Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 29, 2016

Note: This film is available as part of Killer Dames: Two Gothic Chillers by Emilio P. Miraglia.

Arrow Video is continuing to mine some of the lesser known corners of giallo with the release of Killer Dames: Two Gothic Chillers by Emilio P. Miraglia. As I mentioned in my recent Death Walks Twice: Two Films by Luciano Ercoli Blu-ray review (also from Arrow Video), many casual giallo fans (and maybe even some diehard aficionados of the genre) tend to default to either Dario Argento or Mario Bava when thinking of the idiom, but there are a number of other interesting directors who brought out various films that might be thought of as at least tangentially fulfilling some of the “requirements” of giallo. That said, Miraglia may actually be more of a cult item than even Ercoli, and as the title of this release suggests, there are other genres that inform his work at least as much as any ostensible giallo tropes. The two films collected in this set tend to be among the better known of Miraglia’s relatively limited oeuvre, which (according to the IMDb) amounts to only six films (as a director) which spanned the rather brief period of 1967-1972 (making Miraglia’s short career even more mysterious is the fact that he evidently billed himself as Hal Brady in several of these efforts). Both 1971’s The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave and 1972’s The Red Queen Kills Seven Times offer (as that “gothic” in the release’s title suggests) shadowy castle environments where scantily clad women encounter all sorts of menacing spirits (or at least humans pretending to be spirits), and they frankly lack some of the most recognizable elements of traditional giallo, including gloved killers and a surplus of blood, guts and other gore. Both films have interesting moments, but neither is probably ever going to be considered a lost (or underappreciated) masterpiece.

Alfred Hitchcock had a rather famous (infamous?) obsession with ice cool blonde bombshells, and some may wonder whether Emilio P. Miraglia had something similar going on with the name Evelyn, since it recurs in The Red Queen Kills Seven Times after being part of the actual title of Miraglia’s previous film The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (also included in Killer Dames: Two Gothic Chillers by Emilio P. Miraglia). In this case Evelyn (which the subtitles spell Eveline for some reason) is one of two sisters, with the other one being named Kitty, both of whom are a picture perfect example of sibling rivalry (not to mention what would appear to be latent genes, since they look nothing like each other, though that might actually be an unintended clue). When the two little girls come near to murdering each other over a doll, their grandfather Tobias (Rudolf Schundler) calms them down by regaling them with the legend of a family curse where sisters do kill each other, a curse which has been memorialized in a lovely painting hanging in the family’s luxe castle.

Without getting too deep into the film’s ostensible “mythology”, the painting depicts the internecine struggle between a Black Queen and Red Queen, hence the title of the film. Little Evelyn is evidently the murderous Red Queen in this scenario, but in one of this film’s really haphazard narrative lurches, once the story has moved forward fifteen years, there’s then a flashback showing a horrifying accident which evidently left the now young adult Evelyn dead. Or did it? I confess that even after having watched this film twice (once with the engaging commentary, which did not address this particular issue, sadly), I’m still uncertain as to what exactly is going on at certain key junctures in the film. If the adult Kitty (Barbara Bouchet) did in fact unwittingly kill her sister Evelyn, why does she then talk about her as being alive when she’s tooling around with her would be boyfriend Martin (Ugo Pagliai)? Similarly, why is a crazed interloper threatening to kill Kitty if Kitty doesn't disclose where Evelyn is? Of course, five minutes later Kitty is overtly discussing Evelyn as being dead with another sister named Franziska (Marina Malfatti), a sibling who is completely missing from the childhood prelude and whose existence after the credits (once the film has ported forward a decade and a half) simply has to be accepted on its own terms, as does much else in this often confusing film.

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times ends up offering more of a traditional giallo ambience that Miraglia’s The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, with a caped and gloved killer (albeit female) slicing and dicing her way through a series of gruesome murders. It’s all folded into a more traditional gothic environment, though, with Kitty wandering the labyrinthine tunnels underneath the castle (replete with patently hilarious “bats”) and a number of intersecting plots unfolding that involve the good old staples of insanity and family inheritance.

The odd thing about The Red Queen Kills Seven Times is that there are some appealing building blocks in the overstuffed plot, but they’re never really utilized to construct anything that makes sense, or at least that can be easily unpacked in a traditional “Moishe the Explainer” moment (even the commentary jokes about the headlong rush of revelations that cascade through a few minutes of the film’s closing moments). There’s an Agatha Christie aspect to certain plot elements here, with hidden identities and unexpected relationships, but it’s too chaotically presented to ever land with much impact. Still, Bouchet makes for a very fetching damsel in distress and actually brings a modicum of believability to what is otherwise a pretty far fetched tale.

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Both of the films in the Killer Dames set feature AVC encoded 1080p transfers in 2.35:1. Arrow's typically excellent information about the provenance of the elements and technologies utilized for the transfer state that both transfers were sourced off of 35mm 2-perf Techniscope negatives and scanned at 2K resolution. I've scored both films at 4.0, but there are some subtle differences between them, and it's perhaps more instructive than usual to do a compare and contrast to establish certain baselines. While both transfers feature generally excellent color, saturation and densities are a bit more convincing in The Red Queen Kills Seven Times. That's especially evident when The Red Queen lives up to the color in its title and indulges in some standard giallo tropes like gushing red blood, which has a suitably garish hue here. That said, there are parts of The Red Queen that might be better termed as blue or gray, with a kind of slate cast overlaying the imagery (see screenshot 1 in The Red Queen Kills Seven Times review for an example). The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave can look just slightly anemic at times, though my hunch is this difference will be more apparent to those who view these two films in rapid succession, and generally speaking Evelyn's palette looks healthy, if not quite as robust as The Red Queen's. While neither film looks "sharp" by contemporary standards (nor should they), there are commendable detail levels, especially when Miraglia zooms in for close-ups. Grain resolves naturally in both transfers and there are no problems with image instability, nor are there any compression issues to cause concern. Restorative efforts have delivered a near damage free viewing experience.

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Both films in this set feature DTS-HD Master Audio Mono tracks in both Italian and English. Once again as is my custom, I suggest sticking with the Italian, though as is discussed briefly in the commentary on The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, since both of these films were done in the traditional Italian manner of being entirely post-looped, even the "original language" version has occasional mismatches between lip movements and words uttered. Fidelity is fine on both tracks, and the at times weirdly perky scores of Bruno Nicolai sound great.

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Introduction (1080p; 00:38) is by production designer Lorenzo Baraldi.


• Audio Commentary is by Alan Jones and Kim Newman.


• The Red Reign (1080p; 13:48) features Stephen Thrower.


• Life of Lulu (1080p; 19:47) is a new interview with Sybil Danning.


• Alternative Opening (1080p; 00:39)


• Trailers

  Italian Trailer (1080p; 3:13)

  English Trailer (1080p; 3:13)

• Archival Special Features

  Dead a Porter (1080i; 13:38)

  Round Up the Usual Suspects (1080i; 18:24) features Marino Mase.

  If I Met Emilio Miraglia Today. . . (1080i; 4:14) also features Mase.

  My Favorite. . .Films (1080i; 00:59) features Barbara Bouchet.

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I'm frankly still a little confused by some elements in The Red Queen Kills Seven Times, but I'm going to chalk any dunderheadedness up to being transfixed by the allure of Barbara Bouchet, who makes for a very winning heroine. As with this film's sibling The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, a number of rather interesting building blocks are thrown together too haphazardly to ever construct a completely convincing (or logical) edifice. Technical merits are generally first rate and Arrow has assembled its typically excellent assortment of supplements. Recommended.