This wonderfully atmospheric thriller from talented director Sauro Scavolini is a brooding, elegiac tale of emotional violence starring that intoxicating redhead Erika Blanc and the voluptuous Orchidea 'Devil in The Brain' De Santis! Masterful cinema that reminded me of the equally neo-Gothic piece 'Anima Persa', whereby an octogenarian professor hires an ostensibly deserted, dilapidated mansion for his study of rare bird call, and soon discovers, in true-blue, kooky Gialli style, a stone-cold, hyper-sexualized, obsidian dark tale of incest, infidelity and escalating madness! There is a decidedly decadent whiff of Hitchcock about this deadly tale of twisted desire and dreadful deceit; and it is rendered with considerably more moral restraint than arch schlock-meister, Umberto Lenzi! I discovered with great joy that Suaro Scavolini also wrote 'The Case of The Scorpions Tale', 'Your vice is a locked room, and only I have the key' and 'All the colours of the Dark' - so his pristine Giallo genius credentials are somewhat unimpeachable! The darkly fascinating 'Love & Death in The Garden of the Gods' is most certainly worthy of re-discovery.

Not that it matters to anyone, but I only intended to watch the first five minutes of this to assess the picture quality in what is a pretty rare film. 90 minutes later, and I've only just finished this excellent thriller/horror/gothic/arty/giallo project starring the mighty Erika Blanc (from 'The Devil's Nightmare' and so many other films) and sweepingly directed by Sauro Scavolini (who also co-wrote).

The picture quality is excellent, in case you were wondering.

The pacing is refreshingly eccentric. We have two story strands, both of which are in no hurry to deliver anything other than atmospheric and moody reflections and (occasionally hallucinogenic) reminiscences. It isn't until about two thirds into the story that the pace intensifies and we move out of desolate melancholy and into more traditional gialli territory.

I have no complaints about this approach, although the ponderous narrative will not appeal to everyone. The attention to visual detail and breath-taking locations are more than enough to arrest the attention for the most part, and the acting is natural and restrained.

The revelations toward the ending are satisfyingly sordid and there are at last moments of gore, proving that, despite the beautiful cinematography, events are just as gloomy as we would wish them to be.

So typically early seventies that when the cropped crochet top appears it is almost as if it is a joke. Many and varied fashions of the time aside this is a languorous film, again very much of the period, with much very pretty photography and much talking. Much talking about brother and sister and husband and brother and sister once more. Yes, of course, incest is more than hinted at and the fleshy scenes, incestuous and other are again beautifully photographed. Its just that it is apparent very early on that this is really not going anywhere and slowly at that. Erika Blanc is as good as ever and truly has to carry most of this film because she is simply the most interesting thing about it. The young male lead, Peter Lee Lawrence, I understand played in a lot of spaghetti westerns so I just trust that he made more effort in them as he seems not to in this. Maybe he just found the ponderous dialogue too much to bother with. For all my harsh words, the look and Erika mean you can't dislike the thing and at least it doesn't outstay its welcome.