'The Perfume of the Lady in Black' (1974) – Francesco Barilli.

 Mirroring, Bazzoni's entrancingly oblique 'Footprints on the Moon' (1975) and, Avati's sinister 'The House of the Laughing Windows' (1976), the no less gifted artist, Francesco Barilli has a similarly surrealistic approach to genre. Playfully distorting all the expected Giallo tropes of tormented heroine, portentous family histories, voyeuristic neighbours, histrionic madness and savage outbursts of violence, Barilli convolutes them ever further into memorably skewed visions of nerve-shredding shock! Often bizarre, this deliciously unconventional thriller is a vividly told, visually sumptuous trip into the stranger vectors of distempered human consciousness. Bracingly unconventional, 'The Perfume of the Lady in Black' has an disorientating, kaleidoscopically creepy quality that one only rarely sees in the more fleshly formulated Gialli of the 70s. 

 A provocative, wildly off-kilter psychodrama concerning a sensitive young woman, Silvia Hacherman (Mimsy Farmer), the restless ghosts of her past, especially violent matriarchal conflict, and a healthy Hitchcockian dollop of 'BBS' (Bonkers Blond Syndrome). Mood maestro, Barilli perverts all these tantalizing terror tropes into a deliriously phantasmagorical shocker that draws one into an increasingly nightmarish diorama of fearful fever dreams, madness, and the vilest practices of a black magic cult. Is poor Silvia succumbing to a violent schizophrenic episode or is she cruelly the oblivious sacrificial lamb in some monstrously debased ancient rite?

Barilli's hallucinatory hybrid of Gothic Giallo and psychedelic pagan terror has a fascinatingly ambivalent protagonist, as Silvia's luminous glacial beauty belies the great torment within. This wickedly subversive Grand Guignol Giallo offers more adventurous Euro horror fans fine performances, an exhilaratingly bizarre plot, plus a jaw-droppingly outré conclusion that might prove to be a little raw for general consumption! No discussion of 'The Perfume of the Lady in Black' would be in any way comprehensive without complimenting, Nicola Piovani's evocative score, his sublime, doomily effective theme no small part of the film's singular allure.