 Thanks for checking out this movie review video. This is for the 1971 Italian giallo film Black Belly of the tarantula, and if you don't know I'm big into the giallo subgenre of horror So I actually have an entire playlist on my channel of giallo film reviews So if you want more you can check that out. Anyway black belly of the tarantula, which I would argue should be called a little something different maybe something like Sting of the wasp or the wasp sting or something like that because I understand like the role of tarantula in the name of this film But it's it doesn't seem like that hits the purpose. You know what I mean because I understand it refers to the killing method of the Killer which is that you know acupuncture needle that gets put in the back of the neck to Perilize people so they're aware of the fact that they're being cut up But unable to move or do anything about it which is terrifying And I think it's a great thing in this film a great device that's used to make people uncomfortable to make the kills more shocking to people and It's something that invades your brain It's one of those things you see and you relate it to yourself. You're saying oh my gosh I could not imagine being in that situation. So it's effective. So when the entomologist then talks about Oh, you know, it's like the what this wasp in the tarantula and you know how he stings him and and gives him this poison that Paralyzes him and then he lays the eggs in him and they eat him all that stuff. So I get that reference That's about the tarantula But I think it'd be more effective if it was a title based off of the killer Like the wasp like the wasp is doing the killing like that's more appropriate in my opinion But I guess the black belly portion has to do with focusing on the victims. So I Don't know just an idea though. Sorry. I may have gone on too long about that But anyway, this is directed by Paulo Kavara who did other films such as the ravine deaf Smith and Johnny Ears Virility and plot of fear. I don't think he's done any other Jialas Written by Lucille Lacks Who also wrote scripts for in search of Gregory? Savage three and this is the night with these individuals. I just pick out ones that are horror. They do a bunch of other stuff though Three bond girls actually ended up being in this film. I thought that was a very interesting piece of knowledge Claudine auger who was in thunderball Barbara Bach who was in the spy who loved me and Barbara Boucher who was in the original casino Royale I think it was from 60s like 63 or something like that But then additionally John Carlo Giannini who's in this was also Would go on later to be in some of the newer Bond films the new casino Royale that was done in the 2000s as well as Quantum of solace during the Daniel Craig era So I thought it was very interesting how this film has so much connection to the James Bond films And it's especially weird being that it's Italian and these are mainly Italian actors. So very interesting The man falling to his death in this which I think is an awesome awesome scene the man being Was his name. I think his name is Paul Paolo in that Zani or Zavi Whatever the family name is Zany, I don't remember Paolo, I believe it was him falling to his death was actually done with a mannequin Which you know, it makes sense because it looks so realistic That it was a mannequin But if you notice when he's falling down that kind of open atrium of the building He hits a window and it breaks the window that was actually a mistake That was an accident when they were shooting it They were supposed to drop it down and not have it hitting things It was supposed to go straight down But it went over to the side broke that window and they just kept the footage because it looked good So just know that when you watch that that was not intentional. That was an accident So I thought that was cool And I think it actually Enhances the scene honestly because it seems more realistic and it actually seems more brutal and destructive With the body on the way down instead of just falling straight down like hitting things It's a little more brutal and it looked good. That was good. Good scene The film starts with what sounds like a very sexual massage There's a lot of moaning going on in the beginning of this as they show the spa and who ends up being the killer working on the woman's body, which I do like that the killer is Seen very early in the film like very very early in the film And then they kind of leave him alone for quite a while until they come back to him and reveal You know, oh, he's blind and I mean you get that idea when he's wearing sunglasses when he answers the phone in the beginning But I like how they kind of put him right there in your face immediately So it's this kind of like snickering thing that the filmmakers doing like you're seeing the killer immediately But then you'll have no idea until the end But I actually did know I was able to guess who the killer would end up being and I'll tell you about how I Figured that out towards the end of this review or at the end of this review I'll find out but all those sexual noises and they you know There's a lot of sexuality wrapped into this like happens with a lot of giallo films in with this one in particular It does make sense though because of the killer's motivation for killing which I'll talk about later more in-depth The music in general though The opening song was terrible Just awful annoying awful awful awful and the music in this in general not that great Really not that great. I expect more from Italian films you know older Italian films that is and The other thing is there were there were these noises that would happen of just like the sighing was another thing that came into the music a Lot and that's annoying as well I think it was kind of meant to Increase this ambiance and feeling of this like the sexual nature which you know it was effective for that But it's just annoying. It doesn't sound good either. So I like the slow up close sequence of the killer preparing the needle in the beginning It even gets sanitized, which is very it was very very nice of the killer I'm assuming the whole sanitizing of you know doing it in the fire has something to do with kind of his