Some gialli are thrilling labyrinths of suspense and style.
Some are sleek, sensual murder mysteries dripping with atmosphere.
And then… there’s Watch Me When I Kill, a film that feels like it was assembled from the leftover scraps Argento swept off the editing room floor.
Released under so many alternate titles that even the killer would get confused trying to track it, Antonio Bido’s 1977 thriller promises Nazi conspiracies, escaped murderers, dancers in peril, and a cat with jade eyes that appears approximately zero times. It’s a movie that markets itself on things it doesn’t deliver — like competence, pacing, or cats.
Let’s take a deep breath and dive claw-first into this feline-free fiasco.
The Plot: A Puzzle Missing, Oh, About Half the Pieces
The film begins with Mara, a dancer who wanders into a pharmacy just moments after a murder. She doesn’t actually seeanything, because that would require the killer not to just—hold the door shut. Yes. That’s the opening suspense scene: a murderer who prevents a witness from entering a pharmacy by applying the shocking, terrifying technique known as “leaning on a door.”
Mara becomes convinced her life is in danger, presumably because the killer might one day encounter another door. She flees to the arms of her boyfriend Lukas, played by Corrado Pani, who appears to be the first person in giallo history actively bored by being in a giallo.
Suddenly murders erupt all over town. Women are being killed in increasingly ridiculous, impractical ways. One victim’s head is shoved into an oven — because nothing says terror like being cooked at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Another is strangled in the bathtub by a killer who must have the strength of a professional wrestler and the patience of a saint.
Naturally, Mara’s boyfriend suspects Pasquale Ferrante — an escaped murderer who looks like he escaped not from prison but from a different movie entirely. This is typical giallo misdirection: “Look! A sweaty guy in the shadows! Don’t think too hard!”
But Watch Me When I Kill goes a step farther — it reveals that the real culprit is part of a World War II Nazi collaborator conspiracy.
Because when in doubt, blame the Nazis.
Characters Who Look as Lost as Viewers
Mara (Paola Tedesco):
The heroine whose personality is… dancer? She spends most of the movie reacting with the emotional range of a startled cat — ironically, the only cat-like thing in a film with “cat” in the title.
Lukas (Corrado Pani):
Hero, boyfriend, amateur detective, and professional blank stare. Lukas investigates the murders with all the enthusiasm of a man trying to assemble IKEA furniture without instructions.
Pasquale Ferrante (Franco Citti):
Supposedly terrifying escaped killer. In reality, he wanders around looking so confused he might as well hold a map upside down.
Other characters drift in and out of the movie like employees working the last shift before quitting.
Suspense? Style? Logic? Not in This Movie.
The film wants desperately to be a stylish, mind-bending thriller. But it suffers from three fatal problems:
1. The Pacing Has the Energy of a Tranquilized Snail
Scenes drag on so long you begin to forget what the previous scene was about. Suspense sequences feel like they were shot in slow motion by accident.
2. The Editing Is a Crime Scene
Characters teleport. Plot threads evaporate. Flashbacks appear with all the grace of a car crash.
3. The Killer’s Motive Makes Even Less Sense Than the Title
The murders somehow tie back to wartime atrocities, verdicts, jurors, and a conspiracy that feels like someone watched The Third Man once and tried to reconstruct it from memory after being kicked in the head.
Giallo Tropes Turned Up to 11 (and None of Them Work)
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Black-gloved killer? Check.
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Mysterious past trauma? Check.
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Exotic European settings? Yes! A pharmacy and a bathtub! Very exotic.
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Witness in danger? Check — theoretically.
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Plot twist involving Nazis? Sigh. Check.
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Psychological complexity?
No. But there is a dance studio mentioned once. So that’s something.
The film throws tropes like confetti but forgets to actually use them.
Kills That Feel Like a Workshop for Overenthusiastic Interns
If nothing else, the murder scenes are… memorable. Not good. Just… there.
Oven Murder:
This is what happens when the killer is both sadistic and culinarily inclined.
Bathtub Strangulation:
A classic, except it’s shot so poorly you half expect the corpse to open its eyes and ask for direction.
Pharmacy Murder:
The inciting incident we barely get to see. The killer literally hides behind a door like a child avoiding chores.
The murders lack tension. They lack logic. Sometimes, they even lack victims we’ve been introduced to.
The Nazi Reveal: Because Every Giallo Needs a Twist Pulled From a Hat
In the last third of the film, Lukas uncovers clues that lead him to a shadowy past involving Nazi collaborators hiding in plain sight. This twist is meant to be clever and shocking but instead lands with the impact of a damp tissue.
The film suddenly shifts genres from “sloppy slasher” to “historical conspiracy thriller,” and it is whiplash-inducing. Imagine eating popcorn during a giallo murder scene and suddenly being asked to contemplate war crimes.
There’s no buildup. No thematic connection. Nothing that links dancers, pharmacists, ovens, bathtubs, and Nazis into a coherent whole.
It’s the cinematic equivalent of dumping spaghetti, marshmallows, olives, and vinegar into a bowl and saying, “Voila! Dinner!”
Acting: Better Than Cardboard, Worse Than Good
Acting in giallo films is often theatrical. In Watch Me When I Kill, it’s constipated.
Corrado Pani sleepwalks through the film hoping the script won’t ask too much of him.
Paola Tedesco tries to express terror but mostly looks like she misplaced her keys.
Franco Citti acts like he wandered in from a gritty neorealist film and got lost.
Supporting actors deliver lines as though they’re being paid by the syllable.
Technical Merits, or Lack Thereof
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Cinematography: Occasionally decent, mostly drab.
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Music: Okay, but never matches the mood.
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Lighting: Dark enough that viewers occasionally hope the projector broke.
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Set design: A bunch of apartments and a pharmacy. Not exactly Suspiria.
There’s nothing visually interesting here. Even the “kill scenes” look like student film exercises gone wrong.
The Title Problem: Where Is the Cat??
The Italian title claims there is a “Cat with the Jade Eyes.”
There is NO cat.
The UK title, The Cat’s Victims, implies a killer feline.
There is NO cat.
The French title Terror in the Lagoon promises… a lagoon?
No lagoon.
Germany’s The Vote of Death suggests political intrigue.
None.
This movie is a liar in four languages.
Final Verdict: Watch Me When I Kill… But You Don’t Have To
Watch Me When I Kill is a giallo that tries to combine murder mystery, wartime conspiracy, psychological tension, and dance studios into one cohesive story.
It fails.
Spectacularly.
It’s dull, messy, overlong, confusing, and nowhere near stylish enough to justify its existence.
If you’re a giallo completionist or enjoy watching 1970s chaos for sport, go ahead — there are a few accidental laughs to be found.
But for everyone else?
This cat has no claws, no eyes, no suspense, and absolutely no reason to watch it when anyone kills anything.
