 Thanks for checking out this movie review video. So this is for the 1972 Italian giallo film I in the labyrinth and I'm gonna be honest with you right up front This has cracked my top 10 after I watched it now I'm not gonna say that from you know a visual standpoint It's the most amazing like some sort of Argento or Baba type thing But when you put together how it looks how it's acted all the technical stuff But mainly the story and all the craziness that's injected into this film. It is cracked my top 10 Oh, man, I really like this one got to see it. So anyway, gonna talk about it directed by Mario Kayano Kayano Best guess there. He also directed films such as nightmare castle the sexberry tales and Nazi love camp 27 just more of the interesting Titles that he's directed Also written by Kayano and Antonio Cegara and Cegara wrote some scripts for films such as ten days that shook the world That was it and then a Horst Hockler who wrote the script for let it all hang out So the film was co-produced with a German company and stars several popular German actors actually But apparently it wasn't it didn't get an actual like formal release within Germany So that's kind of weird to kind of have that German connection and that much Involvement German wise and not really be released there was mainly just an Italian release The opening shot of a shadow running away from the camera and to the side is super interesting It really does create this kind of surreal Perspective with the way that the camera set up and the way the shadow runs away. It's kind of it's very surreal It's very odd and it's just this kind of like Spiraling type thing which I think is supposed to kind of mirror the title of the film I and the labyrinth Which is talking about that painting which obviously in the very end of the film is what is housing? Lucas's head severed head and I'll get to the severed head scene at the end But geez I have a lot to say about that but I really do view that that initial thing It's supposed to make it seem surreal like that painting It's supposed to make it feel a little bit dizzying and kind of circular like as Lucas is running away from his killer and That I think is supposed to be kind of a visual tie-in to that painting that you see at the end Which is the eye and the labyrinths because it has that kind of eye in the middle of the labyrinth picture So I love the fact that there that's that tie-in to the actual title because there are plenty of times where giallo films have Very interesting titles. They almost always do but they don't really tie into the film It's more of like a this catches your ear. So let's just use it. So I like that it actually tied in Yeah Solidly brutal stabbing to start the film and that's one of the things that I like about this film is that the kills Feel brutal look brutal are pulled off pretty well Have a decent amount of gore to them and the acting involved with it of who's receiving the kill Pretty well done too. So they really feel intense. They feel brutal and from the get-go with Lucas's death That's what you get. So you really know what you're getting into. Well, what you're in store for in a very delightful way The first big mystery. What is Maracuti? I like that they kind of start with that kind of vague vague Mentioning of Maracuti and then you find Maracuti written down in one of Lucas's books And then that kind of starts you down this road of really piquing your interest in thinking Oh, we're solving a mystery here here starts the investigation and obviously then you know Julie takes off and starts doing her investigating You gotta love the gas pump attendant that she Encounters who's just blatantly reading porn magazine And then he also like has a line where he's trying to like come on to Julie while she's getting her gas pump Just kind of funny if this just goes back to the whole quirky things that giallo films throw in I Enjoy it though. I like those weird odd quirky characters that that pop up Constantly in giallo films and this gas station attendant obviously one of them So usually it's a guy who starts the investigating in in these films So it's a very nice change to have Julie in that role for for a change I really do enjoy the fact that it it's Julie because like I said the majority of the time These giallo films it's some guy investigating something So it's just an interesting change of pace to have it be a woman instead And if you've watched as much giallo as I have and I'm watching giallo every single week Usually about two giallo films a week ish You you get into that mode of just like being in the groove of okay, this is how it is This is how all these films are so then when one of them does something very different or that seems Different enough you're just like oh, this is interesting. This sticks out in a way So having Julie being the main investigator really stuck out. It was interesting I like how Julie is pointed to is pointed to an abandoned building And she wants to know who to ask for when she gets into the building and the response from the guy Who's pointing it out to her says it doesn't matter then she almost falls out a door to nowhere and Someone tries to kill her with rubble that they knock loose. So I think her first indicator should have been the fact that the person was like yeah It doesn't really matter because obviously he thought it didn't really matter because he was gonna try and have her killed Or he was supposed to try to have her killed. So yeah, I do like that scene though I think it sets up more of the mystery and makes it more intense. It shows you that there are real stakes at play here It's not just Julie going through an investigation. That'll be seamlessly easy for her There's danger involved and there's someone potentially either at least one person potentially coming after her maybe more So I like that danger that's introduced in that way Why is Julie skinny dipping when she needs to be looking for Lucas? This was one of the things that really hit me as odd But once again giallo, they do odd things where she just finds his beach gets out of her