If you read the Wikipedia page for this movie, you’ll see that the director hated it to the point of having his name removed, it was a box office flop, and it generally was received negatively by critics.

And I can confirm: Yep! That’s all correct, it’s a bad movie. As I’m watching any movie, I take little notes so I can remember what I was thinking at a particular moment; I don’t put a lot of thought into them, because they’re just supposed to be little reminders to my future self about a thing that might make it into my write-up. My notes for this movie:

  • In Ireland not Italy
  • Stupid plot
  • Didn’t make sense
  • Incoherent throughout
  • People do nonsense things for no reason

So, yeah, at four separate times during this movie, I was moved to take out my phone and write a little note that the thing made no sense at all, due to how it doesn’t. And like, not in a cool way like Suspiria where you’re like “why is there a room full of barbed wire in this ballet school?” but in the boring way where you’re like “why is the guy who was driving a car with a dead body in the trunk not being immediately arrested? And why is an ambulance taking that dead body away even though the cops haven’t been called yet?” and none of those questions have any answers.

And usually if a giallo doesn’t make sense, there’s a cool aesthetic or stylish characters to make up for it, but not here. See that first note about how it’s in Ireland, and not Italy? My theory is that gialli need to be made in Italy to feel like proper gialli — they need the intensity of Italians, the high style and beauty of Italy. Something set in Dublin or in a sedate country house, with British actors, just can’t give you that true giallo feel. There’s probably a counter-example to this theory, but it’s not here.

The title is cool, though.