This movie is just what you're looking for. If, what you're looking for is long, drawn out shots of a (bra-less) woman in a nightgown wandering around her apartment, not doing nearly enough radical self-love for someone who is almost certainly being indoctrinated into a satanic cult. That isn't really a spoiler, as it's pretty clearly the direction of the movie within the first ten minutes. And to be sure, this movie does deal in clichés. What does set it apart are the long, drawn out musical cues while our heroine stares ominously at walls and/or doorknobs, and the startling-ness of robotically acted scenes with actors who more act as vessels of personified terror than humans with personalities.Each scene in this movie is like an expressionist painting, pulling you into it's mood. It does this so well that I don't really care what the plot is. This movie has boobs in it.

Sylvia (Mimsy Farmer), an industrial scientist, is troubled by strange hallucinations related to the tragic suicide of her mother.After the success of "Rosemary's Baby" (1968), the Italian horror world began to embrace Satanic and occult stories. This is one of them. Director Francesco Barilli took a cue from early Argento and made a giallo with some dark undertones. He previously wrote a script for Umberto Lenzi, but had not directed a feature himself.The cast may not be well-known outside of Italy, but have appeared in Lenzi, Argento and D'Amato films. One even appeared in the notorious "Salo", and a few starred alongside Daria Nicolodi in a picture. So there is plenty of connection here.This film is beautifully shot with excellent color and better than average acting. It deserves more recognition than it gets. Wikipedia and IMDb are relatively silent on the film's creation, and even Italian horror historian Luca Palmerini has little more than a sentence to say about it in his book...

For those who have seen more than one giallo on their watch, please save yourself the time. If you must know what the hub-bub is truly about, I will release spoilers later in the review.To get right to the underlying reason for watching these kinds of films, Mimsy gets naked twice: once briefly in a fairly rapid love making scene (where the camera likes to pan away) and at the very end with the "surprise" twistish ending. The murders don't really happen until the 1:20 mark, and there is no real gore to speak of until the very end, so be prepared for a very LONG wait for anything to happen.By the way, did I mention that this film is very dull? When I see words like "hypnotic" and "dreamlike" popping up when describing any film, they seem to be code for "drawn out" or "putting me to sleep".The plot goes something like this: Mimsy Farmer is a technician at a factory (either producing chemicals or beer, I couldn't tell which), who has frequent nightmares about her childhood and her mother (particularly how she died). In the course of this, she has a meeting with her boyfriend and some friends of his, some of whom appear to be dignitaries from Africa who converse about the dawning of science over witchcraft. As the story progresses, Mimsy's mental health starts to deteriorate as she begins to see a little girl who looks strangely like herself at the same age, as well as her mother in mirrors and the like. By the end of it, she is dressing like her mother and has gone quite mad, killing her boyfriend, the elderly scholar who resided beside her and her mother's former lover. It is revealed that Mimsy interrupted her mother having intercourse with the "lover" (or payee, if you know what I mean) and killed her own mother by pushing her out a window...thus, over time, the guilt (and maybe a little bit of shamanistic help from the aforementioned African dignitaries) pushed her over the edge quite literally.Yet, while one could consider this to be a proper ending for the main character, it is further revealed that the 3 people she killed are indeed still alive (which I am guessing the entire sequence was "in her head"), and they proceed to take her body to an underground tunnel, where everyone given any screen time in the movie participates in a cannibalistic ritual, with her boyfriend gutting her and the rest lining up to pull out a piece to eat.Now I can respect the visual aspect of the last shot, which (other than the Mimsy nudity) is the only saving grace of the film. Otherwise (as a friend put it tonight after finishing the film), "that's a pretty convoluted way to get your dinner".All in all, I was just too bored in the end to care about either twist, as I could see the "Mimsy dying the same way her mother did" ending the moment the method was revealed, and the cannibal ritual stuff was never dealt with very well to the degree that it felt tacked onto the main story.

When it comes to rare cult gems, The Perfume of the Lady in Black is a finely cut diamond! Many rare Italian films have received wide releases recently, meaning that it's a tragedy that this film hasn't. While this film isn't the best to come from Italy, it's certainly well worth seeing for fans of the Italian thriller, and its cult value is immense! The film is often mistaken for a Giallo; but this seems to be more because of the fact that it's from the Giallo homeland than any affiliation with the sub-genre. The Perfume of the Lady in Black is more of a psychological thriller, although it does benefit from a colour scheme typical of Italy's most famous cult films. The plot follows the story of Silvia Hacherman. We see her in a photograph over the title sequence, and it quickly becomes apparent that all is not right with her and her family. The film starts years later; Silvia is grown up and her parents are dead. However, their memory is not, and the beautiful young woman finds herself haunted by their memory.Carrying on with the diamond idea...this film is absolutely stunning to look at! The vibrant colour scheme (which mainly consists of yellow) ensures this and every scene is beautifully photographed by director Francesco Barilli. Barilli directs the film with care, and every vista is dripping with a double meaning bubbling below the surface. Mimsy Farmer (who has worked with Italian legends Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci) takes the lead role, and only adds to the aesthetic value. This beautiful actress is a delight to look at, and her image always suits the film. The plot is character based, and the plot points are few. Because of this, several points will be lost on the casual viewer, and The Perfume of the Lady in Black is a film that needs to be viewed carefully in order for it to be fully appreciated. The film benefits from a foreboding atmosphere, which is perfectly backed up by the music score; and the way that it climaxes in bloody and brutal fashion brilliantly offsets the pace of what has gone before. The Perfume of the Lady in Black is not an easy film to track down; but if you get the chance to see it, I definitely recommend taking it!