Best movie of this year hands down!

Excellent but underrated film

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Excellent Cinematography, Sets and Scenes. Slow moving, and Story needed more work. Acting OK. Good Music Great cinematography and editing. No nonsense shots, professionally done. Music works well too. The acting was OK, nothing great here. The kills work well, especially towards the end.The story is severally lacking here. Maybe some of it was lost in the translation, but characters are killed off and new characters are introduced halfway point. For the story, the rating would be a 5.For the cinematography, editing, sets, scenes, kills, music and overall production, the rating is a 10.So, what we have here is if you're into these kinds of movies, you will know what to expect, the story is just there to fill the time, nothing great, but overall atmosphere is there.Rating is a 7.

THE CASE OF THE SCORPION'S TAIL (Sergio Martino - Italy/Spain 1971).Not a great, but a very decent Giallo from the ever reliable Sergio Martino. Quite a restrained but surprisingly effective if somewhat tame effort. Lisa Baumer (Ida Galli, but credited as "Evelyn Stewart") is enjoying the good life in London, when she learns her husband died in a dramatic airplane explosion (hilariously done on the cheap with a scale model). Due to the loss of her husband she can collect on his million-dollar insurance policy, and from this point on the setting is shifted to Athens. Naturally, the million dollars starts to attract all kinds of malicious characters and when a suspicious insurance agent (George Hilton) starts investigating the case, the corpses start piling up.The film is almost worth seeing for one scene alone, shot in typical Giallo fashion. When Lisa Baumer meets her husband's mistress (Janine Reynaud) in a beautiful abandoned theater in Athens, we see the brightly overlit faces, almost white with the ink black backgrounds. A beautiful set-up with stunning photography. In some other scenes, Martino does show some visual flair, but overall it's a bit sloppy. George Hilton, in his usual smooth turn, is so smitten with blonde beauty Anita Strindberg in some scenes, he seems to forget about acting at all. Furthermore, there are some nice locations and at one point the story is moved to a nice yacht on the Aegean (for preposterous reasons), only to show Anita Strindberg in her bikini. Very nice...The plotting is a bit over-complicated and marred by some incredibly dumb dialog and silly remarks by the investigating officers, from Interpol to the local Athens detectives. When Lisa Baumer is found murdered in her hotel room, the police inspector arriving at the scene claims it's the work of a sex maniac, even though he already met the victim and knew her background. Therefore he knew she had one million dollars in her room at the time of the killing, which are now missing! Furthermore, she is suspected of blowing up (!) the airplane her husband was in. Two obvious motives for murder, one might think, but later in the film he even comes back with this silly theory of the sex maniac. I think Martino somehow liked to the word so much he just had to use it a couple of times. Although the murders are quite imaginatively filmed, Sergio Martino is no Argento and the film falls a little short when it comes to visual spectacle, but the story is basically well told. Despite some laughable dialog and moronic secondary characters, it's made just well enough to pass as a competently made thriller, that should appeal to Giallo-fans.Camera Obscura --- 7/10

I've lately been going back and trying to check out some giallo films that I missed over the years, and the boxset that contains Sergio Martino's THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH, YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY, and THE CASE OF THE SCORPION'S TAIL were recommended by a friend. I really enjoyed STRANGE VICE, and YOUR VICE - not so much with SCORPION'S TAIL. Not that it was a terrible film or anything, it just wasn't as enjoyable as the two previous entries in my opinion.SCORPION'S TAIL starts off with a widow inheriting $1 million from the death of her husband who died in a somewhat mysterious airplane explosion. After the widow is murdered and the money stolen, a reporter, an insurance investigator, and the police are all on the cast to try and nab the culprit/culprits. Among the suspects are the insurance investigator himself, the wife (until she bites it at least...) and one of the husband's mistresses and her lawyer/"bodyguard". Who really hatched the plan if there really was a plan at all? That's the question. Too bad the answer isn't all that satisfying...Again, SCORPION'S TAIL isn't a terrible film, it just lacks some of the better elements that Martino's superior films have. Both STRANGE VICE and YOUR VICE have better twists and story-lines. There are one or two decent kill scenes in SCORPION'S TAIL, but almost no nudity which was also disappointing. Recommended for hardcore giallo fans - others should seek out Martino's two aforementioned films and leave this one for a rainy day. 6/10

Lisa Baumer (Ida Galli) is the adulteress wife of a big businessman who inherits $1million life insurance when her husband is killed in a plane crash while on a business trip….initially she is suspected of being responsible as her husbands will had recently been changed and so she has an insurance investigator Peter Lynch (George Hilton)and an Interpol agent on her tail just to be sure. Baumer travels to Athens, Greece to cash in her inheritance, but insists on having it in cash...a dangerous turn of events. Lynch who's identity is now known to Baumer tries to protect her against a lover of her husband Lara Florakis who nevertheless along with her henchman Sharif tries to kill them both for a share of the money that she deems she is entitled to. And this is where our Masked killer starts his/her brutal killings. Lynch as is customary with our hero is at first suspected by the Greek Police and is warned not to leave Athens by Police Inspector Stavros(Luigi Pistilli a familiar face in Giallo and Spaghettis). Lynch is then aided by the gorgeous Cléo Dupont (Anita Strindberg) a local journalist who helps him investigate the killings.To say any more could ruin the film for anyone who has not seen it, so suffice to say there are enough red herrings and most of them plausible to keep Mystery/Thriller fans happy in this story driven Giallo.The No Shame DVD has a superb transfer with both English and Italian soundtrack. It also has a very catchy score just for good measure by Bruno Nicolai that will stay in your head for a while....all in all a first rate Giallo.