Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll (1974)

Based upon a real life story that I'm not going to share here, in order to avoid obvious spoilers, "Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll" is perhaps one of the most unreasonably overlooked giallos ever made. I know this term is essentially meant to classify certain Italian horror and mystery movies, but whoever thinks other countries cannot produce decent giallos that can be equally entertaining and highly appreciated, is wrong. "Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll", is perhaps one of the best examples to demonstrate this, without actually emulating some of the most distinguished giallos that were released back then. As a matter of fact, it seems that director Carlos Aured, was clever enough to avoid the cliché of putting the name of an animal on the title. Many other directors were inclined to do so, during the giallo profusion that took place during the 1970s. No big deal, after all, but I just thought it would be fair to comment on this little detail as well.

In "Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll", an ex-convict named Gilles, tries to start a new life by taking refuge in a small town of the French border. Regardless of the people's aloofness, he stays around to find a job in this new place. Claude, on the other hand, is a beautiful woman with an orthopedic hand, who lives in a big gloomy house in the outskirts with her two eccentric sisters, Yvette and Nicole. Gilles starts working at Claude's house as a handyman and simultaneously, a mysterious nurse called Michelle arrives to take care of Yvette, who is crippled and has to be under constant surveillance. Concurrently, young girls begin to appear brutally murdered out of the blue and the police have no clue about what is going on. All the victims share certain parallels, like, having blue eyes and light-colored hair, but it seems like there's nothing else to tie them with each other. The only thing that matches perfectly with the sudden murders is the arrival of Gilles and Michelle to the old house. Everyone gossips about the former convict, but Claude remains loyal to her secret love towards him and continues to give him shelter and a job no matter what. Unfortunately, Gilles has strange visions of himself murdering young women for no reason and struggles with himself to avoid doing something that he might regret later. As the days go by, the relationship between Gilles, Michelle and the three psychotic women becomes more and more tense each day and meanwhile, the mysterious killer keeps slaughtering beautiful girls out there.

To be honest, I was actually looking forward to something satisfying but in a less serious way. I assumed this was going to be some kind of mindless exploitation flick with lots of gore and pointless sex, lesbianism and a mildly predictable ending. Unexpectedly, I got a genuinely good product with a truly unexpected ending and a decent and yet moderate share of gore that somehow doesn't make the movie fit in the exploitation category. Not that I have anything against exploitation films. As a matter of fact, I also enjoy these films very much, but my point is that "Blue Eyes of the Broken Dolls", didn't fall into this less-respected category and it ended up being a charming giallo that has nothing to envy to the Italian ones. Frankly, I still cannot believe that being a film with Paul Naschy, there's no nudity or sex whatsoever. Especially if we keep in mind that these is a movie that has four attractive female character and a lusty man with all the ladies for himself. Of course, Mr. Naschy didn't miss the opportunity to appear shirtless and showing off his body all sweaty. It's alright, a little bit of vanity doesn't hurt anyone, I suppose. So concluding, I think this film will be highly regarded by anyone who is in the mood for a nice little giallo with a twisted ending and repetitive dancy music here and there.