Halloween Hootenanny - First Impressions: Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye (Antonio Margheriti, 1973)

I watched a lot of Italian horror this weekend in preparation for the upcoming blogathon being hosted over at Hugo Stiglitz Makes Movies from the 24th to the 31st of this month, and as is usually the case when I end up stuffing myself with spaghetti flavoured horror, I find it very hard, heck, nigh on impossible to leave the country and its alluring cinematic exports alone. And seeing as I've been watching lots of gothic films, I decided it was an ideal time to check out this gothic/giallo hybrid...

Returning home from school for the holidays, Corringa (played by Jane Birkin) comes to stay with her mother, who just so happens to live in an imposing Scottish castle. It turns out the young lady's return is far from well timed, as a razor wielding killer is soon slashing through the castle's inhabitants (they even dispatch their first victim before the opening credits and prior to when we first meet Corringa), most of whom range from the vaguely suspicious or cagey, to the downright eccentric... Lord James MacGrieff (Hiram Keller), I'm looking right at ya! And accompanying each of the killings is the cat alluded to in the title, whose relationship to the carnage it spies upon is ambiguous to say the least...

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I was pretty tired when I watched this, so I'm a bit hazy on some of the events of the third act, but generally speaking I really enjoyed this mash-up of black gloved blood-letting and old dark house atmospherics. Regarding the latter, there were two elements that made me think I was watching an old Lugosi movie for a moment... that is, there's the obligatory secret passageway, and one resident of the house even has a pet gorilla (!), which we see spying on Corringa upon her arrival. 

There's not a lot left to say on this one for now, but if you're a fan of gothics and/or gialli I'd definitely recommend it, as you really can't go wrong here. It's probably nothing that'll blow your socks off, but I found it to be a highly stylish and enjoyable romp nevertheless. Apart from this, the only other Margheriti film I've seen is Cannibal Apocalypse, which I also found to be a lot of fun, so I'm extremely eager to check out some more of the director's work... Castle of Blood is currently calling my name as we speak...