Under-appreciated Italian artist Mario Ferrari, aka Mafé, produced two posters for the Italian release of the U.S.-made Schizoid, both making use of scissors as a motif. These are great, especially the top one in which the female figure’s face is subtly warped. Is the movie warped too? It’s a giallo slasher flick with Klaus Kinski top billed, who it must be said was quite a man. He was accused by his daughter Pola of raping her, was described by his other daughter Nastassja as touching her in a sexual way, left female co-stars bruised and traumatized, and was clinically diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder—i.e. he was a psychopath. We usually don’t drag up the personal failings, vicious politics, or past crimes of actors or authors, but there’s a limit. And now you know.
Plotwise, Marianna Hill plays an advice columnist who attends group therapy, and is horrified when she learns that one of the members has been murdered. Hill has been getting weird, threatening letters, and intuits a possible connection. Since the police are useless (of course), she decides to engage with the letter writer/possible killer using her column—and you just know that’s going to turn out to be a bad decision. Hill has gotten involved with her group’s therapist Kinski, which naturally makes him a prime suspect. Nevertheless, there are other possibilities: her estranged husband, the doctor’s strange daughter, and her strange building superintendent. In typical giallo fashion there’s too much misdirection to deduce who the trench-coated killer is, but no worries—a late reveal will sort that out.
Schizoid has problems owing largely to the music and co-star Craig Wasson’s awful acting as Hill’s ex. In addition, Kinski was possibly cast specifically because he looks so creepy, in order for him to be a walking red herring. Okay, but he’s also miscast in the sense that he’s implausible in the role of a therapist. There’s simply nothing calming about him. Because he succeeded in some very tough, even epic, roles during his career you’d never think he couldn’t ace the part of a simple head doctor, but he doesn’t. Even so, Hill does well as a woman constantly unnerved by the men around her. She should be unnerved—they’re deplorable. After premiering in the U.S. in 1980 Schizoid opened in Italy today in 1981.
