I like Black Panther, but I didn't like this movie.

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Best movie ever!

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Right genres, wrong melting pot. This giallo-ish, hammer horror-y hybrid starts out like it might be worth watching, but before long in come endless drawn out sequences of scared characters wailing about in poorly lit corridors and basements with an overbearing soundtrack that gets more annoying by the minute playing over everything too loudly. Soon I couldn't figure out what was going on any more, and didn't care any more either. There are a couple of decent bits including a nicely eerie dream sequence, but it's not enough to save it from also-ran 70's cut price b-movie mediocrity.The following year Anton Diffring would also star in the vaguely similar but vastly more entertaining werewolf/blaxploitation campfest The Beast Must Die.

Here's yet another bizarre movie from Italian director Antonio Margheriti, made with funding and actors from both France and West Germany. Margheriti - who co-wrote the film, basing it partly on a novel by Peter Bryan - throws a hodge-podge of ideas and clichés into the movie making for an unconventional mix. On one hand, the film is a very old-fashioned old dark house mystery, with a group of interesting characters being assembled and picked off one by one for no known reason. All it lacks is the reading of a will to be complete.If you look at it from a different angle, this film is a throwback to Margheriti's early '60s Gothic horror movies like CASTLE OF BLOOD, what with the spooky old castle setting and lots of atmospheric trips through midnight graveyards, torch-lit cellars, dank tombs, and secret passages in the crumbling walls. You can almost feel the atmosphere drip from the screen in some cases. The film is littered with horror clichés, from the rotting rat-eaten corpse hidden in a back passage to empty broken coffins to heavy groaning noises in the dark and surprise attacks by bats and other assorted creatures of the night. The village superstitions are there too, with lots of mumbo-jumbo talk about vampiric family curses and the like, although it's plain that the killer in this film is strictly human. Bizarrely, someone also decided to throw a caged killer gorilla into the bubbling stew, purchased by one of the characters from a passing circus (!), which keeps escaping to play peekaboo at the windows and scare our pretty young heroine. It's like watching some cheesy '40s Monogram quickie all over again.Finally, and most strongly, the film is a gory giallo, in which the leading protagonists are killed off one by one by a mystery assailant whose identity is kept secret until the surprise finale. The script is littered with red herrings to keep you guessing as to his or her identity which makes for one confusing viewing experience. The film is quite violent for the time, with blood splattering on nearby walls during the murder sequences and lots of shots of mutilated corpses, although these now seem quite tame in a modern day light. And on top of all this, Margheriti throws in touches of humour and self-referencing to keep the audience on its feet.The acting is typical of the genre, the dubbing pretty good for a change. Jane Birkin is the pretty but vacant young heroine who is no Barbara Steele but quite cute in her own way. The various supporting characters are a clichéd mixed bunch, including a sinister doctor with his own hidden agenda (played by genre favourite Anton Diffring, great as ever), a priest, two old ladies, a prostitute, and an unlucky coachman who gets his throat slit with a straight-razor. Being an early '70s movie, there's also a fair amount of sex and sleaze thrown into the brew to keep it simmering nicely. The music is almost unnoticeable while the camera-work at times disorientating and annoying, but SEVEN DEATHS IN A CAT'S EYE is a worthwhile watch for Italian fans as a film which throws just about everything but the kitchen sink into the story - and remains consistently entertaining, despite the slow pacing, as a result of it. Remember to keep an eye out for that cool feline who gets to witness (along with the audience) the film's string of gore murders...

Q--What is a "red herring?" A--A rotting fish dragged across a fugitive's trail in order to confuse the pursuing hounds. Figuratively, in literature and film, it is a plot device used to mislead the reader/viewer into drawing false premises as to what is really going on. How's this for a "red herring": a huge gorilla peeks out the castle window as the heroine arrives, and hairy hands are later seen committing murder. Throats are slit with a straight razor. Do we have a suspect? Or how about this: vampirism is repeatedly mentioned in hushed tones as a suspected plague in the MacGrieff family. Moreover, when a family member is buried, if a cat follows the coffin to the tomb, it is rumored that the corpse will come back as a vampire. Well, the cat follows a family member's corpse to the graveyard, and the tomb is later found to be empty. Could vampires be involved? And so it goes. The red herrings are dragged around so frequently that the whole film smells very fishy. Of course, the real killer is . . . (spoiler???) . . . the one character who smells the least fishy.Okay--so this is not a film to challenge your deductive reasoning. It is however, fun to watch. The Gothic atmospherics are plastered on with a very large spatula. The detective, as brief as his appearances are, is a real original, and could have easily become the main figure in a Poirot-Columbo style film series. There is also a bit of appealing gratuitous nudity, featuring the striking German actress Doris Kunstmann. Lurid? You bet!!!

Quite standard Spaghetti slasher is nowhere near excellent, but also too far from awful to merit serious critical assault. The usual Gothic castle goings-on are given no special treatment here, and the psycho-killer's carnage is strictly PG on the shocks and gore board. This film is, moreover, surprisingly atmospheric. The mossy, rustic exterior of the castle, as well as its rich baroque antique decorum, make for a great looking European horror setting. Too bad, though, that the film never really gains much momentum...I found myself looking around the room after the first 30 minutes. Fortunately, the fairly intense closing scenes make up heartily for these shortcomings.SEVEN DEATHS is a watchable enough seventy-odd minutes, but if you're an unwaning viewer of connate movies, then chances are you've seen all this done before, and probably more successfully.*** Were they feeding that cat bacon-wrapped tater-tots or something? That thing was a freakin' tank!5/10