An archeologist's wife has recurring nightmares about ritual killings in an Etruscan tomb while her husband is away excavating a lost temple. After a phone call where she is forced to listen to him being murdered, she travels to the excavation site to solve the mystery of his death.
Murder in an Etruscan Cemetery, O Mistério Etrusco, Kaksihäntäinen skorpioni, Crime au cimetière étrusque, Il mistero degli Etruschi, El Asesino del Cementerio Etrusco, The Scorpion With Two Tails, Crimes au cimetière étrusque, El asesino del cementerio etrusco, 双尾蝎谋杀案, The Scorpion with Two Tails, Убийство на кладбище этрусков
Italy Italy 
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Originally a multiple hour mini series that was cut down to 90 minutes and it shows... there’s a mishmash of supernatural stuff and drug smuggling tossed in for good measure.
Murdered victims turn up with their heads completely twisted around and John Saxon’s in it as an archeologist who finds an Etruscan tomb before getting offed way to early… Despite my mediocre rating there are a few highlights spattered throughout, after all this is Sergio Martino. I’d love to see an unedited cut of the whole mini series (if it even still exists). There isn’t a lot going on here and I’d only recommend this to Sergio Martino/giallo genre completists.
Part giallo, part supernatural horror, this film has it all. Neck snapping, flute playing, drug smuggling, head twisting, cool caves, maggot visions, people putting their jackets on backwards, assassins, mystical Eutrucan's, did I mention neck breaking?, anti gravity protected anti matter floating diamonds and..... John Saxon! That all might sound like a lot, and a lot of neck snapping, and you know what, it is. This film is a lot of everything smooshed together to make a very entertaining but very weird and jumbled film. It's almost like giallo master and genre hit-and-miss-er Sergio Martino made a limited TV series and then edited it all down into a movie. Oh wait, that's exactly what happened. And you know, I'm not…
I watched this bore to spare you the pain. This film taught me three things about Gialli. 1. Without the arty lurid sleaze expect a snoozefest. 2. Sleeping women dreaming of being chased then writhing orgasmically is so Giallo. 3. There is a statistical anomaly in Gialli of women named Jane or Joan. Peace out ✌🏻
Not as pretty as Martino's other films, but I certainly identified with a goddess who doesn't know she's a goddess.
October count: 40/31
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Taylor Swift stars in her own Giallo on the set of The Dark Crystal, has one of the funniest reveals when the dude you thought was dead comes back in the most unlikely way possible! It’s not good but it’s worth remembering just for that reveal alone!
I don’t know if I’d call this a full on giallo, but it certainly is giallo-adjacent, so it’s interesting to consider this next to two more notable entries in the genre from the same year. Tenebre and The New York Ripper feel definitive. The former feels like the genre devouring itself, the latter feels like an explosion of its ugliest tendencies. There were certainly movies made in the genre afterwards, but they feel in a way like its final statements. This comparatively feels stodgy and inessential. There is enough in the way of classic genre elements, with the line between literal and perhaps less literal realities of the movie dissolving. But there is little of the viciousness of the other…
I've always skirted around watching this as most of the comments I've read about it say it's a dud.
One look at the credits though show this film to have serious giallo pedigree. Sergio Martino directs, Dardano Sacchetti and Ernesto Gastaldi on writing duties, Fabio Frizzi scoring. Then in front of camera John Saxon, Claudio Cassinelli and Paolo Malco. Its a who's who of 70s/80s Italian cinema. Maybe that's why expectations are high with most people going into this.
Although maybe not the banger one might expect I still really liked this.
Again dealing with themes of Etruscan mysticism, unlike 1972s The Dead are Alive this film at least tries to commit to its supernatural plot devices as Elvire Audray's…
Freewheeling and cheap, but as it thrashes between giallo, adventure, supernatural horror, and crime thriller it's never less than intriguing (and that "appearance by John Saxon" counts for something!). The kills are... something! Never stops being corny, but the commitment to its bit (and Frizzi's commitment to ripping off Goblin's Dawn of the Dead score) are charming. Unpredictable, if nothing else!
"I was dreaming about you -- it was horrible!"
The Scorpion with Two Tails aka I Dream of Gialli
Sergio Martino and Ernesto Gastaldi reunite once more for The Scorpion with Two Tails.
After her husband (John Saxon) dies under mysterious circumstances, a young woman (Elvire Audray) investigates matters on her own. This involves a lot of spelunking and some surreal dreaming. As she gets closer to the identity of the killer, the plot twists and turns until things come to a head. Quite literally.
With its archaeological angle, Fabio Frizzi soundtrack and maggot hallucinations, Martino's late genre entry feels at times more like a Lucio Fulci flick, with all the batshit nonsense and convoluted characters you'd expect. It's also…
"ANTIGRAVITY!!!!!!"
A lot is crammed into this movie and its a little nonsensical, which makes sense since this was cut down from an 8 episode miniseries, but I have a hard time complaining about the weird mixtures of genre when there's this much neck snapping, maggots and nightmares about ancient Etruscans. Strangely enough also a gunfight, drug runners, cave collapse and an old dude playing the flute. Like I said, kind of all over the place.
I'm not 100% sure if I like this movie or if the score from Fabio Frizzi does most of the heavy lifting. Sure its music from better movies like Fulci's City of the Living Dead, but it sure does help this movie a lot.
John Saxon is killed very early. So if you're watching for him, maybe don't bother.
Anyway the ending is rather bizarre. I definitely didn't see that coming.
I recently viewed the Italian film 🇮🇹 A Scorpion with Two Tails (1982) on Tubi. The plot revolves around a woman in New York whose archaeologist husband passes away while studying artifacts in Italy. Haunted by nightmares of a mysterious cult performing sacrifices where her husband died, she travels to Italy to investigate the locations he frequented, and her dreams start materializing...
Directed by Sergio Martino (A Man Called Blade) and featuring Elvire Audray (Ironmaster), Paolo Malco (The New York Ripper), Claudio Cassinelli (The Suspicious Death of a Minor), and Marilù Tolo (Marriage Italian Style).
This Italian horror film from the era stands out with its unique blend of giallo and Indiana Jones elements. The solid acting complements a compelling…
I already knew the movie was going to be bad. But it was a surprise how bad it was. Another surprise was that Martino's regular actor showed up: Claudio Cassinelli. Sad, that he died 3 years later while filming another Martino film. The acting in this movie is horrible. The script is dumb.
The first half was so horrible that I stopped every few minutes to check mails, watch something on YT and so on. Then I said to myself: I have to get through! And tried - and got very sleepy. But that was the right state of mind. It all seemed like a strange dream, and I kind of liked it now a little bit.
So my recommendation: If one must watch this film, do it very tired, under the influence of drugs or with fever.
:-)