training at a spa of You know, that's just what he does If he would be doing acupuncture for someone with that needle he would be sanitizing it So I think it's a second nature type thing going on But that whole sequence of him kind of preparing the weapon of paralysis and then you end up seeing it used very good sequence Like it quite a bit because it builds this anticipation of what is going on and what is going to be done with this and it's pretty horrific really The stalking scene at Maria's house. She's the first one he gets killed is great I love that stalking scene the kind of like Cat and mouse that's going on and then there's that nasty payoff with the paralysis And that's the first time you see it in the film And then the fact that she just gets like cut up with the knife while she's still aware of what's going on But unable to move Pretty good payoff for that whole sequence. I love it I also love how it's kind of shot with the camera work outside of the building with a lot of windows and Then it goes inside and kind of the killer POV movements look really good, too And I will say in general the directing in the cinematography for this film is pretty good. It's very smooth That's another thing. I'll give it I watched this film right after I'd watch the case of the bloody iris Which I also have a review for on my channel at the moment And that had a lot of kind of rough for Camera work so going to this film and seeing how smooth the camera work and how much better the cinematography was I was just like oh thank goodness. This is way better. So that contrast was was pretty good I like how the inspector in this has very accusatory questions for Paolo immediately Maria's husband Then he basically says oh, I'm not insinuating anything. I'm not I'm not you know I'm not getting at anything, but it's obvious that he was and the way he did it. It's just kind of funny Did that guy ask for eggs ask eggs again tonight the inspector that is when he goes home I put a question like how often is he having eggs for dinner? It's such a weird bit of dialogue where he's like eggs again for tonight and she's like, oh, no We're having I think she said a chicken she'd roasted chicken, but How often is he eating eggs for dinner and is it in there to let that people know that like he doesn't have a whole Lot of money. Is that what this is about? It's just such a weird bit of dialogue But then again, you know when they're dubbing things over sometimes that just ends up happening The frantic Camerawork when the lady with the red hair is running from the killer in that store that's kind of closed after hours Works really really well I like it a lot because it makes the situation a lot more chaotic like it would be from the point of view of the victim Love it. I love it. It also makes it seem more savage as well So it plays really really well and this goes into what I was talking about with the the cinematography being really good and Directing the inspector seems to try and draw a connection of victims picked because of their excesses early on He kind of talks about you know, the Maria who had been Labeled early on in the film as a nymphomaniac But then also the the redhead in the store who had been involved with I believe cocaine So it was like oh, she's a drug addict. So he was kind of trying to say oh It's people with these excesses, you know, this person who wants a lot of sex this person who wants a lot of drugs You know that type of stuff it ends up not being the motivation as we all know now if you've seen the film and You know, sorry because there's spoilers in this but not sorry because it's old I don't think holding the inspector at gunpoint is gonna help the situation when Maria's husband Apollo Holds him a gunpoint in the car like I understand for the story that that's what's going on but from the standpoint of in real life Does this really make sense? No, because you're not going to help the situation at all by holding the inspector at gunpoint Even if he decides to start helping you out because of that and sees that you're not guilty He's probably still gonna take you to jail eventually and you're gonna have charges filed against you for that Love the parallel of the wasp in the tarantula like I talked about in the beginning with the killer and the victim It's it is a cool analogy that they worked in and I do like that whole sequence with the inspector going to see the entomologist But there's this portion of it where I'm like what the hell is actually going on here It was that moment where the entomologist had pulled the tarantula out of that case with the cocaine Which the tarantula is basically like guarding the cocaine which I thought was kind of a funny concept But kind of cool at the same time So he pulls this tarantula out with like these forceps and he's holding him up and they're focusing on that with the camera And he's kind of to the side of and a little bit behind the inspector And then he it looks like he's moving to like put it on the inspector Is that what's going on and then all of a sudden it gets loose and then the inspector ends up crushing it with that box But that sequence that little sequence is so weird like I couldn't fully tell what was going on there But put it you know put it down in the comments. What do you think? Do you think that they were insinuating that the entomologist was thinking about putting it on the guy back of the guy's neck? That's what it seemed like the way it looked. It was very weird. I Put down yeah, right Calculate the angle of the jet in the picture to find out what house Maria was in when the picture was taken When they find they analyze they blow up and analyze the picture of Maria with the guy who was the photographer blackmailing Then they find out oh, it's a jet and they they're like, okay Well, we can figure out what apartment she was in based off the calculating the angle of the jet We can find out what apartment. I'm like That's so far-fetched and whacked out of like there's no way. There's no way Not and think about this was in the early 70s to like very early 70s. So no, absolutely not The chase scene I love the chase scene in this they shot it really well Actually, it does kind of have this like police film Feel to it where