The Red Queen Kills Seven Times

I decided to watch a Giallo with a wonderful title:

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972).

Mild Spoilers Ahead

The movie opens with a young girl, Kitty, playing with a doll in a castle garden. Her sister Evelyn steals it and runs away. Their invalid grandfather tries to make peace between them until Evelyn, apparently influenced by a grisly portrait stabs and destroys the doll.

The painting is of a woman dressed in red with black hair stabbing a blond woman in a black dress. This is the legend of the Red Queen who tormented her sister, the Black Queen, until she snapped and killed her sister. The Red Queen then rose from her grave and killed six people culminating with the Black Queen being the seventh victim. Every hundred years two sisters are born that are cursed to reenact the original Red Queen – Black Queen drama.

Cut to ten years later. The uncle, Tobias Wildenbrück is suffering from a bad heart as well as being confined to a wheel chair. His eldest granddaughter Franziska and her husband lives with Tobias in his castle, when one night the Red Queen appears and he dies from fear induced cardiac arrest. Everyone is shocked, but Kitty, now a successful fashion photographer is horrified. A year or so earlier Kitty fought with Evelyn when Evelyn hit her head and fell in the moat. Everyone knew the sisters hated each other, so Kitty and Franziska hid the body in the castle cellar since no one would believe that it was an accident. Then they told everyone that Evelyn had moved to America.

Soon enough, more people get murdered, and each time, someone sees a woman with long black hair and a red cape fleeing into the night laughing maniacally. The Red Queen is back!

This Italian movie is directed by Emilio Miraglia who also directed The Night Evelyn Came out of Her Grave. The movies are not connected despite the similar names. It stars Barbara Bouchet, Ugo Pagliai, Marina Malfatti and Sybil Danning amongst others.

Overall, The Red Queen Kills Seven Times is a really nice mystery thriller. The cinematography is excellent, the actors are a cut above the norm but the soundtrack is pretty awful. Several tense scenes are accompanied by an upbeat jazz score that really doesn't fit at all. The kills are good, suitably violent and sometimes pretty gory but not too over the top. There is some nudity, but it is tastefully done and avoids feeling too sleazy.

The overall story is actually really good. It had me guessing from the start and I failed to solve the mystery before the movie ended.

There are a couple of missteps though. The biggest has to be Peter, a sleazy, greasy junkie who blackmails Kitty. He claims to know that Evelyn is not in the US and demands money to keep quiet. Later on he assaults Kitty in her bedroom leaving her traumatized. But then this is never mentioned again. The scene of her sitting half naked, horrified and barely sane is a harrowing image and in the next scene she is fine. Why include this if it has no impact on the character on indeed on the movie?

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes I do. The Red Queen Kills Seven Times is not a masterpiece, but rather a pretty solid middle-of-the-road affair. It does what it sets out to do and does it well enough. Not one of the great classics in the Giallo genre, but nevertheless a solid watch.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

Lovecraftian, or Comsic Horror Humor

Yesterday I tripped over a trio of Lovecraft based comedy sketches, and since I needed something for you guys, here you go! I hope you will join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

First up is the HPL Insurance company: 

 

 

 

Then The Unnamable Unimaginable Thing In My Basement:

 

 

Finally, The Epiphany Continuum Sketch: 

 

World of Warcraft News

There are some exciting things coming up in World of Warcraft, starting this week.

First up, the WoW 18^th anniversary event has been up and running for about a week and will continue for some time, but with the upcoming elemental invasion pre-patch event, it will probably be very hard, if not impossible to get any help against these world bosses.

Now, starting this week, on November 15^th, the elemental invasion will start. In a nutshell, you kill elementals that spawn in certain places and who drop tokens when defeated. These tokens are a currency for some seriously good gear, and well worth getting. When a hundred elementals or so are killed, a boss will spawn, who drops more tokens and can also drop gear directly. At least, this seems to be t he case, as official info is hard to find.

For a more detailed look, check out this link:

https://www.wowhead.com/guide/primal-storms-dragonflight-pre-patch-event

Also starting this week is the Twitch drop event with Blizzard. Simply connect your Twitch account to your Blizzard account and then watch live streamers play WoW and you can get some cool stuff like a mount.

Here are the dates and some more detailed info including instructions on how to connect your accounts:

https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/news/23873861/updated-nov-1-dragonflight-twitch-drops-earn-rewards-watching-and-supporting-creators

My wife and I will be streaming during these dates on Twitch.tv/Chelidda so why not come on by and watch to grab some cool stuff. If you don't want to chat, it is enough to merely have the stream on for the required amount of time. There are of course lots of streamers to choose from, so find someone you like, sit back and enjoy.

