BARBARA BOUCHET STARS IN 'THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES'

Title: THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES Year: 1972 Rating: ****

Italian giallo director Emilio Miraglia created the gothic thriller THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES where the title anticipates the body-count horror aspect of sporadic victims surrounded by insanely gorgeous Barbara Bouchet as troubled rich girl Kitty Wildenbrück...

She's the affable blonde of a bullying brunette sister only seen in the youthful prologue... traipsing around a castle while their passive father watches the bad daughter insanely shredding the good daughter's cherished doll... 

Sybil Danning in THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES

Followed by strategic flashbacks of the evil sister's accidental death, already covered up in the present time where Bouchet's guilt-ridden Kitty works for her lover, the general manager of a modelling agency where a host of gorgeous starlets exist for plot over exploitation...

Each brutal death occurs by the titular phantom in a red robe, whose devilish cackle would be far scarier had it not sounded so horribly dubbed, while the blood-splattered violence makes up for a few stilted performances, as does the creative camera angles that punctuate almost every Italian giallo...

Sybil Danning in THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES

And while Bouchet is always fantastic to look at, and effectively plays the vulnerable victim (eventually accused of murder), the scene-stealer is the one actress who sustained a lucrative b-movie crossover into  America, as both heroines and villains, in manipulative temptress Sybil Danning, also smitten with Bouchet's rather bland and forgettable  boyfriend Ugo Pagliai, countered by youthful wild card hippie Fabrizio Moresco...

But this is an exploitation deliberately marketed for the lovely living and brutally dying beautiful dames... also featuring melancholy model Pia Giancaro, secretive older sister Marina Malfatti while token cop Marino Masé, like in any neo noir/mystery template, remains as in-the-dark as the audience — who, by a few murders in, are already anticipating just about anything.

Barbara Bouchet in THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES

Barbara Bouchet in THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES

Barbara Bouchet in THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES

Pia Giancaro in THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES

Barbara Magnolfi in THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES

From THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES

Barbara Bouchet and Carla Mancini in THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES

Barbara Bouchet in THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES

Barbara Bouchet in THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES

Barbara Bouchet in THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES

Barbara Bouchet in THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES

Barbara Bouchet in THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES

Barbara Magnolfi, Rudolf Schündler and Barbara Magnolfi in THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES