Ace adventurer Calvin Lockhart is aiming to trap and destroy the most dangerous creature known to man: a large man-dog responsible for numerous killings around Europe in the intriguing werewolf mystery The Beast Must Die.

In a remote countryside lair, Lockhart has invited the most interesting of British society for a weekend at his mansion including Peter Cushing, Charles Gray and Michael Gambon. His plan, however, is to use his many modern-day computer devices — modern for 1974, of course — to suss out who the beast that must die is.

An interesting take on the beloved British mystery, horror studio Amicus took time off from its typical anthology films to make this atypical werewolf flick, their final horror film most notable for casting Lockhart — then a solid name from Cotton Comes to Harlem — as the lead, a proto-Blade, supernatural stalker who should have really had his own series of beast-killing movies.

But what The Beast Must Die is probably remembered best for is the supremely silly “Werewolf Break,” wherein a ticking clock with pictures of the cast is shown on the screen as the audience is given 30 seconds to figure out who the beast that must die is. I guessed wrong and I’m sure you will, too. —Louis Fowler

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I’m old enough to remember the fear of AIDS that gripped America — so irrationally hysterical that when Rock Hudson’s HIV-positive status became public, headlines worried whether Linda Evans was next, given the two shared a kiss on an episode of Dynasty. It was a different time — one in which your parents and teachers told you not to utilize public fountains or toilet seats, lest you catch “the gay cancer,” too.

From this frenzied climate a year later emerged City in Panic, a bargain-basement Canadian whodunit originally titled The AIDS Murders until someone realized naming a mystery after its solution maybe wasn’t the wisest of choices.

Also not a great idea: Having your protagonist be a preening cad. FM101 talk-show host Dave Miller (David Adamson, Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman) pretentiously yammers on and on with callers about the string of serial murders plaguing Toronto. Curiously, freshman director Robert Bouvier (Avenging Warriors) moves the camera moves around Dave just as Oliver Stone’s would do to Eric Bogosian two years later in Talk Radio. Whereas Talk Radio crackled with electricity, City in Panic is a weak joy buzzer.

As Dave spouts his tired rants on air (“Bullshit has no conscience!”), he smokes, plays darts, reads comics and toys around with RC cars and robots — each endearing him even less to us, the viewers. We’re stuck with him, just as he’s stuck with his journalistic nemesis, a Truman Capote-esque gossip columnist (one-timer Peter Roberts). You’ll wish Bouvier would spend more time with the murderer, dubbed by the press as “M” for leaving that letter carved into victims’ skin. With dark sunglasses and a buttoned-up trenchcoat, “M” looks not unlike the darker half of Spy vs. Spy and definitely has a type; see if you can figure it out from these dead people:
• a male bodybuilder
• a banana-hammock stripper
• a guy who patronizes public steam baths
• a security guard who sticks his dick through a bathroom-stall glory hole

Yes, you’re on the right track. In offensiveness, City in Panic doesn’t even approach William Friedkin’s Cruising, but its easily guessed twist and shot-for-shot recreation of Psycho’s legendary shower scene help ensure it’s not going to be crowned Mr. Congeniality, either. Cheaper-looking than the similarly plotted Massage Parlor Murders!, the movie sounds even worse, with music overpowering dialogue as if everything were recorded on one track, which is likely the case. That flatness fits the single dimension exhibited by the actors.

FM101’s chipper receptionist may put it best: “Weird show, Dave.” —Rod Lott

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Thirty years ago, Lorenzo Mancini’s magician father was killed onstage during a bullet stunt gone awry. Today, now a magician himself, Mancini (German Baudino, 2009’s Lucky Luke) returns to that very stage with his new show. However, the night before his debut, a woman is found murdered — her head poked into a box pierced by several swords; later, another is decapitated by a guillotine. In the authorities’ eyes, these and other acts of malicious magic implicate Mancini, the self-proclaimed “Master Mind of Mental Mystery.”

Abrakadabra marks the third Italian-language feature for Luciano and Nicolás Onetti, the Argentinian brothers who clearly love the giallo. As with 2013’s Sonno Profondo and 2015’s Francesca, they again aim not for a mere homage, but total authenticity; thus, Abrakadabra has been crafted as if it came from the early 1980s. While the illusion is about 85% there, the checklist of tropes ticks to nearly 100%: disorienting angles, colors oversaturated to an unrealistic hue, ugly furnishings, creepy puppets and propulsive musical cues that sting of novocaine.

