Popular reviews

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  Review by Ian West ★★★★ 3

  Conspiracies, murder, double crosses, and a nice little haunted house vibe in a creepy villa... Four people, one inheritance. 

  Libido is notable for being one of the first post Bava/pre Argento gialli, a small time frame filled with delightfully pulpy genre jams that kinda fall through the cracks when talking about the genre—but with that said, this 60’s giallo feels more 70’s... and that erotic thriller haunted house mystery vibe is to die for. Psychosexual in nature, Libido boasts a small (and effective) cast, solid suspense with plenty of genre tropes, and one hell of an ending—this thing never outstays it’s welcome and the direction from Gastaldi/Salerno is great! 

  Also, I cant not mention that this pervy little gem features the film debut of Giancarlo Giannini (who I love!).

  Don’t sleep on this one Giallio fans.

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  Review by Slig001 ★★★★ 1

  Fantastic early Giallo directed by prolific genre writer Ernesto Gastaldi and focusing primarily on the idea of childhood trauma. A young boy witnesses his father murder a blonde woman tied to a bed in a room full of mirrors. We then cut forward some twenty years and the boy is now a man, returning to the house on the eve of his inheritance. Libido really does a lot with very little. It's just four characters in a large house for the most part, but the film excels in terms of atmosphere. The small cast and single location gives it a very intense claustrophic feel. There's so much suspense generated from the central premise which is filled with psychosexual tension and…

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  Review by Dr. Ethan Lyon ★★★½ 15

  1st Ernesto Gastaldi, 1st Vittorio Salerno

  Watched with Amy! She's responsible for the new profile picture here, so please give her some love!*

  Libido is an interesting case in the giallo movement for the way it entirely discards a detective structure to focus on abnormal pathology and sexual neurosis, the other great bulwark of the grouping, making it resemble more the psychosexual chamber pieces of Lenzi and Martino (The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh comes to mind). True, what the film comes up with isn't exactly groundbreaking, but it manages to nevertheless make something intensely claustrophobic and remarkably Gothic.

  Indeed, you could well frame this as a modern Gothic chiller in the vein of The Long Hair of Death or…

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  Review by sakana1 ★★★½ 14

  I enjoyed the hell out of this. An early giallo, co-written and co-directed by Vittorio Salerno and prolific screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi (from a story idea from Gastaldi's wife Mara Maryl, who stars in the film), Libido was made in less than three weeks on a tiny budget, but it still manages to built both a fantastic atmosphere and impressive intensity.

  After an opening quote from Sigmund Freud about the word "libido," the film quickly shifts to a small boy, Christian, witnessing the murder by his father of a bound woman, in a mirrored room. The murder is shown in skewed, disorienting still photos that run behind the credits, with motion returning only as the father leaves the room, and a…

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  Review by Flynch ★★★★ 11

  Sexuelle Traumata, düstere Villa, unbekannter Killer, schwarze Handschuhe, eindringliche Musik………der quasi Proto-Giallo hat, trotz seiner sicherlich unspektakulären Art, viel mehr zu bieten als es scheint.
  Die Gothik-Atmosphäre der Villa, die visuellen Schlüsselelemente,  die spannend umgesetzte, psychologisch nicht mal so abwegige Geschichte des Gepeinigten, samt leichtem Overacting, und mit dem (vorallem für das Entstehungsjahr) äusserst fiesem Ende , all dies wird dem Connaisseur solcher Leckerbissen auf alle Fälle bestens munden. 
  Unter dem Motto forgotten films kann ich jedem nur empfehlen, sich auf die Suche nach diesem Schmankerl  (in HD ! ) zu machen und diesem Früh-Giallo eine Chance zu geben.

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  Review by Gentry ★★★★ 9

  “Mirrors everywhere! And a bed too!”

  Doing this film was an exhilarating, but very exhausting, adventure.
  —Ernesto Gastaldi, Severin interview, 2021

  A giallo is not a detective story, it is not a thriller, not a suspense movie, not a horror film. But it can be any one of these things and also all of these things rolled into one.
  —”What is a Giallo?” by Ernesto Gastaldi

  Jiminy Cricket! A penniless production, and a big gamble for producers Mino Loy and Luciano Martino in hiring proven writer, but unproven director, Ernesto Gastaldi, to helm a new type of thriller picture—one that mixed elements from the Italian gothic with those from dime-store murder mystery novels and featured slightly racier content as the…

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  Review by Soumajit Nath ★★★★

  Meow, Mara Maryl's Pussy Cat suits fine right there in her ass— it rules!

