aka Scorpion With Two Tails
(Assassinio al Cimitero Etrusco)
Italy/France. 1982.
Crew
Director – Christian Plummer [Sergio Martino], Screenplay – Maria Chianetta, Ernesto Gastaldi & Jacques Leitienne, Story – Ernesto Gastaldi & Dardano Sacchetti, Photography – Giancarlo Ferrando, Music – Fabio Frizzi, Special Effects – Paolo Ricci, Production Design – Antonello Geleng. Production Company – Dania Film/ Medusa Distribuzione/Imp.Ex.Ci.Sa/Les Films Jacques Leitienne.
Cast
Elvire Audray (Joan Barnard), Paolo Malco (Mike Grant), Claudio Cassinelli (Paolo Domelli), Van Johnson (Mulligan), Marilu Tolo (Contessa Maria Volumna), John Saxon (Arthur Barnard), Wandisa Guida (Heather Hull), Gianfranco Barra (Police Commissioner), Franco Garofalo (Gianni Andrucci), Maurizio Mattioli (Masaccio), Carlo Monni (Senaldi)
Plot
American archaeologist Arthur Barnard is murdered in his hotel room in Italy, left with his head twisted backwards. Just before he was killed, Arthur spoke to his wife Joan of having found an Etruscan tomb and saying her father needed to send money. Joan flies from New York to Italy and begins a search for the tomb he was referring to. She finds it, a place where the ancient Etruscans conducted their rituals. At the same time, other people are being killed, their heads being found twisted backwards. Joan’s father arrives in Italy, under pressure from mobsters to find a missing shipment of drugs that was to be smuggled into the US in Arthur’s crates of artefacts. The Etruscan priesthood were said to reincarnate in successive bodies. Other archaeologists notice a striking resemblance between Joan and paintings of high priestess on the wall of tomb and believe that she may be one of these reincarnations.
The Italian giallo film emerged in the 1960s and its films have gained a cult following. The essence of the giallo genre was drawn from the psycho-thriller but the films soon evolved their own distinctive style that involved extravagantly colourful lighting schemes, murders with a psycho-sexual focus and elaborate and stylish directorial set-ups. (For a more detailed listing see Giallo Films).
Just as much as it is trying to be a giallo murder mystery, Murder in an Etruscan Cemetery also falls into being one of the works of occult giallo that Dario Argento created with Suspiria (1977). These feature the same extravagant deaths but where the explanation is occult or supernatural as opposed to a lurking killer. That said, Murder in an Etruscan Cemetery never does much with the supernatural/occult side of the story. There are flashbacks to the original Etruscan cultists throughout. A wall painting is uncovered in the tomb amid talk about how the high priestesses would reincarnate through successive bodies – a resemblance between Elvire Audrey and a wall painting of a priestess is noted with speculation that she might be one of the reincarnated priestesses. That said, this side of things never goes anywhere and the resolution of the story involves a regular giallo-styled unveiling of the activities of a mundane killer.
Etruscan cultists conduct a sacrifice
Murder in an Etruscan Cemetery is dull. Sergio Martino lacks any directorial style. He invests mothing in any of the murder set-pieces – in fact, seems largely disinterested in these. The film also suffers from the casting of frosted blonde heroine Elvire Audray who seems impeccably made up but lacking in anything approaching expression.
I was supposedly watching a restored dvd print. However, it came with dubbed English voices as opposed to being a transfer/restoration of the original Italian language version. Moreover, it feels as though somebody has simply transferred a poor VHS copy and had done nothing to tidy up the grainy footage.
Sergio Martino was a veteran director in numerous genres of the Italian exploitation industry. He also made the genre likes of:- the gialloBlade of the Ripper (1971), They’re Coming to Get You (1972) about Satanists, the gialloTorso/The Body Bears Traces of Carnal Violence (1973), the cannibal film Slave of the Cannibal God/Prisoner of the Cannibal God (1978), The Great Alligator (1979), Isle of the Fishmen/Screamers (1981), the post-holocaust film 2019: After the Fall of New York (1983); the killer cyborg film Hands of Steel (1986); the action/psycho/fantasy film American Rickshaw (1989); and the gialloMozart is a Murderer (1999), as well as wrote Devilfish/Devouring Waves/Monster Shark/Red Ocean (1984).