car and decides to just Skinny dip for no reason. I I thought she was kind of in a hurry to find Lucas now Obviously, it makes a lot more sense at the end of the film when we find out that she herself is the killer And that you know because of her psychosis She's kind of like disassociated from the actual events of killing him So she's not really aware of it But at the same time she's subconsciously aware of being the killer So there are things that she acts on based off the subconscious and then there are things that she acts on base off of the Conscious, so I would assume that her just stopping for a skinny dip is more based off her subconscious That's basically saying we don't really need to hurry up here because we killed him and we know where his body is so You can take some time do some skinny dipping Let the local boys snicker and laugh and point at you at your hot new body That's what they do in jail and there is a lot of nudity in the film too. That's the other thing I mean, obviously that was one of the things about Jalo films there was a big drawback in this time period because people weren't really seeing nudity all that much especially not Film-wise nudity so Injecting it into these films was a real selling point for people Girda's place is interesting to say the least lots of eccentric characters hanging out there Obviously, you end up finding out later that she's basically running drugs She has a whole drug pushing operation going on and all those characters hanging out with her are kind of these Yeah, they're eccentric They're kind of like artistic types who have just kind of been there because they want a free place to stay They want to be involved with her drug running They want to be involved in taking her drugs and just kind of living in her house So it's this interesting kind of Commune that's going on there. So I like that setting for the film too. It's a very cool Aspect of it that I haven't seen in a film before so or at least not a giallo before so I really like that incorporation Frank is a creep and we find out how much of a creep he is gradually throughout the film He acts like he's trying to help Julie out in the beginning out of the kindness of his heart But he's really just trying to get in her pants. Really that is his motivation throughout the whole thing He's really just trying to get with Julie again And obviously we see that in the end that he ends up being with her But I'll talk about that at the very end when Chronologically it makes more sense You can tell sorrow that was the boy who was a really good painter from the orphanage that was near Gerta's place You can tell sorrow will end up being the key to solving Lucas's murder when they revealed his painting of a stabbing now That's the fact that sorrow was Going to be the one to be the key to it, but obviously he ends up being Ending up dead and then we have Frank who just ends up explaining everything at the very end of the film which The best part of the film obviously the reveal on that I was like my head was like spinning. I was like what? This is crazy. Love it Julie didn't learn her lesson from the abandoned building This I'm referencing the car garage situation where someone says oh you should stop by the garage. I think was that Thomas maybe is either Thomas or the other guy. I know his name's in here somewhere, but Yeah, so she didn't learn her lesson if someone just telling her to go do something She really needs to just stop listening to random people because then she goes into the garage And then someone tries to kill her by locking her in the garage and having the car running She just doesn't she doesn't do a good job of learning lessons in this film Just saying When Frank saved Julie from asphyxiation in that garage situation I started to think he's putting her in danger to then show up and save her so he can work on getting in her pants And basically they're they're kind of you know There was a degree of that going on, but there was also Gerda trying to basically get rid of Julie Because she didn't want her snooping around with her whole operation there And then also all of her minions who are living in her house also being a part of all of that And in the really creepy way when they start like coming at her as like this kind of mindless group Towards the end of the film where Curtis just like you know get her basically and they're all like slowly creeping towards her It seems like she firmly has control over all of them. Maybe it's the drugs Gotta love Eugene's freak out scene that one was funny Eugene the guy with the glasses who's living there at Gerda's house and had you know manipulated the audio But he was like I swear I didn't know what the audio manipulation was for I was just told to do it by Gerda And I did it and then he has his flashback where he's talking about his Argument that he ended up having with Lucas when Lucas was still alive and just like hit the freak out that he has during that When he just like loses it because Lucas has touched a nerve about his stay in a mental ward It's just very funny the way it was acted and that's the thing like there are there a decent amount of Unintentionally funny things in the film which also add to the experience of it for me personally Every story that gets told about Lucas makes him sound pretty awful. Yeah, that's the big thing I was starting to wonder. I'm like you think that usually the initial victim that people are trying to find out What happened to him and why in these films you think that they're usually a good person It's usually someone who had a bad person come by him or they had some sort of motive to kill him But they were a good person but with all these flashbacks that we get about Lucas like none of them are good None of them show him in a good light at all. I mean what he you know the antagonizing of Eugene He raped. What was the one girl's name? I forget her name, but she's Barely, I mean they said they said her name like once or twice, but he raped her Then there was another instance where another girl he was trying to like You know sneakily watch