El tercer ojo

Whilst much of this b/w film is well shot with interesting angles and perspectives, I didn't feel that the director truly had a grip on things. There are good moments and frankly duff moments and despite the presence of franco Nero there were times when I wondered if I was even going to stick with this. First real problem is that as things get under way we are introduced to the overpowering mother of Nero's character, played by Olga Solbelli and she is fantastic, like some Fellini grotesque and , of course, the splendid, EriKa Blanc, and they both disappear from the picture. Almost in the blink of an eye the best are gone and we are left with a struggling Nero and a conniving maid. Nero works very hard in his role as a latter day Italian Bates but the director doesn't seem to help and he sometimes seems to overdue things, to become just too 'crazy'. Worth a look as a supposed forerunner to D'Amato's Buio Omega and it probably features the longest struggle towards a ringing phone in movie history.

The Third Eye has been pretty much forgotten; but many fans of Italian horror will have heard of the film it heavily influenced; Joe D'Amato's notorious exploitation effort Beyond the Darkness. This one does not have the gore and savagery of the later film and it has to be said that Mino Guerrini's film is rather more arty than horrific. The film is also often seen as a precursor to the Giallo genre, though the links between the two are weak at best. Personally, I would describe this film as Gothic horror, and a precursor to later Italian exploitation. The plot focuses on Mino; a young nobleman that lives in a big house with his mother and their maid. His fiancée, Laura, is not well liked by either the mother or the maid, who seem jealous of her presence. The mother, therefore, decides to sever Laura's brakes and this results in a car accident that kills Laura. Meanwhile, the mother and the maid have a fight and the mother dies are being thrown down the stairs. This leads Mino into madness and murder; he kills a couple of women, before Laura's twin sister arrives at the house...

The film stars the great Franco Nero in an early lead role and of course he delivers an excellent performance that mirrors the one he would go on to play a few years later in Elio Petri's A Quiet Place in the Country. The atmosphere is also a major part of the film and the central location is a great place for a Gothic horror film to take place; director Mino Guerrini makes good use of it and creates a claustrophobic feel for the film. The influences for the film are clear; with Edgar Allen Poe and Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho being foremost among them. The Third Eye features some really rather morbid elements such as necrophilia, but through the way it's shot, the film always manages to retain an artful feel and this is a bit of a downer in my opinion as the film could have used a bit more impact. It does remain interest for the duration, however, and everything eventually boils down to a fitting conclusion. Overall, this is a rare film and sourcing an English language version is not easy; but it's well worth the effort for Italian horror fans.

A troubled young Count (Franco Nero), living in a crumbling villa with his domineering mother, takes comfort in taxidermy (sound familiar?) until he falls in love with a girl (Erica Blanc) his mother naturally doesn't approve of. The old battle ax tells a servant she treats "like a daughter" that she'd be forever grateful if the girl would make her son's fiancée disappear and not only does the servant kill the son's intended, she offs his mother, too. The Count takes his mom's death hard but not as hard as his fiancee's, whose body he stuffs before he starts strangling strippers. The servant tells him she'll help cover up his crimes if he'll marry her and he agrees but when his dead fiancee's look-alike sister (also Erica Blanc) shows up looking for answers, complications ensue...

To say THE THIRD EYE was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO would be an understatement but it does go off on a crazy tangent of its own and was obviously capitalizing on a spate of Hammer "mini-Hitchcock" thrillers popular at the time (MANIAC, PARANOIA, HYSTERIA). In black & white with cool-looking red subtitles, the damn thing was never dull, that's for sure. Cult director Joe D'Amato "unofficially" remade this as BEYOND THE DARKNESS in 1979.

THE THIRD EYE (Mino Guerrini - Italy 1965).

This interesting little chiller by Mino Guerrini, starring Franco Nero and Erika Blanc, certainly was much better than I expected. Often categorized as an early Giallo, it's actually more of a mix of Gothic horror and some Giallo elements. Definitely not the six-penny quickie, I expected. It's quite an elaborate production, well-shot, with fine acting and cinematography.

Franco Nero is Mino, a young count who lives with his dominant mother and jealous servant Martha in an isolated mansion in the Italian countryside. Like Anthony Perkins in PSYCHO - with which this film shares quite a few parallels - Mino has a fascination with birds, particularly stuffed birds. A few days before his marriage with the young and beautiful Laura (Erika Blanc), she mysteriously dies in a car crash and soon-after, his mother is killed. Mino begins to lose his sanity and starts luring young women into his mansion in order to kill them, together with his willing accomplice Martha, who secretly loves him, but one day, a young woman visits him who looks just like his late fiancée Laura.

Although the "Count gone mad scenario" was already a bit over-used by the time the film was made, the (then) contemporary setting, the murder mystery angle, elegant production design, professional cinematography and more than adequate direction, make this one well worth a look and definitely a cut above the average attempt within European genre-film-making, to say the least. The film is also surprisingly candid in its sexual nature (although complete nudity is absent) and, regarding that aspect, is a typical exponent of the transitional period in the mid-sixties. Fans of Franco Nero might wanna take a look at him in a role as a neat, well-dressed and impeccably coiffured young man, quite the contrast to the sweaty, unshaven Django-look, or generally sleazy look, he would cultivate later in his career.

The film was remade as BURIED ALIVE (1978), the gore classic by Joe D'Amato.

Currently only available in German, but with the DVD-age already coming to a close, it's unlikely that this film will ever see an English-language release, so the German-only version is perhaps something even English speaking fans of obscure Italian cinema should consider.

Camera Obscura --- 7/10

Franco Nero plays a young taxidermist named Mino,who lives with his domineering mother and a loyal family servant Marta in a Gothic residence.The elderly widowed Countness doesn't want his son to marry his beloved Laura.To achieve her goals Marta cuts the brake cable on Laura's car causing the vehicle to roll off an embankment and into a lake and murders the Countess pushing her down the stairs.This is the beginning of Mino's madness.He takes Laura's body and preserves it and starts picking up women and choking them to death in the presence of his preserved love."The Third Eye" is strikingly similar to "Buio Omega",but nowhere nearly as gruesome and disgusting.The cinematography is elegant and stylish and the use of romantic score is a nice touch.A must-see for fans of "Buio Omega".8 out of 10.