In one of those palatial estates that resembles more of an art museum than a residence, an elderly, wheelchair-bound man tells grandchildren Evelyn and Kitty — naughty and nice, respectively — the legend of the spooky painting in his study: That tired of all the pranks and abuse, the Black Queen killed her evil sister, the Red Queen, only for the Red Queen to come back to life for revenge, killing the Black Queen and six others.
That’s basically the entire plot of The Red Queen Kills 7 Times, as Evelyn and Kitty embody the ladies of the legend. In one of their many scuffles started by Evelyn, Kitty accidentally kills her sibling. Older sis Franziska (Marina Malfatti, Seven Blood-Stained Orchids) helps her hide the body and spread the falsehood that Evelyn “went to America.”
Years later, a grown Kitty (Barbara Bouchet, The French Sex Murders) is a fashion photographer, and with the death of her grandfather, it appear as if Evelyn has resurrected herself, as a black-gloved, red-caped, white-masked, VW bug-cruising, dagger-wielding serial killer — all the better to milk the crimson stuff out of this gripping-enough giallo.
While no classic, the final film of director Emilio Miraglia (The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave), Red Queen works on all the levels a giallo should: The mystery is intriguing, the killer is creepy, the music (by Bruno Nicolai) is swinging, the fashions are mod, the architecture is modder, the blood is bright red, the title is head-scratching, and the women are drop-dead gorgeous — sometimes literally. The running time is also a bit bloated, but since some of that entails one Sybil Danning at the beginning of her career and donning her birthday suit, I’m letting it slide. —Rod Lott