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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