Eyeball

Eyeball, aka Gatti rossi in un labirinto di vetro, or red cats in a glass maze, is a 1975 film directed by exploitation kingpin Umberto Lenzi, infamous for Nightmare City and Cannibal Ferox.

A Spanish/Italian production set among the tourist destinations of Barcelona. Little is made of the city’s landmarks, and Lenzi, who is known for his lack of urgency, directs this pedestrian giallo with little flair or tension. Even the usually reliable Bruno Nicolai struggles to get past a cocktail lounge musical backdrop, with only brief flashes of his usual high-end scoring.

With a hard-boiled detective counting the days until he can go trout fishing, it is his younger protege who is left to ask all the pertinent questions. “Are you saying the killer is a sadist?” “I wouldn’t rule it out,” comes the reply.

With all this talk of trout fishing, Lenzi lays enough red herrings to fill a fish market with misdirection and the usual highlighting of individuals as possible suspects. The killer donning scarlet gloves and a red raincoat is certainly unusual, and a penchant for removing the right eyeball of their victims is certainly a novelty that somehow becomes apparent at the end, with little of it making any sense.

One for the giallo completist.