A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (1971): Biting, Gnawing Terror Claws At Your Brain!

A Lizard in a Woman's Skin

A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, also known as the slightly edited Schizoid in the United States, is one of my favorite Lucio Fulci films.  In fact I have an original one-sheet of that poster art hanging on my wall. I'm not exactly sure what I like so much about this film but perhaps it's the ample amount of boobage, blood, psychedelia and sideburns. Everything just seems to come together for me.  It's a giallo so basically the story revolves around a murder investigation with some crazy Fulci elements thrown in.  It can be slow sometimes but never so slow that one loses interest in the mystery.

A somewhat repressed and sexually timid woman (Florinda Bolkan) dreams each night of explicit encounters with the sexually liberated woman who lives in the flat next door.  After lengthy psychoanalysis she is unsure what to make of these dreams.  One night she dreams that she stabs this drugged up hippie chick to death with a letter opener only to wake up to the fact that this woman really has been murdered and that she is the prime suspect.  Did she do it or was it a dream?  That's not the only thing going on in this film.  There's blackmail, a philandering husband, a rich politician/lawyer who smokes a pipe, LSD, bats and of course, the infamous "dog scene."

"Damn this astigmatism."

From IMDB:

The scene in which Carol encounters the disemboweled dogs in the clinic became quite controversial because of the startlingly realistic (and graphic) appearance of the fake prop dogs. Director Lucio Fulci was nearly sent to prison because it was believed that the dogs were real and Fulci had allowed animal cruelty on the film. However crew members were able to testify in court that the "dogs" were indeed fake and no animals had ever been harmed. Special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi even presented the dog props in court to convince the jury. This was the first time that an effects artist had to testify in court that their work were fake.

A similar incident happened with the Italian gore-fest Cannibal Holocaust.  Also from IMDB:

The film caused some scandal in Italy at the time of its release. Ten days after premiering in Milan, the film was seized by the courts, and the director, Ruggero Deodato, was arrested and charged with obscenity. He was later charged with murder and faced life in prison on the belief that several of the actors were murdered for the camera. Deodato contacted Luca Barbareschi and told him to contact the three other actors who played the missing film team. He presented the actors, alive and well, to the courts, and thus, the murder charges were dropped. The film remained banned in Italy for another three years.

So there you go.  All of you guys who like movies like Saw and Hostel owe more than a little to the Italian directors of the 1970s who pushed the envelope of gore and nudity, and even had to go to court to defend their films.

Violence Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Booby Rating: 3.5 out of 5

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