Finally, this week is when those who own Dragonflight already can make and start playing the new Drachtyr race. They start at level 58 but can only be one class, the Evoker. Evokers are either healers or dps casters, and based on my experiences on the Beta, they are a lot of fun to play. They can even fly without a mount, although they use the same mechanic as the new Drakes in Dragonflight. This flying technique takes some getting used to, so it may pay off to get some practice in early.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

 

Mother of Tears

I have previously written about Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977) as well as its sequel Inferno (1980), but this time we are talking about the third movie in the trilogy:

Mother of Tears (2007).

Like the two other movies, Mother of Tears is directed by Dario Argento who also co-wrote them with his one time partner Daria Nicolodi. The movie stars Dario's and Daria's daughter Asia Argento, a whole bunch of actors I don't know and horror veteran Udo Kier. Like in Suspiria, Kier plays a small but important role, but they are not the same character in case anyone is wondering.

The core of the Mothers Trilogy is three ancient, evil and powerful witches, Mater Suspiriorum (Sighs), Mater Tenebrarum (Darkness) and Mater Lachrymarum (Tears). These three witches eventually settled down in Germany, New York and Rome. We see the story of Mater Suspiriorum in Suspiria, Mater Tenebrarum in Inferno and now Mater Lachrymarum in this movie.

Some spoilers ahead.

The movie opens with some workmen accidentally finding an old coffin with a box chained to it. A cardinal orders the coffin reburied, but keeps the box which is constantly referred to as an urn for some reason. He opens it, gets really scared and sends it to a friend who is the curator of a museum.

When the “urn” arrives, the curator is not in, so the assistant curator decides to open it and invites an American art student to join her. In order to translate some old text, the student Sara Mandy (Asia Argento) is sent to fetch a dictionary. While she is gone, three entities appear and murder the assistant curator in a seriously gory scene. Sara escapes only because a voice helps her. So far so good, but from here on the story gets a little convoluted.

The contents of the box seems to empower the Mother of Tears enormously and a make the citizens of Rome go crazy. People are murdered, they fight savagely in the streets, vandalism becomes commonplace, in short, things get pretty nuts. The other thing that happens is that witches from all over the world flock to Rome as Sara struggles to survive and find out what happens while dodging both witches and the police. She goes from person to person sometimes getting help, sometimes not. She does discover that the voice is her mother who was a powerful white witch that was murdered after fighting and grievously wounding the Mater Suspiriorum prior to the events in Suspiria. Fun fact, it is Daria Nicolodi who plays Sara's mother, in other words they are not just playing mother and daughter, they are mother and daughter.

Sara ultimately decides to confront the Mother of Tears in her lair and roll credits. There is obviously more, but as usual, you can watch the movie yourself.

Mother of Tears is a good idea executed in a sloppy manner. I like the overall feel of the movie, and the idea of a power that makes the population go nuts is cool, but even though the movie is 102 minutes long, it feels extremely rushed. Scenes begin only to quickly be shuffled along into the next one, characters are introduced and killed in the same breath and concepts are brought up only to never be explored again. It seriously grated on my nerves after a while.

The witches' arrival is also handled in a weird manner. They look like they just stepped out of an 80's pop music video. Big hair teased into huge plumes, excessive make-up, dramatic and colorful clothes etc. They also mostly just wander around in groups laughing loudly, while snarling and hissing at people. It made no sense to me. Finally I don't understand what Sara hoped to achieve in the end. Sure she knows that she has inherited a lot of her mothers powers, but she doesn't know how to use them. In Suspiria and Inferno, the endings made some kind of sense, but the ending in Mother of Tears is kind of dumb. Not quite deus-ex-machina, but not far from it.

I also feel I should talk about the gore and the nudity, because there is a ton of it. The really heavy gore scenes aren't that many but they are almost excessive. Very well executed scenes to be sure, but most of them felt like they were there just to be there. And the nudity is the same way. It's one thing for a hysterically cackling mad woman to not notice that her shirt has fallen open, but it looks like Dario took every opportunity to shoehorn in either brutal gore or nudity in most scenes, possibly both. I'm not a prude by any means, but blood and boobs for the sake of blood and boobs feels both cheap and a bit desperate, and I know Argento can do better.

There are good sides as well, from the cinematography, to the sound to the overall mood of the movie, but the shortcomings sadly overshadow the good. I could go on, but I'm worried you might think I hate the movie when I don't.

So, do I recommend this movie? Not really, but maybe? Overall I enjoyed Mother of Tears, and to be fair it's not a totally bad movie as such, it's just disappointing that it took 27 years to complete the trilogy and instead of an interesting occult mystery all we really get is a somewhat slapped together paint by the numbers horror movie, doused in gore. Horror fans might enjoy it, particularly fans if Suspiria and Inferno, but watch it with the proper expectations.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!