One of the worst movies I've ever seen

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Convincing an audience that a cuddly, furry ginger cat is any kind of arbiter of doom was never going to be easy, but 'Seven Deaths' makes a good, er, stab at it.Jane Birkin plays Corringa, who we first see returning to her family home: a splendid, Gothic castle in the highlands of Scotland. Here, she is reunited with her neurotic mother, salacious uncle, and petulant cousin. And a wandering orangutan.Serge Gainsberg, 41, and Birkin, 23 collaborated in 1969 on the controversial hit single 'Je t'aime... moi non plus' (originally written for and sung with Brigitte Bardot). Here, Serge briefly plays the Police Inspector; it is strange to see him dubbed with a think Scottish accent. For an Italian film set in a small Scottish village, however, results could have been far less convincing. This leads me to continue my belief that as a genre, giallo films are consistently well made. Having said that, this is somewhat less satisfying than others I have seen.The ape seems merely a reference to Edgar Allen Poe, as is the idea of a cat somehow orchestrating/influencing dark events. Both animal-related concepts pretty much disappear some way into the story anyway.The ending is also reliant on the unmasked villain gloating and explaining the plot, and his part in it, which is something these kind of films don't often feel the need to resort to.

Here's yet another bizarre movie from Italian director Antonio Margheriti, made with funding and actors from both France and West Germany. Margheriti - who co-wrote the film, basing it partly on a novel by Peter Bryan - throws a hodge-podge of ideas and clichés into the movie making for an unconventional mix. On one hand, the film is a very old-fashioned old dark house mystery, with a group of interesting characters being assembled and picked off one by one for no known reason. All it lacks is the reading of a will to be complete.If you look at it from a different angle, this film is a throwback to Margheriti's early '60s Gothic horror movies like CASTLE OF BLOOD, what with the spooky old castle setting and lots of atmospheric trips through midnight graveyards, torch-lit cellars, dank tombs, and secret passages in the crumbling walls. You can almost feel the atmosphere drip from the screen in some cases. The film is littered with horror clichés, from the rotting rat-eaten corpse hidden in a back passage to empty broken coffins to heavy groaning noises in the dark and surprise attacks by bats and other assorted creatures of the night. The village superstitions are there too, with lots of mumbo-jumbo talk about vampiric family curses and the like, although it's plain that the killer in this film is strictly human. Bizarrely, someone also decided to throw a caged killer gorilla into the bubbling stew, purchased by one of the characters from a passing circus (!), which keeps escaping to play peekaboo at the windows and scare our pretty young heroine. It's like watching some cheesy '40s Monogram quickie all over again.Finally, and most strongly, the film is a gory giallo, in which the leading protagonists are killed off one by one by a mystery assailant whose identity is kept secret until the surprise finale. The script is littered with red herrings to keep you guessing as to his or her identity which makes for one confusing viewing experience. The film is quite violent for the time, with blood splattering on nearby walls during the murder sequences and lots of shots of mutilated corpses, although these now seem quite tame in a modern day light. And on top of all this, Margheriti throws in touches of humour and self-referencing to keep the audience on its feet.The acting is typical of the genre, the dubbing pretty good for a change. Jane Birkin is the pretty but vacant young heroine who is no Barbara Steele but quite cute in her own way. The various supporting characters are a clichéd mixed bunch, including a sinister doctor with his own hidden agenda (played by genre favourite Anton Diffring, great as ever), a priest, two old ladies, a prostitute, and an unlucky coachman who gets his throat slit with a straight-razor. Being an early '70s movie, there's also a fair amount of sex and sleaze thrown into the brew to keep it simmering nicely. The music is almost unnoticeable while the camera-work at times disorientating and annoying, but SEVEN DEATHS IN A CAT'S EYE is a worthwhile watch for Italian fans as a film which throws just about everything but the kitchen sink into the story - and remains consistently entertaining, despite the slow pacing, as a result of it. Remember to keep an eye out for that cool feline who gets to witness (along with the audience) the film's string of gore murders...

Seven Deaths... is less a giallo and more of an Old Dark House chiller of the British sort, though an Italian film. The basic premise has a surprisingly old schoolgirl returning to "the castle" to see her mother and other strange family members. There's a fortune to be had here, if only the right people would stop being alive. So, one by one, characters are picked off, usually with a straight razor to the neck. Unfortunately, the death scenes use that nauseating technicolor red paint for blood instead of something more realistic. That really kills the mood. You have several red herrings here as usual and the end comes out of left field, as is the usual tactic in gialli. Among the killers you may suspect, there is James, the cousin of Coringa the schoolgirl. He's an annoying Emo of the Lord Byron set who you immediately want to be the next to fall under the blade as soon as you meet him. Then there's the caretakers who may or may not know more about the castle and its history than they let on. James's mother, who is a real piece of work, and her sexual powerhouse of an older doctor gentleman who also has a go with the French tutor. Oh, did I forget to mention the animal star of our film? Yes, I forgot about the other James......The Gorilla! Why is there a gorilla in this film, you might ask? Well, no one is really sure as he serves no obvious purpose other than unintentional comedy relief since he's just a guy in a bad ape suit. Actually, I as referring to our fat cat friend, Garfield, who seems to always pop up at the right time for the killer to strike. There's also some mumbo jumbo about a local legend and vampires, but there's no vampires anywhere to be found here. Though you will see a few bats(and not just the old bats that wear fine dresses). The directing is above average, with many peeping tom/voyeur shots from around corners and behind tombstones, which is always enjoyable. The music is your typical old dark British chiller, with plenty of musical stabs sounding off right when ladies put their hands to their brows and faint. The film is dubbed, badly in many places, and sometimes the dubbing is totally absent and you get subtitles. Not sure what's going on there. Set in what is supposed to be a Scottish castle, you don't get to many exterior shots of the place, but the interior is very sumptuous with all the typical Gothic trappings you'd expect to find in a film of this sort. The kill scenes are rather ho-hum, so don't expect much there. But, if you like secret passages and whodunits, then you'll probably feel at home.

Quite standard Spaghetti slasher is nowhere near excellent, but also too far from awful to merit serious critical assault. The usual Gothic castle goings-on are given no special treatment here, and the psycho-killer's carnage is strictly PG on the shocks and gore board. This film is, moreover, surprisingly atmospheric. The mossy, rustic exterior of the castle, as well as its rich baroque antique decorum, make for a great looking European horror setting. Too bad, though, that the film never really gains much momentum...I found myself looking around the room after the first 30 minutes. Fortunately, the fairly intense closing scenes make up heartily for these shortcomings.SEVEN DEATHS is a watchable enough seventy-odd minutes, but if you're an unwaning viewer of connate movies, then chances are you've seen all this done before, and probably more successfully.*** Were they feeding that cat bacon-wrapped tater-tots or something? That thing was a freakin' tank!5/10