By Richard Winters
My Rating: 4 out of 10
4-Word Review: Child falls for killer.
Simona (Karin Trentephol) is a lonely 12-year-old who lives with her mother (Lisa Gastoni) and her wheel chair bound step father (Mel Ferrer) in a secluded home on the Italian countryside. One day while walking through the forest that’s near her place she comes upon an injured man named Federico (Howard Ross), who has been shot in the arm by the police for being a dangerous child killer at-large. While he was able to escape the ambush the authorities continue their search, so Simona offers him sanctuary in a small coach house behind her home. It is here that she grows fond of him,but Simona’s mother finds out who she’s been hiding and tries to entice him to kill her invalid husband. Simona,who’s relationship with her mother is already strained, becomes upset that she can’t have Federico all to herself and plots a revenge on both of them.
This film is notorious for its depiction of child nudity and simulated sex. Back in the 70’s Italian filmmakers were on the front lines of shock cinema in their effort to push-the-envelope and attract curiosity seekers looking to see how far the next controversial film would go. This one, while dull and generic story-wise, definitely goes to the extreme at the one hour mark, when a naked Simona jumps out of the tub and then lies on the floor begging for Federico, who’s in the bathroom with her, to ‘make a baby’. While an adult stand-in was then used for the simulated sex it’s still an explicit moment that will disturb most viewers and likely will never get a DVD/Blu-ray release here though in Italy it has.
If you take out the controversial moment, which wasn’t needed and could’ve been implied, the film is otherwise quite sterile. There were a few things I did like including the subtle yet haunting score by the incomparable Ennio Morricone and the film’s faded color. I’m not sure if this was intentional, or just the print of the DVD, but the off-color nicely reflects the immoral characters who seem normal initially, but quickly reveal their twisted natures underneath. Trentephol, whose only film appearance this is, is outstanding. I don’t know where the producers found her, or quite frankly how they got her paent’s permission to play such a difficult role, but she lends an amazing presence particularly her piercing blue eyes that clearly conveys her character’s inner disdain for those around her.
Gastoni, who was quite prolific in Italian films during the 50’s and 70’s, but then went on a sabbatical after doing this one and didn’t appear in another movie until 2005, is good too as an aging, jaded woman where nothing it seems is too vile to upset her. The conversations she has with her daughter are truly warped, but still something you might hear in a family that was as dysfunctional as this one. Even the aging Ferrer, who at one time was a budding star, but relegated to finding work in overseas productions when Hollywood quit calling, gets an intense moment where he angrily points a rifle to his chest and then challenges his wife, who he knows wants him dead, to pull the trigger.
The story’s weakest element is Federico. While we see him dig the grave of one of his victims at the start, we never witness him killing anyone, which hurts the tension as he’s not volatile and threatening enough. Instead he’s overly passive while being lead around by both Simona and her mother. Maybe that was the point, to show how women ultimately control men even the dangerous ones, but it’s not handled in a way that’s interesting. Everything gets played-out in a heavy-handed fashion including a climax that offers little punch.
Alternate Title: Cock Crows at Eleven
My Rating: 4 out of 10
Released: November 20, 1978
Runtime: 1 Hour 49 Minutes
Not Rated
Director: Massimo Pirri
Studio: Una Cinecooperativa
Available: DVD (Import Region 2)
Scopophilia 