The Third Eye
Il terzo occhio
Young nobleman Mino lives with his mother and Marta, the housekeeper, in an old, decaying castle. He is infantile and morbidly attached to the weird duo; his only hobby is taxidermy. Laura, Mino's fiancee, is met with jealousy and hatred by the two women, and decides to leave the castle; but Marta sabotages her car brakes and she is killed. Mino takes her body back to the castle. Meanwhile, his mother is violently arguing with Marta, who throws her down the stairs and repeatedly bashes her head on the floor. The distraught Mino descends into madness: he picks up a stripper at a nightclub and brings her home, then strangles her while having sex next to Laura's dead body. He does the same with a prostitute. Marta discovers these murders and offers to help dispose of bodies. A year later, Daniela (Laura's twin sister) arrives at the castle...
A decaying gothic nightmare that fuses aristocratic decay with visceral psychosexual horror, marking a pivotal moment in Italian genre cinema’s shift toward explicit transgression.
- Early example of Italian horror’s turn to baroque decadence and taboo, prefiguring the giallo’s obsession with twisted family secrets and death.
- Mino’s morbid taxidermy hobby and the crumbling castle setting create a suffocating atmosphere of rot and madness.
- Bold in its portrayal of sexual violence and necrophilia, challenging 1960s censorship and audience sensibilities.
- For fans of Luigi Bazzoni and the more unsettling fringes of Italian Gothic horror, this is a dark curiosity that blends psychological decay with body horror impulses.
