The Corruption Of Chris Miller (aka La Corrupcion De Chris Miller) (1973)

A fragile and emotionally distraught girl (Marisol) lives with her young stepmother (Jean Seberg) in the Spanish countryside. Meanwhile, a serial killer terrorizes the area. Directed by Juan Antonio Bardem (DEATH OF A CYCLIST), this Spanish giallo is an atypical film for him and sadly, he doesn't have a feel for the genre. The film seems schizophrenic. Half of the film is a graphic bloody giallo type movie with a serial killer, the other half is a psychological drama about two women (Seberg, Marisol) living alone and both either fearful of or bitter about the male sex when a young man (Barry Stokes) invades their space and causes friction between them (not unlike THE FOX). The film attempts to lead us astray about the identity of the killer but the red herring is so obvious that we don't buy it. One of the characters is so unappealing that I was relieved when he was brutally murdered. The U.S. cut also has an unsatisfactory ending which suggests a murder will be punished while the Spanish cut is much more ambiguous about the result. There's a rather lovely score by Waldo De Los Rios but a movie like this screams out for Ennio Morricone like suspense chords. Not quite but an interesting try. With Perla Cristal and Rudy Gaebel.