While Lucio Fulci is able to unleash some of the most graphic, sensual, and visceral imagery of his career in “A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin,” the screenplay and its execution ultimately hold the film back.
Carol Hammond (Florinda Bolkan) is a sexually dissatisfied wife experiencing dreams and hallucinations of having sexual encounters with her neighbor Julian Durer (Anita Strindberg), a hippie and uninhibited party person. She has a recurring dream in which she runs through a crowd of drugged-out, naked men and women having sex before finally ending up in bed with Julian. A therapist explains to Carol that her dream is rooted in her conflicting feelings of envy and disapproval of Julian’s free-spirited lifestyle. Carol is a rich woman married to Frank (Jean Sorel), a lawyer at the firm run by her father, Edmund Brighton (Leo Genn), also a lawyer and a politician. There is a scene early in the film that begins with a split screen showing Carol and her family having dinner (on the right) and a wild party happening at Julia’s house (on the left). As the split-screen ends, Julian starts touching herself, and the camera immediately cuts to Carol’s face, indicating some telepathic connection between them, as if Carol can feel what Julian is experiencing. The scene again shifts to a split-screen of Carol (alone this time) and people partying, implying that Carol is thoroughly immersed in the party even if she is not physically present. Only when she hears her name does she snap out of her state, and the split-screen merges into one. The scene’s rapid editing and expert cinematography do an excellent job of introducing Carol’s character and her innermost desires. One night, Carol has another dream about Julian, but this time she murders her with a paper knife. The next day, Julian is discovered dead in her apartment, just as Carol foresaw in her dream. As the investigation begins, Carol quickly becomes the prime suspect in the murder, posing questions like, “Will she be able to prove her innocence?” And “Who is the real murderer?”
Lucio Fulci and his cinematographer Luigi Kuveiller (who also shot Dario Argento’s Deep Red and worked with prominent directors like Michelangelo Antonioni, Elio Petri, and many others) craft the dream sequences with visual mastery, as they are hypnotic, phantasmagoric, and brilliantly portray Carol’s claustrophobic state of mind. In one scene, Carol is having a hallucination (or not) of being attacked by a red-haired man. As she tries to escape, she dashes into a room full of live dogs, clamped upright, with their intestines sticking out and their beating hearts clearly visible. The imagery of live dogs hanging felt so real that it got Lucio Fulci into legal trouble, as he came very close to serving a two-year jail sentence for animal cruelty. He was exonerated only after special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi testified in court that the dogs used were props rather than live animals.
The film’s storyline includes both a psychological and a thriller angle, but Fulci fails to strike a balance between the two in his execution. As the film develops, it almost abandons its psychological perspective to focus on the thriller element, weakening Carol’s character. Even though Fulci does a commendable job by having the audience try to guess who the killer is, the undercooked psychological angle harms the film, especially the final twist, which could have been better if the characterization of Carol had been appropriately handled by delving deep into her personality. Alfred Hitchcock excelled at this by perfectly balancing psychological and criminal aspects in films such as Spellbound (1945) and Marnie (1964).
The film also suffers from weak supporting characters, particularly Officer Corvin (Stanley Baker), who could have been a charismatic, free-spirited, and cool officer probing the case. Instead, he comes across as an obnoxious individual who whistles frequently for no apparent reason and at awkward times during the film. The Lizard in a Woman’s Skin is not as good as Fulci’s other Giallo films, such as Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972), The New York Ripper (1982), or The Psychic (1977), but it has its moments and highlights Lucio Fulci’s talent as a director.
A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin movie link: IMDB
For more movie reviews and recommendations, visit our homepage
1970s 2023 Action Adventure alfred hitchcock black and white Buddy Comedy classic movies Crime criterion collection denzel washington Drama free movies on youtube French movies Gangster Giallo great films Horror indian movies lucio fulci Mystery Neo noir netflix netflix movies new movies Noir Paul Verhoeven Period Drama police procedural political thriller Psychological thriller Revenge reviews Sci-Fi Slasher Spy movies supernatural suspense the psychic Thriller Tony Scott toshiro mifune war Western whodunit