Major Spoilers!!!
DELIRIUM is more like a trashy, super sleazy twisted soap opera than a giallo. The overwrought direction/script/acting/sleaze sends DELIRIUM in the irremediably silly and worthless category. If you thought BASIC INSTINCT was misogynistic in its view of women and lesbians, you have seen nothing yet compared to what DELIRIUM has to offer. Every woman is a "helpless" killer or a helpless victim. They're all lesbian, unfaithful, and insane. And more importantly, naked. This might sound shocking to some and some scenes do shock a little but it's because the film/scenes are more annoying than anything else. DELIRIUM is very typical 1970s Italian provincial style of film-making. The overacting and over everything is something more akin to the style of acting seen in cheap Italian soaps than movies, which is why DELIRIUM ends up looking like a twisted version of DAYS OF OUR LIVES.
The story and direction are remarkably convoluted and confusing, and deliberately so. This in order to hide the obvious potboiler storyline: An important and rich doctor is married to a beautiful young woman. The problem is, the doctor is IMPOTENT and the wife is still a VIRGIN. The two have never consumed their marriage (gasp!). The frustration of being an impotent man married to a virginal wife is shown as the main reason for the doctor's dementia and why he goes around killing young women, as seen during the opening sequence when he brutally kills a young girl in river. After this murder, the doctor becomes a suspect and is interrogated by the police. The wife, who knows her husband is the killer, is madly in love with him, and will stand by him no matter what. As the police are interrogating him, another woman is strangled at a phone booth. Because of this one murder (and subsequent murders), the doctor is not seen as the main suspect anymore. Who is behind these new murders? Who doesn't want the doctor to be found guilty by the police? Who wants to protect him? Yes, you've guessed it. The wife, of course. The story is so melodramatic and stupid that the film actually tries to make the sick doctor look like the hero by the end of the movie by portraying every woman (the wife, her friend and the maid) as total nut cases and whores. The doctor's massive serial killing streak (at the beginning of the film, we are told that there had already been 17 murders) is suddenly trumped by the protective wife's recent serial killings. Needless to say, the end result makes it look like that it's okay if a man kills tons of whorish women because he's impotent, but it's wrong for whorish, insane women who kill for love. But the really funny thing about all of this is that even though the wife is shown to be totally devoted to her husband, to the point of wanting to kill in order to save him, she is having an affair with the maid AND her best friend. This begs the question: how much in love is she really with her husband if she's having sex with two women? I guess the virginal wife needed to get her kicks somewhere.
So, the husband kills because he's impotent (what's with Italian movies and impotence anyway?). And the virginal but whorishly bisexual wife kills because she loves & wants to save her impotent, serial killer husband. Does that make any sense to anyone?!?! The storyline is so divorced from logic that it's pointless trying to make any sense of it. Throughout the movie, we see the wife crying because their marriage is less than perfect. Boo-hoo! Who freaking cares. I don't know what kind of message the movie tries to send (if any) but it seems to say that having a fulfilled marriage is the ultimate raison d'etre in life. Yeah, sure!
And to think, all of this mayhem could have been prevented if viagra had existed back then.
Anyway, to make things even worse, not only is the direction convoluted but, technically speaking, it's really terrible too. Some scenes are totally disjointed. In one scene, the husband is fully clothed. In the next scene, he's bare-chested and seemingly naked. The sloppy editing and direction reminds me of the style of direction seen in old Bollywood movies, where people would be seen entering an elevator with one type of clothes and leave the elevator with a totally different wardrobe. Those looking for sleaze might get a kick out of DELIRIUM but the trashy romance style of film-making might hinder any fun to be had from the shameless exhibitionism on display from time to time. Watching DELIRIUM is a more frustrating experience than an entertaining one, even in the "it's so bad it's good" way. I know, you can't take a film like this too seriously but that doesn't change the fact that it's almost totally worthless. The only good thing about this crappy, twisted soap-opera-disguised-as-a-giallo is the beautiful Rita Calderoni. She's one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. She even comes out looking pretty good from this stinking pile of crap, which is hard to believe!