the guy who was blackmailing blackmailing is being chased by polo And then polo is being and that guy are being chased by the inspector Cool chase scene and then the best part of the chase scene when polo ends up falling over the edge down the atrium Breaks the window on his way down and falls to his death. Love it Could Franca act any more suspicious the woman who was supposed to be Paying for the blackmail who ends up meeting the inspector She was unbelievably suspicious first of all She just walks in the bar meets up with the inspector who she believes at that point is her blackmailer Gives him the the envelope of money and then just takes off and then while she's walking away because the inspector's following her She's looking around suspiciously and moving quickly and it's oozing suspicious, you know, it just it hit me is very funny how suspicious she was acting then obviously as we know the Investigator ends up catching up to her and makes a fatal error. Well fatal for Franca In not getting information from her then because she's like, oh, I'm too tired. I don't want to talk about this now Could we talk about this tomorrow? Never ever allow that to happen as we will see another time in this film never say Oh, okay tomorrow because your source of information will not be alive anymore because the killer will find out So it does seem to me that the blackmailer was actually Blackmailing many people this was kind of an operation that was going on and then you found out later that Laura who seems to own the spa that you see in the beginning was actually Getting dirt on her employees using this photographer to kind of I guess get them hooked up with with people They would cheat on their spouses with the photographer would take pictures of that going on And then they would blackmail and she was getting a portion of that money So I thought that was an interesting twist to it because it then enters the mind of the audience Oh, maybe this has something to do with the killer and we find out it doesn't a lot of time with these Jial of Jialo films What what is initially said is going on has nothing to do with what the killing is It's always coming down pretty much to an individual motivation. It's that individual killers Weird motivation that ends up taking over Pretty funny and when all those authorities are watching the film of the inspector boning I thought that was a very odd but funny sequence where they're like Oh, we found this this film footage at the at the at the apartment that we went into where the blackmailer was And they just start watching it and it's the inspector having sex with that woman. I Thought that was pretty funny Pretty odd plan to try and take someone out with crap hanging off the back of a truck When the inspector almost gets killed because he gets in his car and that truck with all the stuff hanging off the back Backs in and like crushes a window, which was giving me a lot of you know final destination vibes Which obviously this was way before that but you know have me having seen final destination before seeing this I was just thinking final destination as soon as it was happening But it's just kind of like a weird inefficient thing to try and take someone out that way, although it would look like an accident Kind of maybe What a sassy spa attendant this guy is the guy with all his comments the guy who he says he's a waiter when he gets interviewed the larger set guy He makes a lot of like really sassy comments to the clients at the spa And then when he goes to take cigarettes to the woman in the pool and he like you could tell he Intentionally like drops them in the pool was like oops Like I just thought he was a funny character. I love that character I wish he would have been on screen more because he was so funny But his level of sass with the people there. He's not really a good employee for that reason So I thought that was I saw it was ridiculous and funny loved it The inspector doesn't really have many questions for the spa employees That's one thing that hit me is the inspectors all like oh, I'm gonna interview all the employees at the Spock's We think it's connected here, and he literally has like one question per person pretty much And he doesn't even have a question for the person who ends up being the killer He makes an assumption that because the guy because the guy is blind. He's not actually blind. He just appears to be blind He's faking it He thinks that oh well, there's no possible way it could have anything to do with him, you know and you know you a lot of people I'm sure at that point pick up on how Abrupt he's dismissed and probably saw that as suspicious from a filmmaking standpoint to say Oh, you know they're using this as as a way to try and dismiss the person and they could end up being the killer Most likely they are the killer because they'll usually employ stuff like that in the film to you know Divert attention away from the killer, but have them present in the film Did the inspector not learn his lesson about waiting till the next day for information because when Laura proposes this And he just goes with it. Obviously. He didn't learn his lesson with Franca As soon as she called him or as she as he was talking to her and she said well, can we do this tomorrow? I was like, well, she's gonna be dead because already happened with Franca I guarantee it's gonna happen again. This is what this killer does and sure enough. That's what happens Great use of silence when the inspector walks around the closed-down spa I love that you if you watch enough of my reviews You know, I'm a big proponent of using silence very well in film I think it helps kind of build tension and it also Gives this sense of like what's about to happen because the music's not leading you anyway Like should I be feeling tense right now? Should I be feeling scared right now? Should I feel happy in in a light mood? I love Having it left up to the audience and I think it helps build tension. I Like how much the inspector bitch slaps the killer when they're fighting at the end at his apartment I think it was apartment. It seemed like an apartment. Yeah, I love how much he bitch slapped him Like go back and watch that where like he bitch slaps him like I don't know like