Sergio Martino is a director who has made dozens of wild and
entertaining films across many genres including horror, western, sci-fi
and crime. While many of his films could fit in Euro-trash or
Euro-sleaze category it hasn't stopped the man from being a damn fine
director. There may be no better example of this than the third act of
his excellent giallo TORSO. SCORPION WITH TWO TAILS is something else
entirely.
Arthur Barnard (John Saxon, ENTER THE
DRAGON, TENEBRE) is an archaeologist working on a dig at an ancient
Etruscan tomb while his wife Joan (Elvire Audray) is suffering from
nightmares of the tomb and sacrificial rites of the Etruscan's while at
home in New York. Joan foresees her husband's death, having his head
twisted around backwards, just as the Etruscans did to their victims.
The local police theory of thieves doesn't sit well with Joan so she
travels to Italy to investigate the murder of her husband, bringing
along Mike, Arthur's partner who stayed behind in New York on the dig.
Joan finds confusing notes in Arthur's journal that she uses to uncover
her father's role in an international drug ring that may have played a
role in Arthur's death. As the investigation continues more and more
people end up dead with their head twisted just as Joan had seen in her
nightmarish visions.
When
Joan finally gets inside of the tombs she realizes that those dreams
had actually shown her the inside of the tomb. She begins to become more
in tune with the Etruscan rituals and weird things start happening with
characters coming in and out of suspect for the murders that continue
to mount. The ancient rituals come to a climax just as intentions are
revealed for one last murder.
Where
to begin with this one... SCORPION WITH TWO TAILS is a messy, messy
film. What starts out as an Italian horror flick, steeped in creepy
atmosphere and locations turns into a murder mystery crime ordeal and
then becomes some sort of muddy mix of the two. The best way to look at
it would be one of Fulci's lesser horror flicks from the 80s meets a
giallo without being able to really meld them together. There is a bit
of a water meets oil situation going on in this film. Sergio Martino's
direction isn't bad but it is far from his best, it is full of many
cliches from both types of film present here. The red herrings of the
giallo and the maggot infested nightmares of Italian horror both show up
more than once. The cast is rather wooden through the entire thing but
get the job done without really pushing themselves too much, including a
role from Hollywood vet Van Johnson. Fabio Frizzi delivers the original
music that suits the film fine but probably won't be remembered as his
finest work.
SCORPION
WITH TWO TAILS, aka MURDER IN AN ETRUSCAN CEMETERY, was originally
meant to be a TV miniseries which is probably the main culprit behind
the lack of sex and violence. Martino was never shy about either of
those two components and with very little nudity to speak of and the
violence mainly muddled by fog and other techniques and bloodless it
makes sense that the television censors were on his mind. This is a
strange film to review in that everything I've written has sounded
rather negative but I assure you I did enjoy the flick despite its
issues. While it is a shame that side plots rule so much of this movie
because this could have been another great collaboration between Martino
and writer Ernesto Gastaldi. As it stands it is probably more of a
weird novelty that you should enter with tempered expectations and you
might come out of it enjoying it as I did for being a completely
bipolar, schizophrenic supernatural horror crime mashup.
6/10
