I saw this as a kid and decided to revisit it as an adult. I'll say it definitely has more impact one me as an adult because I've lived through the mess of a girlfriend having an ex-boyfriend's head in the freezer. Uh, I mean, I am more mature and can understand the psychology of the film better. I barely remembered most of it with the car crash having the most impact on my brain cells. It still packs a wallop and Zinny is indeed one of the creepiest kids to grace Italian cinema from that era. The shot of her half smiling, half grimacing during the dinner scene is really good. What really stood out for me this time was, as Mark mentioned, Stanko Molnar's performance. He is really, really good in this. I also love the trumpet customer who knows no bounds when it comes to inappropriate talk. Like Neil Jordan's THE CRYING GAME, this takes on a completely different tone when you know the film's secret. I got a good laugh when Molnar comes to invite Stegers to dinner and she says, "Uh, I'm busy tonight."

Mario Bava's son Lamberto made his solo directorial debut with this semi-horror flick based on some grisly events in New Orleans. In this case, a woman (Bernice Stegers) sees her extramarital lover decapitated, and then starts carrying on the grossest affair imaginable. Throughout much of the movie, its a little hard to tell where the movie's going, but the last ten minutes expose the ugly truth. "Macabro" (or just plain "Macabre", depending on which language you want to use) should be pretty edifying for any Euro-horror fan - there are the required scenes of the woman's big breasts (and even more of her) - but it takes a long time to get really comprehensible. Also starring Stanko Molnar and Veronica Zinny.

The DVD includes an interview with Lamberto Bava explaining how the movie came about. It was in fact based on a true story that happened in New Orleans (although they filmed most of the movie in their native Italy); it's hard to imagine how some of this stuff could have been real, but I'll believe it. Mario Bava attended the premier, and after watching it, said "Now I can die in peace."; two months later, he passed away. Veronica Zinny, who played the daughter, apparently never starred in another movie.

IMDb lists the movie's language as Italian, but it looked like they were speaking English with no dubbing (then again, maybe movies have gotten better with dubbing). It's worth seeing, if only once.

I wonder whether or not they noticed that Stanko Molnar's character had the same name as the actor who Tom in the "Godfather" movies.

Unhappily married New Orleans resident Jane Baker (superbly played by gorgeously voluptuous brunette knockout Bernice Stegers of "Xtro" fame) has a steamy adulterous affair with hunky Fred Kellerman (a brief, but solid appearance by Roberto Posse). Kellerman gets gruesomely decapitated in a freak car accident. Jane moves into a boarding house with handsome, smitten young blind landlord Robert Duval (an excellent performance by Stanko Molnar) after spending a year in an asylum. Moreover, she continues to remain intimate with Kellerman's severed head. Director Lamberto Bava, who also co-wrote the compact and incisive script (the story is based on a real-life event!),expertly crafts a moody, deliberately paced and character-driven low-key oddball horror tale which serves as a poignant and provocative cinematic meditation on love and obsession. The uniformly aces acting from a fine cast rates as a substantial plus, with especially praiseworthy turns by Stegers, Molnar, Posse, Veronica Zinny as Jane's bratty, snoopy, deranged daughter (she drowns her own little brother in a bathtub early in the movie in a truly shocking and disturbing scene),and Ferdinando Pannullo as Jane's bitter ex-husband. Franco Delli Colli's smooth, elegant cinematography, Ubaldo Continiello's cool, mellow, jazzy score, a flavorsome New Orleans atmosphere, and the admirably tasteful and restrained handling of the delicate subject of necrophilia further enhance the overall sterling quality of this compellingly strange picture. Marred only by an unfortunate tacky cheap scare ending, but that minor quibble aside still highly recommended and well worth checking out for fright feature fans who want to see something fresh, unusual and original.