YourViceisaLockedRoom

Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972)

This movie lets you know right from the start that it’s main male lead is a real bastard. His name is Oliviero and he has a strange relationship with his mother. Oliviero abuses his wife at every opportunity and lets her know that his failures are because of her undermining him. It is also clear that he has and still does cheat on her. Things get really interesting when one of his girlfriends shows up dead and he is a suspect in her murder. But is he a killer in addition to being a jerk? His wife certainly thinks so and when Oliviero’s attractive young niece shows up she agrees.

I’ve been on a Giallo kick lately revisiting some of my favorites and checking some out that I haven’t seen before. This is one of the ones that is new to me and I have to say it is a mixed bag. There are some things about this movie (which I will refer to as Vice from here on out… I mean that title is insane!) that I really did enjoy. First off there is plenty of nudity, which is always a plus. And it doesn’t hurt that the female leads are very attractive. Of course this makes me sound like a bit of a perv, but if you have ever seen a Giallo you know that this is almost as important as the black-gloved killer running around (which we also have here). I also thought that the kills were pretty inventive and effective. Though I’ll admit they are a bit dated and some of the latex is a bit fake looking. But for me it still works and I found it enjoyable. Finally the music and camera work are classic, fairly screaming out that this was a movie shot in Europe during the early ‘70s. There really isn’t anything that looks quite like a movie shot in this style.

But as cool as some parts of Vice are I do have an issue with the story and plot. Be warned that from here on out there are spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the movie yet and are planning to you might want to skip this part of the review. Okay consider yourself warned.

The plot has some real issues. It almost seems like the writer was trying to be too clever for his own good. This is the 1st Giallo that I’ve seen which has the classic killer (black gloves, hat pulled down over face, etc.) caught and discarded ½ way thru the movie! The killer is used as a plot point for what ends up being a very confusing central plot of the wife scheming to slowly drive the husband crazy. This really doesn’t make any sense to me and the convoluted way in which they bring things to a conclusion is disappointing. The wife has a co-conspirator that shows up very late, is never given a name, and then he is tossed away. The movie establishes the characters and then suddenly has them changing. They do this not once, but a couple of times. There is also a tacked on ending that references a classic horror story in a way that again makes very little sense.

Again I like parts of Vice. In many ways it does deliver the “goods” and is a fun Giallo. But the overly complicated and convoluted plot just drags down what could have been a really fun movie if they had kept it simple. If you dig Giallos and haven’t seen Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key then you might want to spend some time with it. But if you are new to this subgenre you might want to try a more accessible flick like Seven Blood Stained Orchids or The Bird with the Crystal Plumage before digging your teeth into this one.

2 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer