Popular reviews

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  Review by Ian West ★★★★ 4

  A slow burning excercise in deceptive dread that kinda feels like Aldo Lado’s version of Eyes Wide Shut and that’s right up my alley.

  Short Night of the Glass Dolls focuses more on political unrest via black magic, secret society cults, and expertly conjured symbolism than the usual giallo tropes. No black gloves or razor blades, no lurking psychopath drenched in black, just pure mystery with one hell of a framing device... a man waking up on a slab in the morgue in a deathlike paralysis state—unable to move a muscle as he begins to piece together just how he got there. Naturally he has a deadline to try and figure out just what led him to this mindfuck of a position, culminating in one hell of an ending that pulls no punches and isn’t afraid in anyway whatsoever to mess with you—and I LOVE that. 

  The haunting final freeze frame image is my exact reaction anytime I revisit this gem.

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  Review by Sean Baker 1

  I'm ashamed that the only Aldo Lado film I've seen is Night Train Murders. He's obviously a very unique voice in giallo so looking forward to checking out Who Saw Her Die? asap.

  So I had no idea that this was a Sunset Blvd set-up (isn't exactly that but that's all I can say without spoiling). So that was fun. Overall, enjoyed it primarily for its flirtation with surrealism and its non-linear structure. Shot by the wonderful Giuseppe Ruzzolini and scored by
  Ennio Morricone... I'm convinced that The Thing score was inspired by this one.

  Watched the Twilight Time Blu-ray which has audio commentary with Film Historians David Del Valle and Matteo Molinari.

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  Review by 1313: Tony the Terror🌨️ ★★★★★

  One good sex murder cult giallo deserves another so I followed up All the Colors of the Dark with another one of my all time favorite giallos! This has a great cast and a genuinely intriguing mystery that leaves you wondering where it’s going to end up. Jean Sorel is delicious and the best thing in the whole movie, but Ingrid Thulin’s headscarves are a close second. 

  That final frame is so haunting and gets me every time. Like it just really gut punches in just how horrible the events that have unfolded onscreen have been. I love it!

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  Review by Mandrakegray ★★★★½ 1

  Out of this world horror-fused giallo, incorporating a flashback/non-linear narrative to roll out it's pretty unique entry into the genre. Italian Director Aldo Ladd ("Who Saw Her Die?") successfully balances a decent whodunit with pending dread.

  The film opens with the point of view from a (supposed) corpse, as the plastic covering over the body is unzipped. Very cool touch. It begins to dawn on the awakening man, who can't move a muscle or speak, that he's lying on a slab at a morgue in Prague. One of the attendants notices that the body is not cold, despite the amount of time since being pronounced deceased. This gives the victim limited time to recall (in a series of flashbacks) how…

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  Review by claire 👁️ diane ★★★★½ 4

  Hoop-Tober #8

  a slow nightmare of resistant, dissonant, wild, youthful energy being orgiastically consumed by state power. it burns slowly, granting the final revelation a terrible magnetic power, slow absorbing the foregoing labyrinth of the film's mysteries, evaporating them in the hideous NOW of consuming and frantic lust. satanic power dominates the body and mind like black magic. the state as the soul of satan. the city as the body of satan. souls for plucking and consuming. mind control and thought command and auto-submission to the cult.

  eschewing gore emphasizes how implacable the final doom is: that THEY must consume more than the body, reach beyond the body, devour MORE than mere bodies. satanic lust inhales entire souls. eats the…

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  Review by sakana1 ★★★ 12

  General spoilers ahead.

  Short Night of Glass Dolls is spectacularly cynical, depicting the aftermath of the Prague spring as not Eastern Bloc business as usual, but a far worse state of affairs. In the world of the film, Prague is now a place in which the enforcers of the norm literally consume the lives and vitality of the defeated, idealistic younger generation that once used that vitality to rebel against them. Not only have the reformers lost, but in their loss, their young allies have become a source of strength and power to those whose authority they dared threaten.

  Often, the film and its lead are more interesting in theory than in application, but the gimmick of having its hero…

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  Review by ScreeningNotes ★★★★★ 7

  The Years of Lead

  Impotence is socially inflicted upon civilians by creepy murder–sex cults, that's the takeaway — the treacherous intransigence of the cult-like social order makes us feel dead.

  Gregory Moore is an American journalist living in Prague who loses his hot, young girlfriend Mira Svoboda at a party. One moment she's there, and the next she's gone. Disappeared. Vanished into thin air. And the strangest thing is she doesn't appear to have taken anything with her, not even her clothes. Even the underwear she was wearing at the party is conspicuously left behind, gratefully discarded as any other unnecessary burden. So our pal Greg goes out looking for her, worrying that she might have been abducted by some…

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  Review by matt lynch ★★★½

  The giallo-staple sinister sex cult here is a stand-in for not just good old ingrained fascism and/or sexual paranoia but specifically post-Prague Spring Communism and power's ability to co-opt dissent. No, really.

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  Review by Bob McCully ★★★½ 6

  Aldo Lado’s 1971 Giallo takes an inward trip through shackled dread as our main character lies motionless on a hospital table, trying to unravel the sinister world he’s drowning in.

  Jean Sorel plays a foreign journalist in Prague who at the very start of the film winds up lifeless in a public garden. His mind is reeling while he is proposed dead, continuously examined by doctors who have no clue he’s struggling inside to convince them he's alive. While this is playing out, Sorel is slowly piecing together his memory of how he got to this state, which connects back to the mysterious disappearance of his girlfriend, played by Barbara Bach. The discoveries turn wild, leading to more murder, mayhem…

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  Review by Allison M. 🌱 ★½

  This film is a ripoff of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode that was entitled "Breakdown" where Joseph Cotten is immobile, but alive, and being prepared to be buried at the morgue. I love the silver sparkly dress in this film. However, the version on Prime was dubbed in English. The ending tried to take this idea a step further, but I wasn't really feeling it or the sexism presented in the movie.

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  Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★★½

  One of the high points’ of 70s paranoid fiction. It about sinister forces, political and sexual, the protagonist stumbles on, but it keeps its focus clear on how helpless he is against actual power. Jean Sorel, half pulp hero, half passive figure, goes through the night looking for a woman and can only find death and things he can't quite understand in a constant reminder that his hotshot American journalist status means nothing. He tells the story from the medical table not yet dead, but unable to respond as the metaphysical weight of his conspiracy seems to have taken over even his own body. Director Aldo Lado gives the movie a strong troubling mood somewhere between The Third Man and…

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  Review by sirvived ★★★★★

  A wholly enticing and wonderfully thrilling giallo and in my opinion one of the best gialli. This one's pretty different from the usual stuff I've seen so far. It's more of a slow burn paranoia mystery than the standard fare, definitely not the bloody type, but it features some of the most enticing, well-written mystery I’ve ever seen in this genre. It plays heavily on psychology to generate the thrills and chills while also retaining the core sub-genre tropes and stylization. The unique structure this film has gives it a sense of unease that just feels different compared to other gialli. The suspense gradually builds throughout leading to a terrifying finale that will stick with you for some time afterwards.