Death Walks At Midnight

Review by JoeHorror.com

Gialli are films that thrive in deceptiveness, and trickery. They elevate masking the identity of the killer to an elaborate art form. The bigger the shock of the unmasking at the end of the film, the more you can say the film was successful.

Ercoli has always made his own way through the genre. Not stopping too much to consider, or inhibit himself with the constraints of "the rules", he's always doing something a little out of the ordinary. So, with his third giallo, Death Walks at Midnight , why not discard the masking process and introduce us blatantly to the killer within the opening minutes? And indeed, he does just this.

Valentina (Susan Scott) is a feisty fashion model who agrees to try out a hallucinogenic drug, HSD, in exchange for a hefty sum of cash. Simón Andreu plays Gio Baldi, a journalist who is looking to further his career by using Valentina for this experiment. Gio shows up at her apartment, as scheduled, with a doctor, and the drug. And speaking of apartments, hot damn! Highly fashionable and accessorized, of immediate notice is the circular bed and the wall mural above it, which is a black and white photograph of herself. How vain! Though Gio promises to mask her and not reveal her identity, she ends up unmasked and on the cover of his magazine, which subsequently causes her to lose a job. But before I get ahead of myself, let's go back to the drug trip.

While tripping out on HSD she witnesses a murder from across the way. A man with a spiked glove is pummeling a brunette woman to death! As expected she freaks out. Following the trip she attempts to what she saw, but no one seems to pay her any mind. However, we learn that six months prior a woman was indeed killed in the same empty flat, but that the killer was caught and locked in an insane asylum. The problem is she keeps seeing the killer, and he is most certainly out to get her.

The suspense builds in a race against time to see what will happen. Will the killer get to Valentina before the police can get to him? Or, is the killer just a fleeting flashback of a hallucination? Perhaps there's a completely different explanation that we may have not even considered. Whichever way you slice it, Death Walks at Midnight proves you don't need to mask the killer to propel a film forward.

True to form Ercoli sticks to the same core cast as he's used in his previous films. As usual Scott is ever the sexy lead. So incredibly beautiful, she can be dressed from head to toe and still be hot enough to turn even the casual passerby on. However, watch out, because this girl has a bite. Fiery and feisty, you don't want to tangle with this broad. Piss her off and she's likely to throw a rock at you through your front window, and then swear at the copper who comes after her. Strong and independent in herself, and her femininity, this is as close to a pro-feminist giallo as you're likely to see. Often the object of Scott's aggression is Andreu, who again proves himself a great actor. A conniving journalist with a sleazy edge, he's certainly more likable than Scott's on screen boyfriend and we can be glad to see him take such a prominent role.

This film also maintains a somewhat lighter and more comedic side that the previous films only hinted at. The dialogue is laced with snappy comebacks and one-liners, which will have you chuckling to yourself. It's also the most grisly of the three, and the notorious spiked glove proves to be a memorable and standout killing tool. Despite the almost medieval nature of this killing device, the film is still a giallo and no death can be under-stylized. In this world, even death is beautiful.

From: http://www.serialkillercalendar.com/DEATHWALKSATMIDNIGHT.html