A young couple who are in search of a place to get it on, discover some old ruins. They see what appears to be a woman hanging there. On closer inspection, it is, in fact, a mannequin. Another couple go walking through some sand dunes. They see what appears to be a woman’s body lying face down on one of the dunes, but, on closer inspection, she’s still alive. She introduces herself as Barbara. The male of this couple, Christian, can’t get her out of his mind. He bumps into her at a boat party the next day, and they fall in love. They go to a local motel to get jiggy, but as he’s shaving his beard off (she won’t do the deed with him if he isn’t clean-shaven), a man bursts into the bathroom and tries to shoot him. However, he is shot himself. This sets in motion the plot for the rest of the film.

As you can probably tell, the plot of Spasmo (hows that for an unpolitically correct movie title), is batshit crazy. But that’s part of its charm. You have a notion that anything could happen in its runtime, and you’d be right. If you were to say after the end of the film that you knew what was going to happen, you’re obviously a liar. Or on serious amounts of narcotic substances.

Spasmo is seriously well-made. Beautifully photographed (more 70’s Peter Stuyvesant/Whicker’s World jetset glamour), brilliantly directed by Umberto Lenzi, and it truly is a joy to behold. Add to this gorgeous costuming and interiors, as well as fantastic locales. Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack is terrific and full of screaming strings and obscure sound effects.

Whilst the plot is surreal to say the least, the dubbing of the version I saw was just as wacky. The dialogue featured a translation from the original Italian that loses a lot through translation, but gains more cult cinema status because of it. The woman who dubbed Suzy Kendall’s part should either be given an award for her efforts or should never work in film dubbing ever again, I don’t know which.

Spasmo leans more towards the psychological thriller end of Giallo rather than the horror one. And that’s no bad thing.

An, ahem, unique experience. But a very enjoyable one.

4 out of 5 stars