Giochi erotici di una famiglia per bene (1975) Poster

User Reviews

Review this title
5 Reviews
Sort by:
Filter by Rating:
5/10
Somewhat bland if appealing horror/thriller
kannibalcorpsegrinder23 January 2017
After finding his wife having an affair, a man who disposed of her supposedly-dead body becomes tormented with the idea that she's still alive once he moves on with a new lover as well as brings his niece to live with him which escalates the events further than he wishes.

This one wasn't all that bad of a horror/thriller. What really tends to work well for this one is the efficiency of how it goes about setting up its central plot line, managing to jump right in with the central idea of this one quite early on. Right away we get her adulteress behavior and then getting caught, only to then jump straight from that into the intended burial after her getting drugged and taken out onto the lake which is all handled quite quickly in here. The resulting aftermath of the event and his quick- rising guilt over the event becomes all that much better with these taking place so quickly and moving the film along, as ell as generating the necessary thriller elements that are much more in vogue here as this one plays with those far more than it does true horror elements with the full-blown concept of him going mad and being haunted by the hallucinations of her returning. The scenes of her watching the two of them making love to each other, popping up to talk to him at random intervals in his life or to continually call the niece on the phone and converse with only her makes this a somewhat creepier tale than what would be expected in such a thriller, but yet that's where the main impetus of this one falls into which can make this one feel quite underwhelming as it's constantly waiting for something horrific to happen that doesn't really show up as the main focus on him loosing his mind that is far more in keeping with that line rather than the horror thread so a vast majority of the film plays off on those tangents rather than anything more thrilling or chilling. Once it gets to the final reveal and the whole planned outcome of everything coming to fruition for both parties makes for a slightly more engaging time here with the double reveals and twists on display makes for quite a better time here once it's gotten past the thriller storyline for the rest of the film. It really makes for a better ending than expected here, which is quite an enjoyable element that holds this up somewhat.

Rated Unrated/R: Full Nudity, Language and Violence.
6 out of 6 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
6/10
Let's twist again.
BA_Harrison21 March 2021
Professor Riccardo Rossi (Donald O'Brien), a staunch opposer of divorce, comes home to find his sexy wife Elisa (Malisa Longo) in the sack with her lover (who hot-foots it away before he can shoot them). Since he doesn't agree with legal separation, the prof drugs his adulterous wife instead, sticks her in a sack, and dumps her body in a lake (divorce bad, murder OK!).

Now footloose and fancy-free, Riccardo hooks up with hot hooker Eva (Erika Blanc) and even makes a successful pass at his attractive niece Barbara (Maria D'Incoronato), but finds himself plagued by visions of his dead wife, menaced by a bearded stranger in a car, and threatened by mysterious phone calls. Is he being haunted by Elisa, or is his wife somehow still alive and seeking revenge?

After the initial murder, Erotic Games of a Respectable Family loses a lot of its momentum, Prof Rossi's visions becoming rather repetitive and tedious, but director Francesco Degli Espinosa sees fit to include a reasonable amount of nudity from his lovely actresses, and makes perseverance worthwhile with a wonderfully bonkers ending, which features several preposterous twists in quick succession, leaving the film on a high. It's all incredibly silly, but one has to admire the sheer audacity of the final act.

6/10.
3 out of 3 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
7/10
there was a smile on my face
christopher-underwood5 October 2015
Story and script by Renato Polselli and it would have been best for all concerned if he had also directed. Francesco Degli Espinosa may have a grand name but his directorial skills are somewhat lacking. Could be the fault is with the script but despite the presence of the lovely Erika Blanc, this just seems to get sillier and sillier. In the end with its whole series of twists and turns we begin to see why there was that silliness and why this one, but really. Not helped by the ghostly visions that appear as if a third person has entered the bedroom but there again if you knew at the start the preposterous ending all would appear much clearer but of course then there would have been no story and no film. Anyone care? Actually the multiple 'endings' do salvage this and there was a smile on my face as the credits rolled, so I guess thats salvaged it then.
8 out of 13 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
6/10
A story of love and madness
stefanozucchelli16 April 2022
Movie on the border between hallucination, lies, madness, love and murder. There are too many twists and turns and in the end there is an explanation that lasts at least ten minutes but the plot holds up well and the film moves smoothly, even if slowly.
1 out of 1 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
7/10
Beautiful and brutal
BandSAboutMovies26 August 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Erotic Games of a Good Family was directed by Francesco Degli Espinosa and this is the only movie he ever directed. His credits include writing the Laura Gemser movie Emmanuelle On Taboo Island, Vengeance Is My Forgiveness and C'era una volta questo pazzo, pazzo, pazzo West. Strangely, he's listed as the assistant director on his own film on IMDB for this movie.

It was written by Renato Polselli, which accounts for both the film's psychological and prurient content.

Riccardo (Donald O'Brien) comes home early one night and finds his wife Elisa (Malisa Longo, Nude si muore) with her legs around another man. As the moralist husband barges in gun drawn, that man jumps out the window to escape. Riccardo tries to keep his morals about divorce and stays with his wife, but then decides to give her a sleeping pill in her whiskey, place her body in a sack and throw it down a hill. He's overcome by anger when all he wants is love. This act drives him a bit insane, but it seems that all is healed when he and sex worker Eva (Erika Blanc, Kill, Baby...Kill!, A Dragonfly for Each Corpse, The Devil's Nightmare) end up falling in love. Or lust. Yet he can't stop seeing visions of his dead wife and in the middle of all that, he's so far gone that he also starts trying to sleep with his niece Barbara (Maria D'Incoronato, Concorde Affaire '79).

Of course, if you ever watched an Umberto Lenzi and Carroll Baker giallo, you know exactly what's going on. Elisa and Eva are lovers, Elisa is still alive and yes, Eva and Barbara are also lovers. Everyone wants Riccardo's sizeable fortune, so if they have to destroy him to get it, well, that's a bonus.

Also known as Amoral Games and Thrilling Story, this is the kind of giallo that those who have seen many of the films in the form will probably enjoy. I mean, I know I did. It's hilarious that the red-bearded man - spoiler that isn't a spoiler, it's Blanc, as if you could hide her rapturous beauty under a fake beard - keeps showing up, as does the dead wife. And I have a suspicion that Polselli directed just as much of this as Espinosa if that beyond extended lovemaking scene between O'Brien and Blanc is any evidence as well as the main plot idea that in the space of a few days, Riccardo goes from an ultra moral man to one who has killed his wife, pays for sex and is trying to sleep with a younger family member. Throw in some hallucinations and it's very much his kind of movie.

I'm frankly shocked that this has never been released in the U. S. Maybe because there's no dub - that I know of - but it certainly has the kind of feel and subject matter that gets people excited about giallo. The closing moments, when it all comes together, really pays everything off and nobody escapes unscathed.

It's a simple detective story that's pretty well told. What he told Jay Slater about the giallo fo Argento makes sense to me after watching this: "Argento doesn't make real giallos. He takes five or six horrific elements and sticks them together with a very thin plot."

This makes a good match for another Polselli-written giallo, Psychout for Murder.
0 out of 1 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

See also

Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews


Recently Viewed