Death on the Fourposter
- Year: 1964
- Country of origin: Italy, France
- Genre: Horror
- Director: Jean Josipovici, Ambrogio Molteni
- Length: 90 min
- IMDb rating:
Synopsis
Death on the Fourposter (1964) follows a group of young friends who gather at a remote mansion for a weekend and an occult experiment in which a psychic predicts their deaths. As eerie premonitions begin to come true and hidden tensions surface among the guests, mysterious disappearances and murder transform the gathering into a nightmare of suspicion and dread. This Italian thriller blends gothic intrigue and early giallo sensibilities in a haunting study of paranoia, secrets, and lethal games.
Criticism
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Death on the Fourposter is partway between Gothic melodrama and sleazy giallo trappings. The emphasis on a group of inane people gathered together for fun and games is fairly typical, but the setting and moody black-and-white cinematography from the gifted Raffaele Masciocchi (who photographed Riccardo Freda’s morbid classic The Terror of Dr. Hichcock, 1962) make it feel rather old-fashioned. The film promises more sleaze than it delivers, though the actresses all end up in their underwear at some point or another; the scene of the family retainer tearing at the dress of one of the actresses for no apparent reason is frankly bizarre, but not entirely unwelcome.
Troy Howarth, So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films, Volume 1, 1963-1973 (Midnight Marquee Press, 2015)
Selected disc options for Death on the Fourposter
Notes
- VCI’s “Euro-Trash Cinema Triple Feature” DVD also includes I’ll See You in Hell (1960) and Passport for a Corpse (1962).
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Ultimate Edition
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| Extras | No extras are available. |