The Embalmer (1965)

While many of the Italian thrillers of the giallo sub-genre may not be overly par-excellence you it's difficult to make the claim they aren't extremely creative, even to the point of sometimes being bizarrely awful.  The Embalmer (aka Monster of Venice, aka Il mostro di Venezia) is one clear example; an extremely mediocre thriller with an overly campy plot and execution that's strangely entertaining.

If you're a lovely lady you might want to think twice before booking your next trip to Venice.  Not only does the city teeter on the brink of sinking into the sea but you must beware of crazy perverts in scuba gear pulling you into the canals and embalming your beauty for their own twisted pleasure!  Well at least that's what's happening in The Embalmer, a film about a crazy masked man who lives in the depths of a submerged monastery in Venice.  Of course no one would imagine a serial killer pulling victims into the canals, at least the disappearances of women have left the police baffled.  But a young newspaper reporter thinks there's a bigger connection, and begins his own investigation in what he believes to be the work of a monster.

In terms of a thriller, The Embalmer fails on almost all accounts.  The plot is extremely over-the-top, the villain at times almost comical, and the music rarely fits the mood of any given scene.  Yet ironically at the same time those failures are what make this film quite entertaining in an entirely different way.  I loved the fact that the streets of Venice seemed to become completely deserted when it became dark.  Most of the victims were not walking around at three in the morning, they were going home from work or a gathering with friends, is there an eight o'clock curfew or something?  Then the killer putting on a scuba suit, pulling his victims into the canals, taking them to his under sea lair and pumping them full of chemicals to display their everlasting beauty on his wall... need I say more!?!

Overall, The Embalmer won me over with it's pure creative nature, even though technically it's not a great or even good film.  For the genre it's definitely stands out as being a little overly bizarre and unintentionally comically entertaining, but as a growing fan of the classic 50's & 60's B-Movie it was an entertaining diversion and an interesting side note in the giallo genre.  

6/10