her get naked like Just like a scumbag dude and then you find out you know in the end what kind of led to Julie ending up killing Lucas Which was that he basically was manipulating her the whole time for his you know personal enjoyment and Just kind of like to unlock the mystery of her psychosis while having a relationship with her sexually and then Figures it out in the end. It's just like I you know, I feel like I'm done with you So like just a horrible person So once you start seeing these kind of flashbacks, I started thinking Why is she so concerned about solving this? I mean, I know they were together But like this is a terrible guy and how does she not notice that? So I guess she did that was part of kind of her subconscious holding on to that knowing that he was terrible But her that her conscious self Is more idealistic I guess Great scene when Julie is getting shot at with a spear gun from the speeding boat I thought that was really really cool. That's something I've never seen in a film before First of all, you don't see spear guns used in films that much Anyway, but then to have the spear gun being shot from a speeding boat That's just like going around in the water. It was a cool scene. I enjoyed it something new Real nice work Julie. You killed sorrow you idiot. That's what I put down It's by far the best scene that yes by far my best scene where she accidentally killed sorrow I just can't believe how that unfolded because it's so comical But then later Frank reveal she subconsciously killed sorrow on purpose. I think that part is a great twist That's obviously where she's you know speeding in the car with sorrow because she's like we're gonna go tell the authorities That you saw the killer and you saw the whole thing go down because you're painting and then she starts having those like flashes of the eye in the labyrinth painting which we find out about later and That's I think like her psychosis kicking in that's her subconscious coming to the forefront. That's saying no You don't want to take sorrow Because he's gonna reveal that you killed Lucas. So that's kind of her moment of understanding that and That's why she ends up almost going off the cliff with the car obviously done sorrow waxes head on the Dashboard he's in a bad state is bleeding all over and then the funny part happens where she gets out of the car And she's like I'm gonna get you help gets out of the car, and I just love how it unfolds She goes to the back of the car and she pulls out a cigarette first of all when that happens I'm like I thought she said she was gonna go get help But she's more concerned with having a cigarette right now This doesn't match then she strikes the match like she brings the match up like she's gonna strike it And then they pan down and show that it's the car is leaking gas right there and when that happened I was like, oh no, no, they're not going to really and then it goes back to her and she strikes the match She drops it after lighting the cigarette and then flames just everywhere the car starts burning I start laughing because the way it unfolds is so comical and she's like Oh no, oh no, and just at that time it seemed like it was unintentional Obviously in the end you find out that Frank's all like no that was intentional because subconsciously you knew that sorrow knew that you were the killer And you never wanted him some subconsciously you never wanted him to get to the authorities So subconsciously you killed sorrow. I love that twist to it I didn't see that twist coming but at the time when I thought she was just that stupid and that clumsy It was funny Julie is so dense She just eats the sugar cube that Lewis gives her she still hasn't learned to stop just doing whatever people say That was another one of those Instances where he's just like here eat this. She's like, what is it? He says it's sugar and she's like, okay Come on. Who just wants to eat a cube of sugar? That's the first thing second thing You would follow up with a question of why are you trying to just feed me a cube of sugar? What is special about this cube of sugar? LSD that's obviously what was going on here. I'm assuming LSD, but I just thought that was kind of funny It's like she won't learn she just won't learn Then we learned Lucas was a drug pusher. Why was Julie seriously with this dude? Just a reiteration of what I said before Julie seems to get over Lucas pretty easily though once Lewis takes his pants off Obviously after eating the sugar just eating the sugar they get in bed. She seems totally fine now Obviously, that's that subconscious part of her which I'm assuming they're kind of pointing at the drugs are unlocking her subconscious in that moment So she's really able to kind of let loose Forget about Lucas for a bit and just sleep with sexy Lewis because that's what she actually wants Subconsciously she's done with Lucas. She knows he's dead. She's ready to move on Lewis is right there She'd like a piece and she gets a piece Gerda is cold-blooded when she shoots Lewis in the back with a spear gun I don't know why she did that though because she's like no don't I assume It's just because she was angry that Lewis was pursuing Julie because Lewis was supposed to be her play thing So I guess there was a jealousy thing why she shot him, but I mean she could have just caught up to him later I don't think he was gonna catch up to Julie and get in the car with her really or maybe she was I don't know. Maybe that's what she's concerned about, but it was cold-blooded regardless how she just Shoots him in the back with that spear gun and then he ends up dead and they just throw his body out to see cold Man what a reveal with Lucas's severed head behind the painting on the wall I that hit me like out of that field. I was I was shocked I was stunned at that moment where she opens up that painting and there's this cubby in the wall with his severed head And it looked so disgusting. It looks so good That's the other thing the attention to detail and the practical effects on this for its time for 1972 look pretty great So that was just a