Death Walks on High Heels Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.5

Death Walks on High Heels Blu-ray Movie Review

The eyes have it.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 16, 2016

Note: This film is available as part of Death Walks Twice: Two Films By Luciano Ercoli.

Mention giallo to even the most ardent film lover, and chances are you’ll only hear one of two names in response, Mario Bava or Dario Argento. In a way that’s perfectly understandable, since Bava’s 1963 opus The Girl Who Knew Too Much (available on Blu-ray as a part of Evil Eye) is regularly credited (rightly or wrongly) as having sparked (at least the 60s iteration of) giallo, while Argento’s 1970 The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (also available in this edition) is credited (probably more accurately) with having immensely popularized the genre in that decade. True fans of giallo know that there are certainly a number of interesting directors who helped to populate the idiom over the course of at least a couple of decades, including such names as Lucio Fulci ( The New York Ripper), Umberto Lenzi (Orgasmo) and the director featured in this new set from Arrow, Luciano Ercoli. Two of Ercoli’s best known gialli appeared in the considerable wake left by The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, though it’s notable (and even commendable) that Ercoli’s films are not carbon copies of his Italian contemporaries and in fact sometimes rely on tropes more commonly associated with such iconic directors as Alfred Hitchcock (and of course Hitchcock was an influence on many giallo enthusiasts, as evidenced by the very title of The Girl Who Knew Too Much). Neither of the films included in this set is a masterpiece by any stretch, but they’re often quite stylish, if just as often silly to an almost hyperbolic degree.

Note 2: A few salient plot points are going to be at least hinted at in the following discussion, so those averse to even potential spoilers are encouraged to skip down to the technical portions of the review, below.

One of the most “innovative” things about Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic 1960 masterpiece Psycho (a film which some Italians at least might consider a giallo) is how its putative star, Janet Leigh, is dispatched with after a long and intentionally drawn out prelude of sorts. Nothing like that had ever really been done before in a major American horror film, and it was a shocking conceit that helped unsettle the audience in preparation for what turned out to be even more discomfiting “information” as the film progressed. It’s no secret that subsequent films like Wes Craven’s Scream toyed with this very idea, offering at the least cameos by celebrated performers who then more or less quickly met their fate. Something at least somewhat similar is at hand in Death Walks on High Heels, though in this case it’s handled in an almost ruthlessly shocking way that leaves one major character dead and the other perhaps mortally wounded at a point (more or less halfway through) where most horror films would be piling on second act plot points in pursuit of a “Moishe the Explainer” denouement.

The film actually begins with a curiously bloodless (for giallo, anyway) killing of a guy on a train, a killing which is committed by a ski masked man with almost insanely blue eyes. Eyes are a recurring motif in Death Walks on High Heels, and not just because one of the major characters turns out to be an optometrist. In a kind of odd feeling segue, the train murder leads to the introduction of two young lovers, Nicole Rochard (Susan Scott, the stage name for Nieves Navarro, otherwise known as Mrs. Luciano Ercoli) and Michel Aumont (Simon Andreu), who are tooling about Paris in a cab. Michel is evidently feeling amorous, letting his hand creep up Nicole’s (spread) leg. In fact Nicole’s rather “open” posture is on display again in the next scene, when she and Michel turn out to be part of a police investigation concerning the train murder. The victim was in fact Nicole’s father, a well known jewel thief, and the police are certain that the deceased man was behind the appropriation of a rather large stash of diamonds (which are now missing).

Nicole is kind of an upscale stripper who soon attracts the attention of an older man named Robert Matthews (Frank Wolff). In the meantime, she’s getting threatening phone calls from someone who wants her to fess up to where the pesky diamonds are, despite the fact that Nicole insists to everyone (including the police) that she has no idea where her father might have put them. Nicole is stalked by the mysterious stranger with the bizarrely blue eyes, while at the same time her relationship with Michel encounters some hurdles. That leads to her to pursue a romantic entanglement with Matthews, at least until that aforementioned halfway point of the film, when all hell breaks loose.

The second half of the film brings in more of a police procedural aspect, as there’s now another murder victim and a shooting victim to deal with. There are a number of kind of outré red herrings (including one appropriately featuring a fish monger), and the film stumbles through a series of revelations in its closing moments which become increasingly preposterous and will probably strike some as unintentionally humorous. Death Walks on High Heels steals more than one idea from Psycho (as do a number of gialli), with a cross dresser entering the fray, even if that particular plot point is shunted off to the sidelines almost as soon as it’s introduced.

