Why so much hype?

Very well executed

good back-story, and good acting

The first must-see film of the year.

What today is an obvious mash up of Rosemary's Baby and Repulsion (complete with Mia Farrow clone) was a clever cash in on a then fresh genre. It's predictable, unoriginal and somewhat stale, but it's also one of the more lavish and well-crafted Italian giallo. It's not the best of the countless Occult horro films that came out of Europe but it's far from the worst.

Like Barbara Bach, Mimsy Farmer went to Italy and fell in love. She did, however, have a long career in the US, starting with Gidget Goes Hawaiian to a few biker movies. She remained in Italy making films until her divorce, and then moved to France where she continued acting.This is more a psychological horror film that a true giallo. It was a tale of a woman going mad over unresolved traumas from her childhood. Or, maybe it was a tale of a woman being driven mad for nefarious purposes. It was not totally clear, but there were little clues throughout.Whatever the case, the ending was a total surprise and nothing led you to expect it.

The Perfume of the Lady in Black aka Il Profumo della signora in nero.Admittedly a very hard to find forgotten Italian film, this may very well rank among the weirdest movies Europe has produced. I went into this one expecting a giallo, but instead of black gloved killers and endless red herrings I got psychological horror in the vein of Roman Polanski's Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby. Although it does have affinities with the giallo genre. A psychologically scarred heroine with a tormented childhood, very good photography with bright colours, smooth camera-work and subtle frames that most of the time work on two levels.The story revolves around Silvia (played by non other than Mimsi Farmer), an industrial scientist, with a troubled childhood who gradually loses her grip and starts having visions of a little girl, relives traumatizing events of the past in broad daylight, and soon begins to off those close to her. The gore factor is downplayed, the murders are few and far between but they are effective. The movie kind of drags at first, and there are several sequences that seem uneventful and do nothing to push the plot forward, while those other sequences that do help the plot evolve are most of the time baffling. It's like pieces of a puzzle that don't fit together. All the end does is show you, they belong to the same puzzle (if that makes any sense). The borders between reality and fantasy blur in a David Lynch-esquire way. It wouldn't surprise me if Lynch drew inspiration from this forgotten piece of Italian celluloid for his Mullholand Dr. All in all, I'd say that if you can keep your attention focused for the duration and pick up on the little hints and details that appear frequently, you'll find this a rewarding experience.Up until the ending this was a 5/10 for me, but the ending alone kicked it up another notch. Satisfying but not a handed down solution to the puzzle, again in a Lynch-esquire way. It's open for interpretation instead of spelling everything out for the viewer. That's a quality I love in films.

"The Perfume of the Lady in Black" by Francesco Barilli is an extremely stylish and beautifully shot occult horror film that is often regarded as one of the most underrated Italian horror movies ever made.This film influenced the works of Dario Argento-there are themes and set-pieces that would re-appear,virtually unchanged,in Argento's "Deep Red","Suspiria" and "Inferno".The cinematography is simply astounding and the score by Nicola Piovani is genuinely creepy.Mimsy Farmer plays an industrial scientist named Silvia who is troubled by strange hallucinations.These images that seem so real point to a tragic event from her childhood:the suicide of her mother."The Perfume of the Lady in Black" is obviously inspired by both "Don't Look Now" and "Rosemary's Baby",but there are some lashings of grisly violence(the evisceration/cannibalism scene is particularly nasty and gruesome).Overall,this Italian baffling psycho-shocker is a suitably unsettling exercise in psychological horror with incredibly beautiful Mimsy Farmer.A must-see for anyone interested in Italian horror.10 out of 10.