I saw this for the first time recently. The poster looked cool n the review by Coventry regarding the gruesome kill made me see this boring giallo. The only redeeming factor is the hot babe Anita Strindberg, one of the first giallo queens. The babe had a unique chiseled face n sharp features n inspite of being very ectomorph (one can clearly see the breast bones rather than the cleavage),her face was really illecebrous. The film lacks suspense n tension n the weird naked dance n the dream sequence is laughable. The kills r forgettable except for the fatso's face.
Plot summary
Married couple Grace and Fred arrive in Haiti to heal their broken marriage. But complications arise when they connect with Fred's friend, Dr. Williams, who's created an in-demand new formula that sounds an awful lot like a forerunner to Viagra. Soon bodies start piling up on the island, and Grace finds herself succumbing to the lure of native flesh around her. As Grace becomes enamoured of the island's raw sensuality, her husband's real motivation for visiting the island becomes clear. Who will wind up in bed with whom, and how high will the body count go in between Grace's erotic acid trips?
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Check this forgettable giallo only for Anita Strindberg's chiseled illecebrous face n sharp features.
Traditional Yellow goes Tropical Black...
"Death in Haiti" is by no means a stellar or exceptional Giallo, but it's nevertheless a modest pioneer of some sort. Its release year was 1972, and that year is widely considered as the peak-performance for the Italian Giallo. In other words, up until 1972, and still even 2-3 years after, all Giallo writers and directors largely followed the proven success formula. It wasn't until after the mid-70s, when the popularly of these films started to decrease, that they began experimenting with filming locations outside of Italy or mixing typical Giallo plots with elements from other exploitation sub genres. Directors Giampaolo Lomi and Edoardo Mulgargia were among the first ones to take the authentically Italian concept abroad, evidently to Haiti in this case, and added the aspects of psychedelic drugs and traditional voodoo rituals. Who knows, maybe they just wanted to treat themselves to a tropic holiday destination, but at least they also grabbed the opportunity to make an enjoyable Giallo at the same time!
Co-writer Anthony Steffen, formerly a Spaghetti Western star, invented a nicely glamourous role for himself as the respected Doctor Williams; surgeon and businessman on the island of Haiti. He's always surrounded by rich, dubious and sleazy people because Williams also happens to have invented a powerful new drug. Grace, the beautiful blond wife of William's childhood buddy Fred can confirm the drug is quite efficient, because it causes her to hallucinate about dozens of naked black men and having sex with a voodoo priest! With drugs and money involved, it naturally doesn't take long before people are getting killed in various gruesome ways by an unseen assailant. The Haitian locations are beneficiary for the film, even though the obligatory tribal/voodoo dance rites are rather tedious and basically just form a cheap excuse to depict gratuitous nudity. Those gorgeous native Haitian girls obviously dance topless, or what else did you think? The genuine typical Giallo-whodunit plot is naturally the best thing about the film, and I must say there's a fair amount of mystery and suspense around the identity of the sadist killer. The extremely brutal murder taking place in an abattoir already makes "Death in Haiti" worth tracking down.
Unusual Giallo mixed up with Haitian voodoo rituals
A scientist invents a hallucinatory drug. Interest of different dubious people in this new drug lead to betrayal and murder.
This rather underrated and lesser known Italian thriller certainly has its flaws, nonetheless it belongs to the most innovative films of its genre that was booming in the early 1970s. Thanks to its fresh ideas packed in a traditional Giallo plot, it really stands out of the bulk, even though 1972 is probably the most Giallo-intense year ever. The most remarkable moments include feverish dream sequences that are erotic and nightmarish at the same time. The dreams are induced by similarly feverish Haitian voodoo rituals that feature mondo-style animal killing (there is also a non-ritualistic animal killing shown in a slaughterhouse - traces of social comment, obviously).
The erotic moments are more frequent and sensual than in the average Giallo, and they are very well done (as already mentioned, especially the dreams). The body count is also above average, and in the second half, the movie boosts some murders as creative as they are brutal. It also delivers elements of the spy film genre - drugs can always be sold for big money. And the climax is not necessarily Giallo-typical.
The leading cast consists of genre regulars: Anthony Steffen plays the inventive scientist and Gabriele Tinti the "hero"; Anita Strindberg is Grace, the woman with the unnerving dreams. On the other hand, the two directors are barely known and none of them made another Giallo (Edoardo Mulargia shot a few Westerns and some Women-in-Prison stuff, but nothing really significant).
AL TROPICO DEL CANCRO is not a masterpiece, but it's a sleeper of the genre with enough original and surprising elements to make it highly recommendable to the fans of the genre.