made with
sorry for the mistakes
The night of assassins
The opening credits state that this film is inspired by Edgar Allan
Poe's “El Gato y El Canario”. A nice credit, interesting
and scary. The problem is that "El Gato y El Canario" would be "The Cat
and the canary" a play by John Wiliard and moreover, several sources
say, Franco would have said that he was also inspired by an opera by
Edgar Wallace.
A nice mystery (I can think that Poe's name was a more "commercial") as
dark as this film that sees our beloved Jess struggling with a gothic
thriller.
Shot in 1974 in Alicante and Orihuela, this film differs from the
director's works of the same year, in which he made, to name only a
few, "Les possédées du diable", "Célestine ...
bonne à tout faire" and "La comtesse perverse ”, all films
in which eroticism is the centre of the story. Here, however, eroticism
is missing and gives way to a only whispered morbidity.
Even from a technical point of view, everything changes here, between
dark environments and with the frenetic camera of the Spanish director
more static than ever.
The result is a slow, very slow film, which at times bores, due to the dark setting, but also to a story that repeats itself.
However I can say that the plot could have created a decent thriller
movie, because it has an underlying idea that doesn't seem too bad.
A rich man is found buried in his backyard, killed by a person wearing
a white mask. The victim's will provides that everything goes to the
illegitimate daughter, with the angry of the relatives. Even the killer
does not seem to be happy and falls back on the house, changing the
situation again. Meanwhile, the police investigate, almost in vain.
Closing with a long confession and explanation of the killer, very
bizarre. Or maybe you get too bored to follow it and understand it.