Knife Of Ice (1972) ***
Umberto Lenzi's fourth and final collaboration with Carroll Baker, Knife Of Ice (1972), is a solid thriller that plays more like a 60s Bava giallo than the more grisly efforts that flooded Italian cinemas the same year. It's reminiscent of Fulci's Don't Torture A Duckling, which was released a few months later, albeit much tamer in terms of gore.
KOI begins with an actual bullfight that is brutal, difficult to watch, plays out far longer than it needs to, and is in fact not necessary at all, in this viewer's opinion. The film would work just fine without it—outside of flashing back to this opening very briefly later on, it serves no purpose to the story. It's a shame because the rest of the film is good and actually pretty old fashioned—virtually bloodless and bereft of sex. But that doesn't hurt the film, which features Baker as a mute woman with a tragic past living with her uncle in a Spanish villa. Despite the lack of dialogue, this might just be the best Baker performance of her collabs with Lenzi.
I like that KOI has a different feel and approach than the other Lenzi/Baker pairings, but it's my least favorite of the four for various reasons—the cinematography isn't as exciting, nor the score (though it's still pretty good), the supporting cast is just "fine," and the film is kind of slow. The elements it infuses to attempt to spice things up (such as Satanists) just aren't handled in a way that makes them enticing. But I will say it has a great twist ending (which I won't spoil) that I somehow didn't see coming (just before it happened I thought the twist was something different, which I'm not sure was intentional—impossible to describe without spoilers). All in all though, not a bad film to round out the Lenzi/Baker cycle.
You can find my Giallo Feature Films Ranked list here.
KOI begins with an actual bullfight that is brutal, difficult to watch, plays out far longer than it needs to, and is in fact not necessary at all, in this viewer's opinion. The film would work just fine without it—outside of flashing back to this opening very briefly later on, it serves no purpose to the story. It's a shame because the rest of the film is good and actually pretty old fashioned—virtually bloodless and bereft of sex. But that doesn't hurt the film, which features Baker as a mute woman with a tragic past living with her uncle in a Spanish villa. Despite the lack of dialogue, this might just be the best Baker performance of her collabs with Lenzi.
I like that KOI has a different feel and approach than the other Lenzi/Baker pairings, but it's my least favorite of the four for various reasons—the cinematography isn't as exciting, nor the score (though it's still pretty good), the supporting cast is just "fine," and the film is kind of slow. The elements it infuses to attempt to spice things up (such as Satanists) just aren't handled in a way that makes them enticing. But I will say it has a great twist ending (which I won't spoil) that I somehow didn't see coming (just before it happened I thought the twist was something different, which I'm not sure was intentional—impossible to describe without spoilers). All in all though, not a bad film to round out the Lenzi/Baker cycle.
You can find my Giallo Feature Films Ranked list here.
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