What are you trying to do to me, film? I was all out for watching some sort of Giallo judging by the title, and instead I get a tepid film of pregnancy, moaning, and marital strife. I could have switched off the film and just lived life, morons!
Marina Malfatti (with a fetching Mia Farrow haircut that highlights her rather lengthy neck) can't have kids. She's not happy with this either and it seems to causing all sorts of psychological problems, like predicting a horrible accident at the circus. Her husband is supportive enough despite trying to get his end away with another lady, but things go pear-shaped when they attend a paranormal event hosted by the strangely named Gig Young.
As it's the mid-seventies Gig's all into the paranormal and wants to display psychic abilities by guessing the name of a book Marina has chosen by having the guests telepathically send him the title of the book, Marina ends up usurping his glory instead by having a vision of her own that involves flashing lights and loads of glasses of whiskey exploding. This also serves to lull the viewer into thinking they're up for something good.
On the way home from this party an impatient driver tries to overtake Marina and her husband and ends up crashing, where Marina spends a moment with the seriously injured female passenger (Dellia Boccardo). The next day, Marina's feeling a bit queasy, the dog doesn't like her anymore, and she suspects that she might have we what call back in our home town 'Irish Toothache'.
Yep, Marina's now preggy, but her husband and her doctor think that she wants a baby so much she's suffering from the old phatom pregnancy (and nobody bothers doing an ultra sound because I guess that would ruin the film). Is Deborah pregnant? And why is Dellia Boccardo now appearing everywhere?
Sadly, this film really bogs down in the marital strife, arguing, and staring around the place in fear. Surely someone at some stage in the production of this film could have said 'Look, this is going to turn out really boring', because that's what it is, a really tepid Rosemary's Baby rip-off with very little going for it except some nice credits and one good supernatural bit. What a let down.
