disgusting, overrated, pointless

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Set in London a beautiful woman experiences shocking nightmares of sex and murder involving her neighbour and it's not long before the latter is indeed murdered. I've been familiar with the films of Italian director Lucio Fulci since I saw his House by the Cemetery in around 1990, then progressed to Zombie Flesh Eaters, The Beyond, New York Ripper, etc, but I have just watched Lizard for the first time. Wow! Yes, I have seen Don't Torture A Duckling, another early giallo, but with Lizard I feel that I have seen Fulci at his best. Like many of his films there's plenty of sex and very graphic gore here (apparently they had to prove that they didn't use real dogs in a scene that shows them live, cut open with their hearts & guts still pumping by producing the effects in court). But Fulci also demonstrates great skill in making an incredibly beautiful and stylish giallo movie, coupled with an Ennio Morricone score. Plenty of critics have denounced Fulci for his output of sex and gore but Lizard proves that he was much more than just that.

"Lizard in a Woman's Skin" is part giallo whodunit, part striking, hallucinatory nightmare. Only one of these parts in successful.Those who have had to suffer through some of Fulci's later garbage such as "City of the Living Dead", "Manhattan Baby" or "The Beyond" might be surprised to find that he could actually direct. The dream sequences are filled with startling imagery made all the more striking for their auteurism. Who could forget the dissected canines? Even the giallo parts, the "real" aspect of the movie, feature inventive camera angles that take you by surprise.But when the movie leaves the dreams behind, as it must, we are left with a not terribly interesting mystery. I didn't much care who did it, and the ending scenes, where we are supposed to be surprised, and kept guessing, by sudden revelations, felt needlessly drawn out and tiresome.Who did do it? I wasn't paying attention.The movie has some nudity, and a stabbing during a lesbian liaison. We only see the stabbing, not the bit before.

"Lizard In A Woman's Skin" is a film that has developed, over the years, a cult reputation as being one of the very best Lucio Fulci films, an opinion shared especially among those who prefer Fulci's less gory films (not that there aren't some very graphic scenes here, but they are few in number). It is a reputation that the film mostly lives up to. It's very stylishly shot around London (BTW, Fulci seems to have invented the "you-are-there / shaky-cam" style long before it became fashionable), the story is unpredictable and loaded with red herrings, and the cast is unusually competent for the genre - Florinda Bolkan may very well be the best giallo actress of them all (she's great to look at as well, and so are the other women in the film). But the film also drags at times, and the opening 10 minutes in particular come dangerously close to Jess Franco territory. Overall I think Fulci's later mystery "Seven Notes In Black" is superior to this one; I'll also have to watch "Don't Torture A Duckling" one of these days. **1/2 out of 4.P.S. Although the film appears to have been shot in English, the Italian version actually sounds more natural!

Though Fulci had flirted with violence before (1966's brutal western MASSACRE TIME and 1969's pessimistic medieval family drama BEATRICE CENCI), LIZARD represents his first venture into hardcore gore.Intended as one of hundreds of cash-ins on the then-popular giallo thrillers popularised by Dario Argento's THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE, LIZARD isn't only Fulci's best movie by a mile - yes, I WOULD include in that statement THE BEYOND, ZOMBIE or DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING, all of which have slow spots that LIZARD doesn't - it's on an equal with anything Dario Argento ever did. Indeed, Argento's SUSPIRIA, the maestro's most well-known movie, borrows several touches and ideas from this movie.Carol Hammond (Bolkan) is a born-into-privilege London woman who has a lawyer husband (Sorel), an aspiring politician father (Genn), and a lush flat in Belgravia. She also has a tendency to suffer repeated weird/violent/sexual fantasies concerning her slutty next-door neighbour (Strindberg). When the woman turns up dead in exactly the same way Carol describes to her psychiatrist (Rigaud) in one of her dreams, all the evidence points straight to her. But the smart Inspector Corvin of Scotland Yard (Baker) doesn't think the case is quite as simple as it appears. When a red-haired hippie, who was also an important part of Carol's dream, shows up for real, it seems that the good detective does have a point. Meanwhile, Carol's state of mind is worsening quickly, with dreams involving the rotten corpses of family members, swarms of bats, and a hostile giant swan...Few films use London locations as well as this one does, and Fulci demonstrates a talent and virtuosity that he'd never achieve again, even though he'd work with much of the same crew on later movies. I won't go into how Fulci squandered his talent on absolute crap later on (his post-1982 career demonstrates very little that's of interest), but watching this side-by-side with something like AENIGMA or TOUCH OF DEATH, you wouldn't believe they were done by the same guy! Good acting helps also, with Bolkan's paranoid 'heroine', Baker's sarcastic chain-smoking detective, and Genn's stuffy father in particular standing out - it's a shame this would be one of the last movies for the latter two, both long since deceased. Sorel is under-used, as is Anita Strindberg, though Fulci has the good sense and taste to ensure she's naked for most of her role.The gore is used sparingly, but it's extremely well-achieved (apart from this movie, Fulci's movies do tend to have very unconvincing gore FX), though most of it was snipped out of many prints of the movie, chiefly the entire 'notorious slit-open dogs sequence', and close-ups of a knife whacking into Strindberg's tit. So was a lot of sex and nudity, including a neat split-screen edit between a drug-fuelled orgy and a mechanically formal yuppie supper.Other pluses include Luigi Kuvellier's exceptional camera-work, which showcases some great shots and angles, Vincenzo Tomassi's superb editing, and one of Ennio Morricone's best and most varied all-round scores.If there are any flaws, they're only teething ones, but the film does maintain interest throughout and it's safe to say that everything that does happen in this movie has some kind of relevance. The last third does tend to bog down slightly, with a bit too much reliance on psychoanalysis and the disproving of alibis. But Fulci has actually created a genuinely effective suspense movie, and the dream scenes and chase through Alexandra Palace in particular, are among the best moments in European thriller cinema.Even in its cut version released in the States, it garnished good reviews but was unseen for many years. For Fulci's true vision, only uncut and widescreen does the film the justice it deserves.