  An early giallo snack-pack that seems to be lost in crowds of genre's some of the best works in Italian cineworld. How cool it's that it exists right at that timeline, intermediate of emerging giallo works of Bava and Argento's and still it has it's own footprints to leave for— future international superstar Giancarlo Giannini in his first major role; Dominique Boschero's big boobs; Mara Maryl’s bubbly-ass flirtatious whore posing in world's best bikini adorned with smiling pussycats; a Freudian psychoanalysis for childhood trauma blends deeper in a genuine suspense of Hitchcockian blonde-villain thriller featuring double-crosser vamps; a sumptuous Italianate architecture, standing there right aside of…

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  Review by Matt Winfield 🇨🇦 ★★★★

  Psychosexual chiller crossed with some early giallo mystery vibes, taking place at a stunning seaside mansion full of shadowy gothic mystique. Gotta love that combo!

  Childhood trauma kicks this one off as a small boy witnesses his father kill a lady during some bedroom pain 'n pleasure playtime, so of course daddy takes a dive off the nearest cliff... or does he?! Anyways, it's many years later and the boy comes back home a mentally crippled man, looking to cash in and settle his old man's estate, face some demons from the past, while hoping his three partners are as good of friends as they promise. I'm sure greed won't get the better of them...

  Ernesto Gastaldi pens a tight…

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  Review by Ian Kemper ★★★½ 3

  One part Days of Our Lives, one part cigarette ad, one part glowing footprints from Scooby Doo , and another part bizarro-gaslighting-gialli-psychotherapy session. Like sands through the hourglass, these are the....well you get the gist, it's a bit melodramatic.

  Four souls enter a palatial estate: one an heir, another his executor, and a wife to each. The heir mere months from inheritance but with insanity near; his wife supporting, distant, and open eyed sleeps. The executor is shifty of intent, poor of intuition and long of tooth; his wife young, dumb and versed in hulu. Together the four come, for the assessment of an estate, lust, greed, love, and one's lament.

  Smoking pipe, rocking chair, smoke another cig. Flashback to…

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  Review by Adam Hursey ★★★★

  Giallo January 2023

  To be covered on the next episode of the Unsung Horrors podcast.

  A zippy little early giallo that leans into that Euro-gothic aesthetic we all know and love.

  Christian saw his father murder a woman during a bondage tryst, following which the father flings himself off of the conveniently located cliff in the backyard.

  Flash forward to three months prior to Christian's 25th birthday. Christian, his wife Helene, his guardian Paul, and his wife Brigitte, descend upon the estate to get things in order prior to Christian's coming of age and subsequent inheritance. Of course, if Christian is deemed insane, Paul inherits everything. Surely nothing could possibly go wrong.

  The best thing I can say about this…

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  Review by Gregor Kreyca ★★★½

  A very well-shot early Giallo with a touch of Gothic atmosphere written and directed by genre legend Ernesto Gastaldi. Severin released the film on Blu-ray in the U.S. and they did a good job with the restoration. If you enjoy the Umberto Lenzi/Carroll Baker Gialli from the late 60’s early 70’s you should definitely check this one out. Kat Ellinger's excellent audio commentary is also worth listening to.

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  Review by RanchoTuVu ★★★★

  A gothic inspired giallo driven by lust, greed, and trauma set in a mansion overlooking some steep cliffs and the sea. It deals with the memory of the main character played by Giancarlo Gianinni when he was still a young lad, of a dead woman he saw in one of the mansion's bedrooms as he climbed the stairway. Now that he's grown up, the mansion is about to be his, as he arrives there with his wife in one car, while the lawyer handling the inheritance and the lawyer's wife arrive in a second car to finalize the estate and do some partying, too. Two couples in this gothic mansion, and the chemistry becomes a mix of lust, intrigue, and…