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WATCH ME WHEN I KILL

Antonio Bido's 1977 giallo is a real mixed bag. Over-plotted and confused, with no clear line of focus, it often weaves between it's miscellaneous story lines in a haphazard way, rendering much of the action incomprehensible. That it contains one of the more memorable motives in the history of the giallo is very fortunate. Without it, WATCH ME WHEN I KILL would be just another cut-rate thriller. The final reveal of the film is a complex, highly depressing event. It makes every other motive you've ever seen in a giallo - whether it'd be blackmail, adultery, trying to get life insurance money - seem downright innocuous and petty. For the first time, you just might find yourself feeling the murders are completely justified.

There are slight spoilers sprinkled throughout. I won't give away the ending. It's too good.

The plot is a standard giallo narrative. A pharmacist named Dezzan is murdered and Mara, a nightclub dancer, finds herself targeted by his killer. She moves in with her boyfriend, Lukas, after the killer breaks into her home. Lukas, a sound engineer - I think; his profession is never named - is helping his neighbor, a loan shark named Bozzi, decipher the meaning behind threatening phone calls he has been receiving. These phone calls consist of sounds - dogs barking, a strange hum like an incinerator, screaming. The killer's activity escalates after the murder of an acquaintance of Bozzi's, a woman named Esmeralda, and Lukas becomes convinced that it is all the work of a recently escaped murderer that Dezzan, Esmeralda, and Bozzi helped convict.

Nothing new here. The first half of the film focuses on Lukas' investigation into Dezzan's murder. He begins to track down the escaped inmate, Ferrante, convinced that he is the guilty party. After all, Dezzan, Esmeralda, and Bozzi were all on the jury that sent him to prison for murder. But Lukas quickly comes to the conclusion that Ferrante cannot be the murderer - through the use of some shaky logic involving coffee cups; something got lost in the translation here. A little more digging turns up an even more likely suspect and a hidden tragedy that Lukas could never have seen coming.

The core story of WATCH ME WHEN I KILL - the film's original title was IL GATTO DAGLI OCCHI DI GIADA, or THE CAT WITH THE JADE EYES - is a good one but it's executed all wrong. It moves in fits and starts, changing it's pacing at random. It also suffers from some poor casting. Corrado Pani and Paola Tedesco are both fine actors but, as Lukas and Mara, they have little chemistry together - plus Pani's sole characterization seems to light a cigar at the beginning of every single scene he's in. While Bido offers up some solid direction, highly reminiscent of Argento at times, the film suffers from a lack of interesting locales. A waterfall is the lone highlight in terms of locations. The score is the real highlight, a Goblin-inspired and downright creepy bit of work that provides the film with some much needed atmosphere.

As it is, WATCH ME WHEN I KILL is worth recommending but is nowhere near as good as Bido's follow-up giallo, THE BLOOD STAINED SHADOW. It might disappoint those giallo fans looking for the rough and sexy - the violence is pretty weak and no one takes their clothes off - but those looking for a good Saturday night's entertainment wouldn't be wasting their time here.