The Cold Kiss of the Dead: The Third Eye (1966)

Mino Alberti (Franco Nero) is in love, and the object of his affection, Laura (Erika Blanc), is thrilled to be his bride … well, except for two things. One of them is Mino’s mother (Olga Solbelli), who exerts an unusually strong influence on her son, and the second is the Alberti family maid Marta (Gioia Pascal), who can be unreasonably cruel. Of course, Laura has no idea the scheming those two women are getting up to. Mino’s Mother wants an accident to come along and remove Laura, so Marta obliges, cutting the brake fluid line and draining the fluid into a cup (presumably for later use). So, when Laura heads off to visit the sister she has not seen in a few years, now returning from Switzerland, well, her car becomes a deathtrap.

Mino witnesses the ensuing accident and returns home to discover one more: his dear mother, the woman in whose bedroom he continues to spend his nights (uhm, eww?) has fallen down the stairs. What the medical examiner doesn’t recognize and what Mino doesn’t realize, is that a dozen or so of the contusions on dear Mother’s head have come from the hands of a vengeful Marta … who would like nothing more than to become the lady of the estate.

Mino soon succumbs to a very specific mania, luring women home with him ostensibly for sex. A nightclub performer (Marina Morgan) and a sex worker (Gara Granda) soon learn what really motivates him. In the ruined bedroom, he keeps the preserved corpse of his betrothed, and he uses his hands to snatch the last breaths from each of the women he brings home.

However, when Laura’s twin sister Daniela (also Erika Blanc, naturally) arrives on the estate to check on him and visit her sister’s grave, she soon learns she has come to a crazy house with two utter lunatics. Will she be able to escape? Will Marta get the acceptance and power she craves? Will Mino come back from his bout of madness or will he just plunge deeper still? Director and co-writer Mino Guerrini explores the realms of gothic horror, perverse crime, and strange psychological suspense with the bizarre character study, The Third Eye (1966).

Although many Italian horror fans will be familiar with the excesses of Joe D’Amato’s remake of this picture, 1979’s Beyond the Darkness, there is much to enjoy in the earlier, far more suggestive, and ultimately more unsettling version Guerrini helmed. The 1966 picture has some blood, a few murders, suggestions of both incest and necrophilia, some outright perversion, bizarre dominance and submission matters, and plenty of moody horror. It also features Franco Nero’s charming portrayal of a leading man hiding a mama’s boy, who turns into a wide eyed and sweaty madman, which is a whole mess of interesting acting choices.

The film itself can be broken into three rough sections. At first, we have a family drama which culminates with the removal of Laura and Mother from the story. The second kicks off with Mino’s weird dreams and sees him transformed into a killer while Marta plays lady of the house. The third part introduces Daniela to the madhouse and follows her story to its conclusion. The first two are the most involving and intriguing, whereas the final part is a bit too linear for its own good and culminates in a pat conclusion. Watching it leaves the feeling that either the movie is about five minutes too long or needs a fourth and final segment to bring the whole thing round again.

Although the picture is tame in terms of content by today’s standards, The Third Eye had troubles aplenty achieving its censorship visa back in the day. It required trimming due to being utterly without moral fiber, what with its veiled depictions of perversity. Funny how only a decade after this film saw release, Italian exploitation pictures would revel in far more explicit versions of this same material.

The title is a bit misleading, suggesting some kind of paranormal angle that’s never really present in the film. An argument could be made for a dream sequence Mino endures after learning of the fates of his mother and his betrothed. It’s a wonderfully surreal sequence that superimposes his eyes over several sequences that he could not actually have witnessed, and it is this unfettered knowledge that perhaps drives him mad for the picture’s second phase. However, the real source is a conversation he has with Marta after killing his first victim, claiming that sometimes he has a third eye which is always pointing in a single direction—not to the future or past, this eye seems to gaze into the abyss and to allow the abyss to gaze into him. It’s a wonky title, and much less descriptive or apt as the one used while filming the thing, The Cold Kiss of the Dead.

The real star of the thing is not the actors, the unusual story/script, or even Mino Guerrini’s direction, it’s the gorgeous photography from Alessandro D’Eva. The camera is a potent tool for revealing and withholding information here, building suspense, and offering revelations we might not want to see. Ably assisted by Francesco De Masi’s score (which includes plenty of reused tracks from other features) and Ornella Micheli’s editing, the photography is terrific as a storytelling tool here. There are some scenes that once imprinted upon the mind’s eye will be difficult to forget, including a shot of Laura half spilled out of her crashed car, submerged in a lake from the waist up that is as haunting as the underwater view of Shelley Winters’ character in The Night of the Hunter (1955).

The Arrow Films release sold as part of the Gothic Fantastico: Four Italian Tales of Terror set includes a lovely transfer and restoration, an insightful commentary track from Rachael Nisbet, a video essay from Lindsay Hallam, an introduction from Mark Thompson Ashworth, and a video interview with Erika Blanc.

The Third Eye is a delightfully unsettling slice of gothic horror meets giallo. While it may not be the gonzo explosion of blood and mayhem that Joe D’Amato would unleash just thirteen years later, the gorgeous black and white photography and the sly suggestion of perversion holds up well. It’s not necessarily a film for the ages demanding regular revisits like Mario Bava’s flicks do, but The Third Eye is a film that rewards a view or two as a reminder of how cool, wide-reaching, and generally unsettling Italian gothic horror films of the 1960s could be.

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The Third Eye is available in a VOD edition. The Blu-ray is found in Arrow’s Gothic Fantastico: Four Italian Tales of Terror set.

Next, we will finish off the contents of Arrow’s Gothic Fantastico: Four Italian Tales of Terror set by taking a look at The Witch (1966). It is available in DVD and VOD editions.

Writing for “The Cold Kiss of the Dead: The Third Eye (1966)” is copyright © 2023 by Daniel R. Robichaud.

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