NAKED GIRL KILLED IN PARK (1972)
aka Ragazza tutta nuda assassinata nel parco, That Cursed House Close to the Mushroom Bed
Article 4988 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-14-2015
Directed by Alfonso Brescia
Featuring Robert Hoffmann, Irina Demick, Pilar Velazquez
Country: Italy / Spain
What it is: Giallo

When a man who recently had taken out a million dollar insurance policy is found dead in the car of a “House of Horrors” ride with a bagful of money, an insurance investigator is sent out to find the truth of the matter.

My source for this movie lists it under the title THAT CURSED HOUSE CLOSE TO THE MUSHROOM BED; I found no match to that title on IMDB. However, doing some extra research on the directing and acting credits, I was able to ascertain that this was the movie, which has the much more exploitable title under which I found it. Though giallos are often considered part of the horror genre, they’re a bit closer to mysteries for the most part; however, there is a plot point in this one where we’re led to think a man may have returned from the dead. As for the movie itself… well, maybe it’s because the copy I found was pan-and-scanned, had bad color (I’ve never seen so many people with green hair in all my life), and rotten sound. Maybe it’s because the dubbing often doesn’t match the lips of the speakers. Maybe it’s because the movie takes forever to get going, and when it finally starts moving, it isn’t even particularly engaging then. Maybe it’s because the jerky, jittery camerawork makes the viewing of the movie an annoying experience. Maybe it’s one thing or another, but whatever the culprit is, I found this one to be not engaging at all; it was one of those movies that swiftly brought me to the point where I simply didn’t care what was going on. It can’t even fall back on the stylistic flourishes usually found in the form, because they aren’t here. It’s one of those cases where the title is a lot more entertaining than the film itself.