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Released by: Mondo Macabro
Released on: January 10th, 2023.
Director: Sergio Bergonzolli
Cast: Eleonora Rossi, Pier Angeli, Drago Anna, Fernando Sancho, Alfredo Majo, Emilio Gutierrez Caba, Maria Rosa Sclauzero
Year: 1970
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In The Folds Of The Flesh – Movie Review:
Nazis, nudity, decapitations, birds, and ascots aplenty – all these things and more await you in Sergio Bergonzelli’s deliriously entertaining ’giallo,’ In The Folds Of The Flesh.
When the movie begins, a man named Pascal (Fernando Sancho) has escaped from the big house only to wind up in the hands of the cops once more, but not before he witnesses a woman burying a dead body! When he finally makes it out of prison a couple of years later, he returns to the scene of that crime where he finds an unusual bed and breakfast in business, run by a woman named Lucille (Eleonora Rossi), her son (Alfredo Mayo) and an odd woman named Falesse (Pier Angeli).
Pascal soon learns that there’s a whole lot wrong with Lucille, who spent time in a Nazi concentration camp where family members were killed right in front of her. These Nazis also may or may not have killed her father – the only problem there being that her father is running around the area too. Or is he? No one knows and soon poor Pascal (who has blackmail on his mind!) finds himself the victim of an insane murder plot while German Shepherds run around and birds squawk in their outdoor cages. What a trip.
You know from the opening credits sequence where the titles are placed over some psychedelic paint swirls that this isn’t going to be your typical giallo. There are no black gloved killers running around the shadows nor are there a lot of crafty police detectives out and about with the intent of stopping the killer before he or she can kill again. No, this film plays around with the trappings of the genre a little bit differently and the results are as kinetic as they are a blast to watch.
Performances are fun. Fernando Sancho is solid as our shifty lead, he looks the part and his acting here is more than decent. Eleonora Rossi and Alfredo Mayo have an odd chemistry together and are well-cast here. They suit the production and its vibe very well. Pier Angeli is also a lot of fun to watch as oddball Falesse, perfectly attractive but so wonderfully strange and disturbed in this particular movie.
Bergonzelli keeps the action coming quickly; throwing in a few interesting plot twists as the convoluted storyline semi-successfully clears itself up towards the end of the film. One has to wonder if this wasn’t just an exercise in ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ filmmaking but the black and white concentration camp flashbacks, incessant footage of that aforementioned bird and over use of kaleidoscope lenses certainly keep things interesting. If, at times, this feels like an exercise in style over substance, at least the style is fun to look at. The intertitles that pop up now and again using some odd psychology quotes from a certain noted author in that field contain a few amusing typos that again simply add to the overall weird vibe that this picture has going for it. It’s a great combination of sex, swirly visuals, and mystery that really has to be seen to be believed.
In The Folds Of The Flesh – Blu-ray Review:
In The Folds Of The Flesh arrive on a region free 50GB disc and is taken from a brand new 2K restoration of the original 35mm negative. The AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer is framed at 1.85.1 widescreen and it looks really strong, save for the stock footage insert lightning bolt shots early in the film which have always looked a little rough. Some scenes are shot intentionally soft, almost looking like they were shot with Vasoline on the lens, but this is a solid picture to be sure. Detail is quite nice and there’s good depth and good texture evident throughout. The colors look gorgeous and black levels and skin tones also look great. No problems here at all with any noise reduction or edge enhancement, natural film grain is apparent in any frame you could choose, but there isn’t much here in the way of print damage at all.
Audio options are provided in English and Italian language options in 16-bit DTS-HD 2.0 Mono, with subtitles offered up in English only. Sound quality between the two tracks is pretty comparable, but the English track might have a bit more depth to it but there are moments where it has some minor hiss that the Italian track does not (the opening credits, for example). Both are balanced and otherwise sound pretty solid.
Samm Deighan starts off the extra features with a new audio commentary track that notes the different genre elements such as gothic horror and Nazisploitation that work their way into the movie, the opening flashback sequence, where the movie does and doesn't play to giallo standards, thoughts on the characters that populate the movie and the actors that play them, the portrayal of female characters in the movie and giallo films in general, how the depiction of an asylum in this movie differs from most other films, whether or not the film was trying to cash in on the giallo boom that was hitting cinemas at the time of its release, the way that Falesse reacts to things throughout the movie and how this ties into the plot in general and lots more.
Up next is a documentary featurette on director Bergonzelli titled In The Folds Of Sergio Bergonzelli. This piece runs twenty-two minutes and it includes interviews with Mario Caiano, Corrado Colombo and Attilio Perillo. There are also archival clips and photographs included here from different eras of Bergonzelli's career. This featurette goes over what Bergonzelli was like to work with, his personality, what he was like as a person, how productive he was, his professionalism, when he could be difficult to get along with and why, how imaginative he was, how he treated his actors (and more specifically the women he cast in his films), and how sometimes people would take advantage of him. It's quite interesting and sheds some welcome light on the career of one of Italian cinema's less appreciated directors.
Finishing up the extra on the disc are English and Italian language trailers, the ever-expanding Mondo Macabro promo reel, menus and chapter selection options.
In The Folds Of The Flesh - The Final Word:
In The Folds Of The Flesh is an enjoyably trippy excursion into psychedelic murder mystery territory. Directed with style to spare the film isn’t afraid to go out on a limb and try something different and neither should you! Mondo Macabro’s Blu-ray edition gives the film an excellent presentation and throws some really strong extra features into the mix as well. Give this neglected seventies oddity a shot, you’ll be glad that you did.