The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972)

Watching a certain breed of Euro-Sleaze thriller is like playing a game of chess with the directors who were behind them. After several lengthy moves -- some strategic, others brazen, while others daftly stupid --  you've spent the whole game / film keeping track of the pawns (the victims), rooks (the red herrings), bishops (the bumbling police force) and errant knights (the protagonist), shifting around the checkered field, trying to make heads or tails out of what your opponent is trying to show you. But this often -- if not always -- proves an exercise in utter futility.

For in the end, when we reach the climax of the movie, the director tends to put his finger on his own king and leverages the board into tipping over, scattering the other remaining pieces, then rights it, takes his finger off the wobbly but still standing king and declares himself the winner. It’s a twist, sure, but it’s also a big old cheat and completely unfair to those playing along and trying to pay attention.

Luckily, Emilio Miraglia’s The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (alias La dama rossa uccide sette volte, 1972) plays fair and keeps the chessboard level. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it made complete sense by any means -- well, sort of; and once again, like with The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (alias La notte che Evelyn uscì dalla tomba, 1971), his actresses are all ringers for each other, but at least the five-car twist pile-up at the end wasn’t a cheat as we find out who was behind the killer’s mask all along.

Here, Miraglia really finds a proper balance between Mario Bava’s old school chills in Blood and Black Lace (alias Sei donne per l'assassino, 1964) and the sensuous violence of Dario Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plummage (alias L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo, 1970).

We begin in the past, where two feuding sisters, Kitty and Evelyn, get a time-out from dismembering each others dolls long enough for Grandpa Wildenbrück (Schündler) to explain a macabre painting that relates to a centuries old family curse involving two sisters known as the Red and Black Queen.

Seems the Red Queen was killed (-- more like put down as one would a rabid canine); but according to the legend, she rose from the dead and killed seven people in the Wildenbrück circle. AND! This curse appears to be hereditary as it cycles around every 100 years or so, with two more sisters coming under the homicidal influence, with seven more people killed to mark the deadly anniversary. AND! This curse is due to strike again in ten years time in 1972.

We warp ahead, then, only to find out Kitty (Bouchet) kinda jumped the gun on the curse, having accidentally killed Evelyn (Guido) during one hellacious cat-fight. And with the help of her older sister, Francesca (Malfatti), and her husband, Herbert (Korda), they cover-up the crime, hiding the body in a secret chamber deep in the bowels of the family castle, and convince everyone else that their sister moved to America.

But this help comes at a price as Kitty must forfeit any claim to the family fortune once their grandfather finally kicks the bucket. And this he does, helped along the way by a mysterious woman in a red cloak, who looks a lot like Evelyn, and who, essentially, frightens him to death.

But at the reading of the will, there’s a snag as the old man’s final instructions prevent any disbursement until 1973, when the Red Queen curse has officially passed and put to bed for another 100 years. Meanwhile, the same Lady in Red starts slashing her way through Kitty’s colleagues and business associates at a modeling agency. And while all evidence, motive, and eye-witnesses accounts point to Evelyn being the Red Queen, we all know that’s impossible, right? Right.

Sure, there are other suspects, including Kitty’s boyfriend (Pagliai), his estranged wife currently secluded in an insane asylum, and a bevy of models (-- including a young Sybil Danning); but these red-herrings have a tendency to get bumped-off just as each come under suspicion.

And as we barrel toward the climax, there’s some last second revelations on some precautions Grandpa Wildenbrück took to derail the curse before it struck again, meaning someone wasn’t who we thought, and points the finger at the real culprit, who in turn was being manipulated by someone else looking not just for a bigger piece of the inheritance but the whole pie.

This, in turn, leads to one helluva climax that involves Kitty being lured and locked in the castle basement that is currently being flooded as part of the killer’s wild endgame. Now, some clumsy editing nearly short-circuits everything but this is overcome by the ambitious nature of the scene, that presciently plays out like the climax of Stuart Rosenberg’s The Drowning Pool (1975), as the door is forced open by the water pressure, saving Kitty but wiping out nearly all of her rescuers in the resulting deluge.

A pre-Golan and Globus Cannon Films imported a dubbed version of The Red Queen, releasing it as Blood Feast, not to be confused with Herschell Gordon Lewis' Blood Feast (1963). It played on a double bill with Joel Reed's Blood Bath (1975), not to be confused with Jack Hill / Stephanie Rothman's Blood Bath (1968), which was cobbled together from the Yugoslavian film Operation Titian (1966). 

When I first bought Arrow Film’s Killer Dames boxset I was under the impression that I hadn't seen either Miraglia featured film before. Turns out that was only half true as The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave rang a few bells and I finally traced it to a severely truncated and even more nonsensical version seen on TV, back when our NBC affiliate used to rotate it and Bava’s The Whip and The Body (alias La frusta e il corpo, 1963) under its alternate title of What! every other Sunday night after the news in the late 1970s.

As always, Arrow Film throws in an incredible package of extras, including commentaries and interviews with several actors and the films' production designer, and a couple of featurettes where an expert is brought in to help the audience decipher what they just watched, making the whole package well worth your time.

And while there were a couple of nifty and effective set-pieces (-- especially when 'Evelyn' actually came out of the grave), of the two films I found The Red Queen Kills Seven Times ran circles around it’s co-feature, thanks in most part to a more likeable cast; the addition of Alberto Spagnoli as cinematographer, who really energizes Miraglia’s set-ups and maximizes the German locations; and a hideously infectious score courtesy of Bruno Nicolai. Watch and boggle, Fellow Programs. And keep your eyes on the board! That Red Queen is @#%*ing crazy!

Originally posted on May 27, 2016, at Micro-Brewed Reviews.

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972) Phoenix Cinematografica :: Romano Film G.M.B.H. :: Traian Boeru :: Cannon Film Distributors / P: Elio Di Pietro / D: Emilio Miraglia / W: Fabio Pittorru, Emilio Miraglia / C: Alberto Spagnoli / E: Romeo Ciatti / M: Bruno Nicolai / S: Barbara Bouchet, Ugo Pagliai, Marina Malfatti, Marino Masé, Rudolf Schündler, Pia Giancaro, Sybil Danning