"La morte..." has all the ingredients of a horror movie, but isn't one. It tells the story of Corringa (Jane Birkin) who arrives at a castle to meet her relatives. Soon after, several people are murdered, and the only witness is a cat - who unfortunately cannot tell anything, but is mentioned in the movie title, anyway ;-). Tales about vampires are told, candles are flickering, Corringa has strange nightmares, while rats discover another corpse in the dark cellar - you get the picture, it's as gothic as gothic can be. Director Margheriti ("E Dio disse a Caino") and cinematographer Carlini ("Ercole alla conquista di Atlantide") shared the same stylistic obsession, it seems. The castle is full of scary details, and they put it to the best use. One direct quote from "Once Upon A Time In the West", unexpectedly, with Hiram Keller and Jane Birkin replaying Henry Fonda and Claudia Cardinale, try if you can discover it. This little-known movie was a pleasant surprise for me, as I have watched a couple of really bad movies from the same director (but good ones, too). "La morte..." has atmosphere, tension, baroque visuals. It's got a lot more in common with Hammer Draculas than the usual 70s Italian slasher flicks.

A ravenous beast alllegedly slaughters people in a small Scottish village. And at a nearby castle appear more murdered bodies, and suspects fall upon the inhabitants. At the mysterious castle arrives a young student, Jane Birkin, to find her mother. As the strange residents are haunted by a bizarre curse involving a rare cat and a killer gorilla. Who is the murderer.. ...perhaps a suspicious servant : Luciano Pigozzi nicknamed Allan Collins or the Italian Peter Lorre, a strange young : Hiram Keller, a lecherous doctor : Anton Driffing , a priest : Franco Ressel, a beautiful girl : Doris Kunstmann, or Lady Alicia : Dana Ghia, or Father Robertson : Venantino Venantini. Later on, a police inspector, Serge Gainsbourgh-in real life married to Jane Birkin- investigates the weird deeds. Death means nothing to the beast with nine lives.This flick reveals a little known fact about felines.

Terror movie based on a novel by Peter Bryan, in which mingles ordinary Italian Giallo with Gothic horror, taking parts here and there of these genres. Creepy movie packs thrils, chills, eerie details , baroque scenarios , gore and blood. The plot is plain and simple, in a small Scottish village terrible killed corpses keep showing up, and suspicion falls on the residents of a nearby chateau. This is a very dark tale of killings with a fantastic horror backdrop and so-so filmmaking from Anthony M Dawson. It stars the beautiful Jane Birkin, she is well-suited for the role of a young girl who finds horrible happenings. Adequate cinematography by Carlo Carlini, shot on location in Castello Massimo Arsoli, Rome and Incir de Paolis, Rome, Lazio. And frightening and thrilling musical score by the prolific Riz Ortalani.

The motion picture was professionally directed by terror expert Antonio Margheritti, though it displays some failures and flaws. Antonio often used pseudonym Anthony M Dawson, he was born in Italy 1930 and passed away in 2002 . Italian writer director of horror and exploitation films, a former university engineering student who began shooting in 1956. Antonio directs with ordinary aplomb and being especially known for films as Yor, Virus and Horror castle. He was specialist in model-making, optical effects , FX, miniature as floods, scale models and explosions . He directed all kinds of genres such as wartime :The last hunter, Tornado, Codename Wild geese, Der Commander, Command Leopard . SCIFi :War of planets , Planet of the prowl, Criminal of the galaxy, Yor the hunter from the future, Treasure planet . Spaghetti Western as Joko, Dynamite Joe, The stranger and the gunfighter, Take a hard ride, Ghosts go west, Joe implacable, God said to Cain. Terror as Virgin of Nuremberg, Cannibal Apocalypse, Alien from deep, Flesh for Frankenstein. Action :Operation Goldman, Indio, The squeeze, Cyberflic. Rating :5.5/10. Acceptable and passable.

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 sweet feline who gets to witness (along with the audience) the film's string of gore murders...