Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll | 1974 | Spain | Carlos Aured

A rarity amongst other giallo films, in that it hails from Spain rather than the traditional Italian territory. Suffused with a jazzy score, childish ditties of Freré Jacques and some grisly removals of eyeballs, the story begins with Gilles, a suspicious drifter who is employed by the disfigured Claude, just one of three sisters who live in a small French village manor. Almost as soon as Gilles arrives, a spate of killings ensues in the nearby province, with the mysterious killer targeting blonde-haired, blue-eyed women and plucking their eyes post-mortem. With the usual suspects of red herrings, sensual romps and 70s charm, this Spanish splatter is fervently entertaining, but a sequence in which a live pig is slaughtered on camera would understandably sour the experience for most. It certainly worked for the DPP, who also took issue with the gory killings via meat cleaver, knife and hand-rake…