Edwige, my long lost kangaroo companion from my misadventures in North America, and Razor Fangs, a feral man clad in stitched leather, were tussling in the trashed bathroom of the Museum of Schlock. Edwige tossed him into one of the standing urinals and it shattered. Water spritzed everywhere. The punk in the blue bandana slipped and clanked his skull against the sink. He was out cold, but razor fangs sprang back up, ready for round two. — To be continued.

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It’s August and you know what that means: it’s Giallo Month! Forget about fantasies about fighting alongside elves to slay dragons. Give me cheap European cars, beautiful women in tacky wigs, black gloved killers, and an ascot around my neck. I realize there may come the day when I run out of Gialli to watch (Gialli dubbed in English at any rate). I scoured various streaming networks for tonight’s feature, 1971’s The Devil Has Seven Faces from director Osvaldo Civirani. What a title!

The movie centers around Julie Harrison, an American living in Holland. She’s played by the legendary Carroll Baker, star of Tennessee Williams’ impeccable Baby Doll. Julie works in publishing, translating Dutch into English or is it English into Dutch? A creeper corners her in the middle of the night only to take her picture repeatedly. I have no idea if this plays into the plot in any way or if it’s just normal life in Holland. While in her office, one of her colleagues puts on an animatronic gorilla mask and wields a sharp knife in an effort to scare her. Is that relevant to the plot, or…

Julie visits a lawyer friend, Dave Barton (Stephen Boyd), because she can’t can’t shake the feeling that someone is after her. She also meets Dave’s friend, Tony Shane (George Hilton), a handsome race car driver. We learn that Julie has an identical twin sister named Mary, but that she’s a devil. While talking about the situation back at Julie’s bungalow, Tony swears he hears an intruder, but all he finds are muddy footprints on Julie’s rug. The two men then abandon her for the night. No one bothers calling the police.

Dave begins investigating Julie by, naturally, seducing her secretary while Tony invites Julie down to the racetrack for a lunch date. Later that evening, Julie and Tony suspect someone is in her house so Tony goes off to sneak in while Julie casually goes up to the front door. Julie gets seized by some gun-gun-weilding goon. Another goon has a gun against the face of Tony who’s useless in this situation. The two goons want to know “Where is it?” Julie has no idea what they’re talking about. Then two police officers show up for some reason and the goons make a getaway. The goons shoot one of the cops and Tony, naturally, knocks the other cop out before Julie and Tony drive off.

Tony explains to Dave that they can’t go to the police now since he assaulted one of the officers. The police get involved anyway as they are wont to do when one of their own is gunned down. We learn later that Julia’s twin sister is involved in a conspiracy to steal a million dollar diamond from a maharaja. No black gloved killers in this movie, but there’s plenty of killing as competing groups of criminal weirdos want to get their hands on this million dollar diamond. Plus, you get Carol Baker in various states of dress and undress. Great cinema.

That’s all for now. Until next time.

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Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, episode 496, episode 545, episode 546, episode 547, episode 548, episode 549, and episode 575) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.