I am now three movies into Arrow Video’s blu-ray box set Gothic Fantastico: Four Italian Tales of Terror and I have to say there’s only one I really liked so far.  And that title isn’t 1966’s The Third Eye.

This is yet another thriller in the long shadow of Psycho.  For this film, the overbearing mother and her son have been relocated to a mansion in Italy.  No points for guessing he has an interest in taxidermy.

Franco Nero is the son and Erika Blanc plays his fiancée.  Olga Solbelli plays his mother, and she doesn’t approve of his impending marriage.  I assume she would not approve of him possibly marrying anybody.  Then there’s Gioia Pascal as the housekeeper who has designs on Nero—not that Solbelli would have that happen in a million years.

I have to give credit to Pascal as somebody who has initiative, as she severs Blanc’s brake lines.  So, the nearest equivalent of this to Psycho’s shower scene is the crash and fiery death of Blanc, in that it is a bit unexpected you would have the female lead exit the picture so early. 

And yet, I always wonder in movies where somebody’s brake lines are cut: did the person never have to do so much as gently tap the brakes at any point prior to reaching the treacherous, winding mountain roads?  I can’t even exit my driveway without having to tape the brakes at least once.

Nero just happened to be following Blanc in another car when she goes flying off the road.  He’s in for another huge shock when he gets home: his mother also just died.  What he doesn’t know is Pascal is also responsible for the death of his mother. His day is just one big ol’ double-decker o’ death.

Solbelli initially fell down a flight of stairs by accident, then the housekeeper finished the job by repeatedly banging her head against the floor.  I would have loved to have read the coroner’s report.  I imagine it read something like, “Fall down a flight of stairs.  She then repeatedly raised her own head and slammed it back against the floor with all her might.”

His mind broken by the simultaneous loss of mother and fiancée, Nero starts bringing home women only to strangle them.  He has also preserved the corpse of his fiancée because, of course.

Pretty soon he’ll have even more confusion in his life as Blanc’s younger sister arrives…also played by Blanc.  That must have been hell on her mother to have had identical twin daughters born two years apart.

The Third Eye ambles along to an ending that should come as a surprise to nobody.  It caps off a movie that isn’t one of the best I have seen in the Gothic genre, but it’s far from one of the worst, either.  If the description of the plot makes it sound like something you would enjoy, you probably will.  If it doesn’t, then you probably wouldn’t purchase a four-disc set containing a picture like this, anyway.

Dir: Mino Guerrini

Starring Franco Nero, Erika Blanc

Watched as part of Arrow Video’s blu-ray box set Gothic Fantastico: Four Italian Tales of Terror