy with reality, is not bad at all. It has no extraordinariness of the characters, but the each character he-or-her-self is the believable who wants to be concerned only with what he or she can assimilate to. And the story is not full of highly cinematic surprises but has something realistic and familiar, and it lacks the manifest combination of love and separateness but has of (in)security and class consciousness, and of learning and sexual warfare. Still one can point out the film has some over-stylised Italian cinema-graphical techniques and somehow stereotyped female character, Anna. Regarding the latter, one can think of various possibilities of the characteristic. For instance, it can be said Anna should not be a prostitute. If she is the lover or, in better setting, one of the lovers of Peter, then her influence upon him and/or his upon her can be much more complex and profound, and so forth. But the ongoing story of the film has cinematically advance hints, and even offhanded meeting of Anna and Peter, who are first and last strangers each other, has something latently important and therefore their otherness has its own meaning. The director/co-writer E.G.Castellari could do more than what really did, but what he did was, I think, cinematically sufficient.