The Onettis’ adherence to appearance is impressive enough; that they can this story with a minimal amount of dialogue, even more so. A few seconds shy of 70 minutes, the film is cut mighty lean — perhaps out of necessity, since the identity of the killer is startlingly obvious.

Well, kinda. The ending is coated too thickly with ambiguity to offer full closure. Still, neat trick. —Rod Lott

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None other than Sigmund Freud kicks off The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh via a quote that seems to chastise the audience for its bloodlust — a potentially hypocrtical move for a giallo, if shame were the intended response. Regardless, no record exists of Freud’s thoughts on Edwige Fenech (The Case of the Bloody Iris), but I’d like to think he would have altered his famous line about the cigar.

In the title role, Fenech’s Julie and her tapioca husband (Alberto de Mendoza, A Lizard in Woman’s Skin) return home to Austria from time abroad. No sooner do they step foot in Vienna than the bra-neglecting Julie has an unpleasant encounter with a shit-grinning ex (Ivan Rassimov, The Eerie Midnight Horror Show), followed by a pleasant meet-cute with her pal’s handsome cousin (George Hilton, My Dear Killer). A full-blown affair ensues.

All the while, this being a giallo, beautiful women are killed all over the city by a man whose black-gloved hands clutch — what else? — a sharp, shiny straight razor. Julie becomes his next intended victim, so suspicion falls on each of these three men in her mixed-up, sexed-up life.

And it is just that, whether Julie dreams of having intercourse atop broken glass (if only in dreams) or attending parties in which the female guests rip one another’s paper dresses off. Such swinging shenanigans and their settings contribute to the overall hallucinatory effect of the visuals, as intoxicating as Fenech’s beauty is flawless. This being the first giallo for Sergio Martino (Torso), it’s rather remarkable how right he got it, right out of the gate. Suspense is high, notably in a near-silent sequence of searching by candlelight, and audiences are left guessing and second-guessing, right up to the denouement. By then, The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh has done more than enough work to earn its reputation. —Rod Lott

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When VHS was all the rage, the VCR game was, alas, not. But dammit, they tried — some more than others. Spinnaker Video appears to have put all its chips of effort toward the kick-ass cover of Ellery Queen’s Operation: Murder, because the tape’s half-hour whodunit is half-assed at best.

Highly intelligent in the novels and also highly likable in the Jim Hutton-starring TV series of the 1970s, the Ellery Queen of this “You-Solve-It VCR Mystery Game” is just a smug jerk. Played by Michael Solomita, the unofficial detective enters the Doorn Memorial Hospital office of Dr. Minchen (Don Dill), who sparks immediate regret in viewers with this greeting: “Ellery Queen, by thunder! What on earth brings you down here? Uh, still snooping around?”

Indeed, Queen is, asking questions about rigor mortis in diabetics, to which the doc replies in a near-singsong, “Just a fortunate coincidence, I happen to have diabetes on my mind this morning.” Totally normal response.

It’s all related to Queen’s latest case, concerning the hospital’s comatose benefactor (Helen Cuftafson) being strangled to death before surgery, but after she changed her will. From a playboy little brother to a mad-scientist researcher, likely suspects abound, each thrown at you in time-heavy exposition too quick and too dull to properly absorb. At eight points in the story, a clip-art screen informs you to “PICK a RED or BLUE CARD MARKED EVIDENCE.” I can’t imagine anyone having the patience to play this game more than once.

Although based on a real Queen novel, The Dutch Shoe Mystery, the catchpenny Operation: Murder is amateurishly acted and staged. At the beginning of my professional journalism career in the early 1990s, I was assigned to observe a murder-mystery party at a local bed-and-breakfast. Quasi-cosplaying, the attendees all looked the part, but had little to no idea of what they were supposed to do. Across the parlor, I spotted an elderly woman with a stooped back shuffling my way. Clutching a tiny notebook and pencil, she looked me in the eye and said only three words: “Got any clues?” I replied I did not, and she wandered to the next person in vicinity and asked the same. That’s what Operation: Murder is like, except mercifully shorter. —Rod Lott

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