While never really “scary” in a traditional sense, Death Walks on High Heels has a palpable mood at times, even if that mood is undercut by an overamped performance style that tends to play like a B-movie soap opera on occasion. Ercoli keeps things moving at a brisk, almost unbridled, pace, and cinematographer Fernando Arribas delights in some peculiar framings. The screenplay was by giallo specialist Ernesto Gastaldi, who perhaps piles on the competing subplots with a bit too much enthusiasm.

Death Walks on High Heels Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Death Walks on High Heels is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. The insert of the keepcase advertises that this is a "brand new 2K restoration from the original camera negative". The exhaustive booklet included with the set includes the following additional information:

All work on this new restoration was carried out at L'Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna. The original 35mm 2-perf Techniscope negative was scanned in 2K resolution on a pin-registered Arriscan and was graded on Digital Vision's Nucoda Film Master.

Thousands of instances of dirt, debris and light scratches were removed through a combination of digital restoration tools. Overall image stability and instances of density fluctuation were also improved.

This is by and large a lustrous looking transfer, albeit with just a few very minor issues to be aware of. Colors are beautifully saturated throughout the presentation, but the overall palette seems slightly skewed to a perhaps appropriate yellow side of things, something that's especially apparent with regard to flesh tones. There are still some very slight density issues, with palette warmth varying at minimal levels. Despite a number of odd lighting choices (note how Wolff's face is bathed in red light for absolutely no reason in screenshot 4) detail levels are commendably high throughout the presentation, especially when Ercoli and cinematographer Fernando Arribas exploit extreme close-ups (see screenshot 3). There are some very minor deficits in shadow detail in some dark and/or nighttime sequences, though black levels are secure and gradations between darker tones clearly visible (see screenshot 19). Grain resolves naturally and there are no hurdles to overcome with regard to compression.

Death Walks on High Heels Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Death Walks on High Heels features DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mixes in both the original Italian and a pretty lamentable English dub. Information on the soundtracks is presented in the booklet accompanying this set:

The film's original Italian and English mono soundtracks were transferred from the original 35mm optical sound negatives using the Sondor OMA/E with COSP Xi2K technology to minimise optical noise and produce the best quality results possible.

There are times in which the film's audio synch will appear slightly loose against the picture, due to the fact that the soundtrack was recorded entirely in post-production. This is correct and as per the original theatrical release of Death Walks on High Heels.

While some curmudgeons may want to quibble with just how "slight" the looseness of the post-looping is at times, otherwise both tracks offer very good fidelity which capably supports the film's dialogue, occasional effects, and a really fun score by the wonderful Stelvio Cipriani, here working a kind of Bacharach territory by way of Paul Mauriat. Things are slightly shallow and narrow sounding at times, but there's no outright damage to address in this review, and most audiophiles will have little to complain about here.

Death Walks on High Heels Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Introduction (1080p; 1:48) is by screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi, though he seems to suggest that this film followed Death Walks at Midnight instead of vice versa (all data I've seen, including lots of information included in this very set, states clearly that Death Walks on High Heels came first, though perhaps Gastaldi was thinking of Le foto proibite di una signora per bene).


• Audio Commentary is by Video Watchdog's Tim Lucas.


• From Spain with Love (1080p; 24:21) features newly edited archival video of Luciano Ercoli and Nieves Navarro from 2012.


• Master of Giallo (1080p; 32:33) is a great 2015 interview with Ernesto Gastaldi.


• Death Walks to the Beat (1080i; 26:28) is another fun 2015 interview, this one with composer Stelvio Cipriani, whose music is such an integral part of this particular film.


• Trailers (1080p; 5:38)

Death Walks on High Heels Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Death Walks on High Heels has a fantastic little "left turn" about halfway through that may throw some viewers for a loop, but it tends to lose some momentum as it moves into its endgame, especially in an over extended and ultimately kind of unintentionally funny "series" of endings. The film is quite stylish, but it's rather tame in terms of graphic violence, at least by traditional giallo standards. Technical merits are very good to excellent, and the supplementary package excellent. Recommended.