Seven Deaths In A Cat's Eye – A Brilliant Combination of Gothic Horror and Italian Giallo

Review by Steve D. Stones

Twilight Time has recently released a beautiful blu-ray disc of the 1973 Italian film – Seven Deaths In A Cat's Eye. Directed by Antonio Margheriti (aka Anthony M. Dawson), the film is also known by its Italian title of La Morte Negli Occhi de Gatto. The brilliance of this film is that it combines elements of the murder mystery Italian “giallo” with Gothic horror.

In an opening sequence that is important to the ending of the film, the viewer sees a close up of a stained glass lamp at a table and then a large chest being thrown down stone stairs of a castle as a corpse rolls out of the chest. A ginger tabby cat at the top of the stairs witnesses this scene. The corpse is eaten by rats as the camera shows close up shots of bloody eaten flesh of the corpse. The lamp will make another appearance at the end of the film, so it's important to remember this scene.

Corringa (Jane Birkin) returns to her family ancestral Scottish castle from her convent school in London after being expelled. The castle is known as Dragonstone. A gorilla looks out a castle window as Corringa's carriage arrives. Corringa's mother Lady Alicia (Dana Ghia) tries to persuade the matriarch of the house – Lady Mary MacGrieff (Francoise Christophe) to sell the castle and come to London where she can get treatment for her insane, anti-social son James (Hiram Keller). James distances himself from the rest of the family by creating art in his castle studio and avoiding contact with anyone. He paints nude portraits of his French teacher Suzanne (Doris Kunstmann) who also lives in the castle.

When Corringa arrives at castle Dragonstone, she is greeted by Suzanne in her bedroom. Corringa decides to burn some of her school books in the fireplace and accidentally throws a Holy Bible into the fire. Suzanne pulls Corringa away from the fire as she tries to pull the bible out of the fireplace. Corringa's mother Alicia fears that the burning of the Bible has brought a curse on the family. The family priest – Father Robertson (Venantino Venantini) assures the family at dinner that nothing bad will happen if burning the Bible was a mistake.

Lord James MacGrieff enters the room to join the family for dinner, but his rude and inhospitable behavior makes members of the family get up and leave the table. The family doctor – Dr. Franz (Anton Diffring) tells father Robertson that James killed his baby sister when he was a child.

Later that night, Lady Alicia is suffocated in her bed with a pillow as the ginger cat witnesses the murder. Dr. Franz is asked by Lady Mary to announce her death as natural causes. James watches from a distance as the coffin of Alicia is carried to the family crypt. The ginger tabby cat jumps on top of the casket as the pallbearers carry her into the crypt. Lady Mary instructs the family chauffeur to lock the cat in the crypt with Alicia's body.

One by one, the MacGrief family members are murdered with a razor blade. Most of the murders take place off camera. This adds to the tension of not knowing who the killer is. The ginger cat is present at the scene of each murder. Even Lord James' pet gorilla is murdered.

After going down in the cellar of the castle to find the ginger tabby cat, Corringa encounters the rotted corpse eaten by rats and her mother's grave empty and is attacked by bats. Lord James later shows Corringa his nude paintings of Suzanne in his studio. She becomes more suspicious of James as the murderer of her mother.

When a police inspector (Serge Gainsbourg) arrives to arrest Lord James, James flees to hide in the castle cellar. The viewer continues to believe that James is the murderer, but the final sequence of the film reveals who is really behind the MacGrief family murders, and the stained glass lamp makes another appearance that ties to the opening of the film.

Seven Deaths In A Cat's Eye has some plot elements very similar to Agatha Christie's 1939 novel – Ten Little Indians. One of many interesting aspects of Seven Deaths In A Cat's Eyes is the ambiguity of the time period in which the film takes place. Clothing worn by actors and interior décor in filmed environments suggests that we are seeing a late Victorian era set piece. However, actress Jane Birkin wears a number of outfits that look as if we are in a 1920s Scottish environment. A reference to the famous writings of Sigmund Freud is also mentioned in one scene – which suggests that the film takes place in the early 20^th century. The opening horse and carriage scene suggests that this is a time before the automobile.

Director Antonio Margheriti directed a number of 1960s horror thriller films that were not quite as stylish and effective as Seven Deaths In A Cat's Eyes – such as Castle of Blood (1964) and Long Hair of Death (1964), both starring raven haired beauty Barbara Steele. Margheriti also directed a number of Italian “sword & sandal” epics – such as Hercules, Prisoner of Evil and Giants of Rome, both in 1964. Happy viewing.