DELIRIUM is more like a trashy, super sleazy twisted soap opera than a giallo. The overwrought direction/script/acting/sleaze sends DELIRIUM in the irremediably silly and worthless category. If you thought BASIC INSTINCT was misogynistic in its view of women and lesbians, you have seen nothing yet compared to what DELIRIUM has to offer. Every woman is a "helpless" killer or a helpless victim. They're all lesbian, unfaithful, and insane. And more importantly, naked. This might sound shocking to some and some scenes do shock a little but it's because the film/scenes are more annoying than anything else. DELIRIUM is very typical 1970s Italian provincial style of film-making. The overacting and over everything is something more akin to the style of acting seen in cheap Italian soaps than movies, which is why DELIRIUM ends up looking like a twisted version of DAYS OF OUR LIVES.
The story and direction are remarkably convoluted and confusing, and deliberately so. This in order to hide the obvious potboiler storyline: An important and rich doctor is married to a beautiful young woman. The problem is, the doctor is IMPOTENT and the wife is still a VIRGIN. The two have never consumed their marriage (gasp!). The frustration of being an impotent man married to a virginal wife is shown as the main reason for the doctor's dementia and why he goes around killing young women, as seen during the opening sequence when he brutally kills a young girl in river. After this murder, the doctor becomes a suspect and is interrogated by the police. The wife, who knows her husband is the killer, is madly in love with him, and will stand by him no matter what. As the police are interrogating him, another woman is strangled at a phone booth. Because of this one murder (and subsequent murders), the doctor is not seen as the main suspect anymore. Who is behind these new murders? Who doesn't want the doctor to be found guilty by the police? Who wants to protect him? Yes, you've guessed it. The wife, of course. The story is so melodramatic and stupid that the film actually tries to make the sick doctor look like the hero by the end of the movie by portraying every woman (the wife, her friend and the maid) as total nut cases and whores. The doctor's massive serial killing streak (at the beginning of the film, we are told that there had already been 17 murders) is suddenly trumped by the protective wife's recent serial killings. Needless to say, the end result makes it look like that it's okay if a man kills tons of whorish women because he's impotent, but it's wrong for whorish, insane women who kill for love. But the really funny thing about all of this is that even though the wife is shown to be totally devoted to her husband, to the point of wanting to kill in order to save him, she is having an affair with the maid AND her best friend. This begs the question: how much in love is she really with her husband if she's having sex with two women? I guess the virginal wife needed to get her kicks somewhere.
So, the husband kills because he's impotent (what's with Italian movies and impotence anyway?). And the virginal but whorishly bisexual wife kills because she loves & wants to save her impotent, serial killer husband. Does that make any sense to anyone?!?! The storyline is so divorced from logic that it's pointless trying to make any sense of it. Throughout the movie, we see the wife crying because their marriage is less than perfect. Boo-hoo! Who freaking cares. I don't know what kind of message the movie tries to send (if any) but it seems to say that having a fulfilled marriage is the ultimate raison d'etre in life. Yeah, sure!
And to think, all of this mayhem could have been prevented if viagra had existed back then.
Anyway, to make things even worse, not only is the direction convoluted but, technically speaking, it's really terrible too. Some scenes are totally disjointed. In one scene, the husband is fully clothed. In the next scene, he's bare-chested and seemingly naked. The sloppy editing and direction reminds me of the style of direction seen in old Bollywood movies, where people would be seen entering an elevator with one type of clothes and leave the elevator with a totally different wardrobe. Those looking for sleaze might get a kick out of DELIRIUM but the trashy romance style of film-making might hinder any fun to be had from the shameless exhibitionism on display from time to time. Watching DELIRIUM is a more frustrating experience than an entertaining one, even in the "it's so bad it's good" way. I know, you can't take a film like this too seriously but that doesn't change the fact that it's almost totally worthless. The only good thing about this crappy, twisted soap-opera-disguised-as-a-giallo is the beautiful Rita Calderoni. She's one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. She even comes out looking pretty good from this stinking pile of crap, which is hard to believe!