One on Top of the Other

A Lucio Fulci film without the gore is like a cake without frosting -- healthier, gets more quickly to the point, and doesn't leave you feeling sick afterwards if you had too much, though perhaps not as initially tasty. However, this early thriller from the Italian horror guru is easily the best film I have seen from him, even though it's not a horror film. It centers around a doctor whose ailing wife suddenly dies and sends him into a depression for an extended period of time. Then one day, or night to be more precise, he notices a stripper that bears an uncanny resemblance to his dearly deceased, except she has green eyes and his wife and brown eyes. Though when his wife suddenly died, he receives money from a mysterious insurance policy which puts him on the radar of the police who think she might not have died from natural causes. Soon, the good doctor is delving into the mystery of his wife's death, or is she really dead at all? The story is not unlike Hitchcock's Vertigo, though is distinctly its own film. The script is strangely compelling and intelligent for a Fulci film (or any thriller for that matter) and his direction is at its most effective. It's too bad that this early gem has been overshadowed by his later gorefests.