great shocking moment and then after that It's just this cavalcade of explanations of what was really going on and the whole time. I'm just I was excited So Julie killed Lucas cuz he was leaving her after she realized he had used her as an Amusement to delve into her psychosis while having a relationship with her because he was a psychiatrist I saw yeah, I think a psychiatrist. So then it was just like his Have a fun time with it and she's a good-looking lady So while I'm having a fun time picking her brain apart. Why don't I sleep with her? Oh now? I've done with that. So throw her aside, but no Julie won't let it her psychosis more importantly won't let it so Then throwing Gerta's drug running into the mix just makes the story even better in my opinion Yeah, it just ups the ante of craziness. There's more going on. It's more interesting. It's more intriguing Love the intricacies of the script to this Holy crap. The head-sawing scene is grizzly This is what I was talking about before with the brutality that goes on in this film and the sound that they use when she's sawing his head off with the knife Really gross it made me cringe because like it sounded Something akin to what that would sound like it makes it more gross it makes it more shocking it makes it more brutal and That scene is wonderful. That might be my second favorites Well, the head reveals probably my second favorite then the head-sawing is probably my third favorite scene plenty of favorites for this And after the big reveal Frank takes Lucas's place as Julie's everything and of course He ends up dying in turn because of that because obviously you find out what Frank's motive was in the end He knew the whole story He knew everything that had gone on his aim the whole time was to take the steps to get back to Lucas's place Because Julie talks about even how Lucas had become her everything. You know, he was her lover He was her father. He was her caretaker. He was all these things and that's what Frank wanted So he gets there in the very end of the film But what he didn't think about is if I'm going to be like Lucas I might end up meeting the same end as Lucas and that's obviously how the film ends with a savage stabbing that Julie delivers to Frank and as the audience member we're good with that because Frank wasn't a good guy either So I pretty much everyone who gets killed in this probably except Lewis We're like, okay, that happened as The youth of today would say this one's a banger. I hate that term But I saw it was kind of funny if I use it this film is Yeah This is the type of film where you talk to your friend and you're like, are you into giallo? And they're like, yes, I love and then they just mainly talk about Argento Maybe a little bit of Bob and maybe a little bit of Lindsay if they're real nerdy about it And then you're just like yes, but do you know about Mario Cayano? I In the labyrinth That's a must. So yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited to introduce a lot of people to this film if you can't tell There are so many zooms in this film though. I do need to say that there's so many films Assuming he zooms in this film that I thought wait a minute Did I see the director correctly or is this room baritone? Lindsay a bear to Lindsay in his film so many zooms this one the same thing so many zooms I know it was a popular thing but and a lot of you know a lot of directors, especially in Italy at that time We're doing that but there are certain directors where it really stands out because they're such severe zooms Or they're doing it so much Lindsay obviously being one and from this first film maybe Mario Cayano does a bunch. I think The next movie I'm reviewing. Let me see is it also no It's not by him as well, but there will be at least one more film I think of his that I'm gonna be doing at some point. So we'll see how the zooming is at that point They really like using a banding building abandoned buildings in Jala films in general That's something that hit me during this because there are abandoned buildings used a few times in this film And there have been abandoned buildings used in a bunch of other Jala films Watch me when I kill I believe had some abandoned buildings in it this a Lizard in a woman's skin by Fulci that one did Torso by Sergio I think a Sergio Martina Yeah, just a bunch of them have abandoned buildings featured. I think it looks good I think it's cool, but just an observation The one big thing I really hated about this film in the areas where it's darker The lighting was so bad that you literally couldn't see things So like there were some indoor portions where it was supposed to be at night and it was just very poorly lit So you can't see much there's some outdoor a little bit in the dark and you could see like nothing So that's the main like bad thing But obviously there are a lot of great things with this film and I really enjoy it So out of five stars with half stars in play, I'm gonna give this a very solid four star rating It has its flaws, but it's crazy. It's very entertaining. It's brutal. It's engaging and I didn't see the end coming And I love that and it's a good ending even when I see the ending coming as long as it's well done And I think it was a good idea. I get excited about it But it's that next level when I don't see it coming and it's a really good idea that I'm just like oh man So yeah, so four stars for this one, but I would love to know your thoughts on this film Put it down in the comments. Are you high on this film like me? Do you also think it's a banger or do you think it's not great or some? You know middle a middling film we can talk about that or if you just want to talk about giallo in general But a reminder check out my giallo review playlist because I have an entire playlist devoted to Giallo reviews on my channel I also have entire playlists devoted to directors such as Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, Sergio Martino, Umberto Lensi I think that's all of them at least at the moment. That's all of them. 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