In the Folds of the Flesh (1970)

Truly Dreadful Film

Fresh and Exciting

A Masterpiece!

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Sergio Bergonzelli must have gone to a showing of Kill The Fatted Calf and Roast It and noted in his little giallo director book 'Family not weird enough...also...not enough dead dog action' and then went on to make this film, which contains enough twists for a hundred gialli as well as a barrage of weird imagery to boot. The films starts right away with a family confronted by a decapitated corpse and the problem of disposing of it, while an escaped convict (Sancho) happens to run by the estate and witness not only the burial of a corpse, but the suspicious sending of an abandoned boat out into the ocean. Apprehended, Sancho heads off thoughtfully for jail, taking in what he's witnessed. As far as super rich families who live in isolated huge villas are concerned, this one is by far the worst. There's Colin the artist, who has the hots for his step-sister Falesse, both of whom are kept in check by mother Lucille, who tries to keep them both from humping each other whilst also trying to cover up the horrific murders both of them seem to conduct on any stranger visiting the property. Falesse seems to do so because of some childhood trauma about being raped by her dad when she was a kid, plus Colin I guess strangled that dog because it discovered the shallow grave of their murdered dad. Except of course that none of that may be true at all! By the point we've established that this is not a family you wish to mess with, what with them killing folk and dissolving them in an acid bath, Fernando Sancho gets out of jail and is determined to extort money out of the family as he witnessed the burial of a murder victim. He doesn't get his way but as he has a gun I guess them chicks gonna have to give up something, especially seeing the grave he saw now contains a dead dog that's waved in his face!What I have described so far is only the first forty minutes of this weird, weird film, and from then on twists are thrown into the mix so often that I swear I hade a headache by the end of it. Characters aren't who they are, characters appear from nowhere claiming to be characters you though were dead, and there's a lengthy Holocaust flashback that leads to one of the most bizarre deaths in a giallo film. Worst of all, you get to see Fernando Sancho's arse! Here's comes that chilli I had for lunch!This is the first time I've seen Sancho outside of a spaghetti western but to be honest he still plays the same character - a cigar smoking jerk who threatens women, noisily eats food, and gets killed. This is one truly mental film with a trippy vibe that takes the weirdos in the mansion vibe to the ultimate extreme.

Viewers who sit down to watch Sergio Bergonzelli's 1970 offering, "In the Folds of the Flesh," expecting some licentious soft-core Eurosleaze may be a tad disappointed. That provocative title, surely fit for some adult fare, rather has as its provenance a quote from Sigmund Freud regarding the effects of experience on the human psyche: "What has been, remains imbedded in the brain, nestled in the folds of the flesh; distorted, it conditions and subconsciously impels." And, as it turns out, although the film does sport the talents of a trio of gorgeous women and some flashes of nudity, those flashes are decidedly de-eroticized, and the picture, although it has been called "one of the most bizarre gialli ever made," strikes this viewer more as a murderous psychological puzzler. In this Italian/Spanish coproduction, beautiful Eleanora Rossi-Drago (who I'd only previously encountered in an early Antonioni film, "Le Amiche") plays the head of a household of three in an ornate villa by the sea. She lives with two others, who we infer must be her son and daughter, although the relationships are not clearly defined and some conduct bordering on incest gives us reason to doubt. Whenever a visitor--be it a cousin, acquaintance or ex-con blackmailer--drops in, he is quickly executed by one of the three, after which Eleanora uses dissolving chemicals to dispose of the corpus. A most unusual household, to be sure, and most of the fun here lies in trying to figure out just what the characters' relationships and motivations might be. My suggestion would be to not even make the attempt, as nobody in the film is what he/she initially appears to be, and each and every character is hiding a secret. Among the assorted bits of weirdness that the film dishes out are a pair of pet vultures, some truly outlandish costumes, unusual camera angles, a disinterment, deaths by cyanide gas, and B&W flashbacks to the Nazi death camps. A repeat viewing of the film is practically mandatory to fully appreciate all its many subtleties and formal brilliance; I for one enjoyed it a lot more the second time around. And hold on to your seats as the film enters its final 20 minutes; this segment contains so many revelations and plot twists that the folds in your own mental flesh may start to unravel!