four or five times or something in a row I saw it was a funny thing to have in their fight But I enjoy that about it So in the end, what's the motive of this guy who was posing as a blind individual but actually killing people? I thought it would have been smart if he was in the end just a serial killer who decided to pose as someone who was blind get a job at the spa and Use it as a way to just kind of scope out victims. I thought that would have worked But no it's not even premeditated all that much It's he gets enraged by women who turn him on basically because he can't get a boner His motivation is I can't get a boner, but from a symbolic standpoint It makes sense with the weapons that he uses because he uses the needle for paralysis and uses the knife for cutting them and both of those are penetrating weapons which is very symbolic of Needing to have some sort of hard erect item going inside the body So because he's impotent he can't get an erection and enter a woman He is using the needle and the knife to kind of simulate that as he kills them when he is so rage filled because he can't actually have sex He can't get a boner so he's going to kill these women who are tantalizing him and Obviously that probably happens a lot because as you see in the very beginning of the film, he is doing the massaging How do you not feel tantalized by massaging beautiful naked women in that situation? Especially in the 70s within the context of this film I feel like he would be trying to kill every single person that he gave a massage to it's crazy, man Oh and that whole that whole Comparison of like the penetration of things like knives and weapons like that as as a penis Surrogate that is something that's a very popular Parallel that's drawn with slasher films in the United States So just know that this that's something not something I came up with on my own That is something that has been used many times in film analysis The sighing music that happens here and there throughout the film is unbelievably annoying I have to repeat that it that is one of the worst things about this film in my opinion the film has some nice transitions from on focus to From focusing on one thing to another that's kind of similar There were a few places they did that at one point they focused on like the light the headlight of a car and then go to like the overhead light that was in that Asian inspired room that had the needle in it so I thought that was a cool transition also the transition of going from the Plap the glop rubber gloves of the killer then to the rubber gloves of Someone processing the crime scene. I thought that was a cool transition as well So that just goes to cinematography directing like I was saying well done. I Knew who the killer was because when Maria ends up tussling with the killer in the beginning in her house Before she gets paralyzed and killed I got a quick glimpse of a shadow of the profile of the killer And I immediately remembered the shape of that nose from the blind guy at the spa Because it wasn't that long ago like it was still fresh in my memory because they go to that killing scene pretty quickly So it was a very distinct nose that he had and there was just this little bit During the tussle where you can see the his profile of his face in the shadows So I think maybe if they would have shot that scene a little bit better So you never see the face at all like not even the shadow of the face Then I wouldn't have picked up on it necessarily or maybe I would have when That part where the inspector just dismisses him because he's blind. I probably would have picked up at it Would have picked up on it then but I picked up on it almost immediately because of seeing that profile And I was like yep, it's that guy because that nose is unmistakable so just saying The other thing about it is There's not really much of any reason for him to be answering the phone in the beginning So it's kind of like why is he there? Well, obviously he's there in the film for a reason and especially because he's shown You know like head on In the actual plot in the story of things there was no actual reason to show this guy especially not just answering some phone after another person had answered the phone and then kind of You know transferred it. It doesn't make sense. So That's how you kind of know Um, obviously the blindness ruse is used to deflect attention But note that he was shown basically immediately in the film and it didn't he didn't really need to be there Like I was saying so once again getting back to the whole thing where I do kind of like This thing where the the filmmaker kind of throws it right at your face It's like you're gonna see the killer immediately, but you'll have no idea until the end of the film So on your second viewing you'll be like, I see what you did there. So yeah, I like that So anyway, enjoyed this film. It's not, you know, like the the most phenomenal giallo film or anything like that But it was good. I I did definitely enjoy it. I think it had A lot more of a police procedural aspect to it than something like the case of the bloody iris And I like that about it. I like more of that kind of baked in it. It makes it seem More mysterious. It kind of makes you um on the edge of your seat a little bit more So I like that about it. So anyway out of four stars with half stars in play I'm actually between a three and a half and a four because I do like this one But I think it's probably more appropriate at the three and a half level I don't think it quite it's the four level But three and a half is very appropriate. But if I was given quarters, I'd give it a 3.75. So anyway, uh, Let me know your thoughts on black belly of the tarantula put some comments down here But do me a quick favor first hit that subscribe button If you like any video I have ever done reviews unboxings done live streams, whatever If you like anything, please pay me back by just hitting that subscribe button because I don't make money for this I'm just trying to build a horror loving community right here So we can interact with each other talk in the comments be nerds about horror and in this instance be nerds about giallo Because I love giallo. 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