The Black Belly of the Tarantula (Paolo Cavara, 1971)

Someone is blackmailing the clients at a local health spa. Someone else is killing them.

It is up to jaded police officer Tellini (Giancarlo GIanini) to find the murderer before they can get their next victim.

Every year or so, I get back into giallo. These Italian thrillers were popular from the late sixties through to the late seventies. While not all of them included these features, the genre is based around a murder mystery plot, vivid colours and graphic violence. 

While they are associated with the later slasher genre, I always liked gailli. There is something about the clash between ugliness and beauty. I generally not a fan of style but this genre’s impact is so tied up in its aesthetic.

The Black Belly of the Tarantula has gained a latter-day recognition mostly down to its cast, which features a large number of James Bond alumnus.

Lead player Giancarlo GIanini later played Bond’s ally Rene Mathis in Casino Royale, while Claudine Auger (Thunderball), Barbara Bach (The Spy Who Loved Me) and Barbara Bouchet (Casino Royale ‘67) are potential victims.

The Black Belly of the Tarantula is not the worst gaillo I have seen but it might be the most generic. The most unique element is his killing method - he paralyses his victims with a needle to the back of the neck so that they are immobilised but conscious as he stabs them with a knife. There is probably some licence with the science but it is a creepy set up. While we get a few splashes of red paint, the violence is mostly conveyed through editing, contrasting  between the plunging blade and the victim’s frozen features.

There is a vague attempt to give the film some pathos by making Tellini disenchanted with his work, but it never quite pays off. The climax veers toward a Seven-style downer, but it does not quite fit.

Other than that, the movie is pretty familiar - there is a blackmail subplot involving the clients at a health club; a whiff of sexual hypocrisy as a theme; a downbeat ending. Despite his killing method, if you have seen any other giallo, the killer is familiar: kitted out in a dark coat and slouch hat.

If I have a gripe with the movie, it is the execution. I am not familiar with Cavara's other work, but there is a lack of directorial control to the suspense sequences that is detrimental. 

In one standout example, the film intercuts between a woman standing in the entrance to her apartment while the killer waits for her behind a closed door. Now according to the 180* rule, these two scenes would be shot in a way that would convey that the characters are on either side of the door (killer on the left, victim on the right). In this way, the viewer is able to put it together in their mind, which generates tension as she prepares to open the door. 

What ruins this scene is that both scenes are shot from the same angle, so your sense of geography is thrown and so is the build of suspense.

While the murder sequences are eerie, the suspense sequences before them are all fudged in similarly frustrating ways.

This undermines the movie because it is not that interested in being anything other than a murder mystery with scary murder sequences. 

If you want to watch it, The Black Belly of the Tarantula might work best as one half of a double bill with another Gallo, to give you taste of the genre.

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