Absurdly convoluted thriller with an insane amount of twists(..the rug gets pulled out from under you so many times you'll suffer a skull fracture)regarding a family of misfits, a troubled mother and her equally warped son and daughter. Lucille(Eleonora Rossi Drago)is burying the body of her husband supposedly while an escaped convict, Pascal(Fernando Sancho)is being sought after by the authorities. Pascal catches her in the act and is caught, but will return with an idea of blackmail. Falesse(Pier Angeli)is a deeply psychologically damaged young woman who believes she decapitated her father, after he had raped her. We watch a series of men stop off at the villa where these three live, attempting to seduce and ravage Falesse as her brother achingly watches from afar, trying to stop the act before it escalates. Those men all fall victim to Falesse who always hearkens back to that decapitation of her "father" before stabbing a back with a dagger or lopping off the head of another with a sword. Once Pascal arrives, the film spends the center section devoted to his terrorizing the trio, ordering them around with a gun waving at them, demanding for blackmail money, forcing the son to dig up the surrounding area for the remains of the decapitated father. We watch as Lucille concocts a scheme to end Pascal's interference in their lives(..in a bizarre turn of events, Falesse actually is drawn to Pascal, a foul, blubbery brute who rapes both her and Lucille). When Pascal is dealt with(..his departure is inspired by a startling episode that occurred to Lucille in a Nazi concentration camp as she watched her family suffocate in the gas chamber), yet another man, claiming to be Andre, the actual father of Lucille's children, returns, throwing their lives in turmoil. This is when we learn of a third child named Esther, and a beautiful blonde patient in an asylum whose relationship to this family is of great importance to the truth regarding the opening scene's decapitation and burial.I firmly realize that this film will have many viewers rolling their eyes in disbelief at the events that unravel, a bevy of lies weaved by Lucille, and her constituted effort to deceive over the years is hard to process fully. After a while, I almost threw my hands up at the non-stop revelations which just kept coming..it's incredible that a screenplay could feature so many twists and turns. You read others describing the movie as sleazy, but, in actuality, there's more suggestion than actual action on screen. Such as Pascal's molestation of Lucille and Falesse or the obvious, brother-sister, incest in the family over the years. Kudos to director/co-writer Sergio Bergonzelli's editor,Donatella Baglivo, who had the overwhelming task of establishing the complicated developing story as it unfolds. I mean one wonders how in the world an editor could piece together a film that throws everything at the viewer but the kitchen sink before the screen fades to black. Sergio Bergonzelli parades a number of fake decapitated heads for the viewers over the course of the film. Quite a demented little movie that will cause a lot of head-scratching and aggravation, but I enjoyed it's audacity to throw out all the stops in order to bewilder and surprise. As expected such a film with a lot of material, and so little actual violence or depravity on screen, IN THE FOLDS OF THE FLESH will bore and alienate many who watch it. I didn't think this was a traditional giallo, and wouldn't really consider it one, for the exception of the convoluted story and general bizarre behavior of the characters. The film, before it starts, actually quotes Freud..he'd have quite a challenge with the trio of oddballs in this film.

This is another case of a movie which seems to have been highly underestimate. This is not the crap the score rate seems to testify. When you approach such a product a minimum of historical perspective should be the norm... we cannot judge a movie filmed in 1971 with standards of today's taste. This is a thriller with a weird plot,a definite stress on turbid sexual themes, some gore scenes, some Gothic and fetish elements that can make the joy of the true Italian b-movie lover. In my opinion this movie has everything a movie should have to let you spend an hour and a half before the screen and even enjoying your time. We are a few and we're happy, please let us dream alone.