With the rather cumbersome, yet not entirely uninviting title of 'The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire' (1971),this frequently maligned skin-searing shocker actually proves to be a delightfully doomy, supremely limber and entertainingly twisted Giallo-esque thriller from Italian genre maestro Riccardo Freda. Thus far the general consensus on this lurid, early 70s slasher is a trifle underwhelming, but, on the contrary, I really enjoyed this B-Movie brisk, altogether handsome to look at, Ireland-set thriller; with all its joyfully pungent red herrings; gonzoid throat slashing, and plethora of charred, vitriol-burned flesh it robustly pressed all my grisly-minded Giallo G-spots! The venerable character actor Anton Diffring does his regular aristocratic aloof spiel with great élan, and the always sublime Luigi Pistilli makes an especially zesty show of playing the violent, maverick copper; all in all 'Iguana with the tongue of fire' is a bellicose Black-Gloved blood-spiller; and yet again masterful soundtrack il duderino Stelvio Cipriani percolates another magnificently majestic score.

This starts very well, indeed, startlingly so with surreal quality about it as we proceed from outlandish and vivid killing to child finding body in trunk of car and something strange going on with eyes. Various persons emerge from secret doors and there is emphasis upon dark glasses and limited sight with some weird sound going off to suggest something untoward is about to happen. Things calm down and killing become a bit mundane, very bloody but not very involving until the end when things spark back into life. Along the way, Anton Differing is effective, if a little one note and Dagmar Lassander lovely as ever. Veteran actress, Valentina Cortese puts in a great little performance and Italian movie stalwart Luigi Pistilli is most effective. Great shots of Dublin and Switzerland along the way and if this is not the finest giallo, it is certainly entertaining enough.

An entertainingly trashy giallo movie from Riccardo Freda, hiding under a pseudonym here for some reason or other. I knew of Freda's involvement before I watched this and as such was left feeling slightly disappointed, because it displays none of the trademark style he brought to the likes of such Italian gothics as THE TERRIBLE SECRET OF DR HICHCOCK. Instead the direction is passable, only springing into life in a couple of places and being run-of-the-mill for the rest of the time. THE IGUANA WITH THE TONGUE OF FIRE has very much a typical plot for the genre, packed with clues (the sunglasses crop up repeatedly),tons of red herrings, shifty characters, and an undercurrent of sex.

The unorthodox cop Norton, as played by Luigi Pistilli, is a brooding and haunted middle-aged man who keeps repeating his wife's suicide over and over in his mind. This makes for an unconventional leading man, usually a role played by a young handsome bloke in the Jean Sorel mode, but Pistilli shines in the part and gives a multi-layered performance (at least as far as the poor dubbed-in Irish accent will let him). Dagmar Lassander provides plenty of Italian glamour as the love interest Helen, and of course is required to shed her clothing as is the norm for the genre. Anton Diffring is always welcome and gives a typically icy turn as the Swiss ambassador whilst there's an early appearance from Werner Pochath, sadly underused here as Diffring's son.

The brief action sequences are top-notch and include a three-man fight in a drawing room which leaves the place wrecked, and an atmospheric chase through the dark streets of Dublin as a woman finds herself menaced by the mystery killer. The Dublin location makes a nice change from the norm although the silly over-the-top accents do become a bit grating and unconvincing after a while. This is definitely one of the gorier gialli that I've watched, in which the killer's modus operandi is to throw acid in his (usually beautiful) victim's face and then slash their throat with a straight razor, allowing for Fulci-style torrents of pumping blood. There's also a good shock sequence involving the body of a decapitated cat found in a fridge! THE IGUANA WITH THE TONGUE OF FIRE also has a really nasty conclusion, which I won't go into except to say it's incredibly violent. A fitting end, really, to what is very much a fun evening's entertainment for the giallo fan.