AllMovie

Francesco Barilli, star of Prima della Rivoluzione, made his directorial debut with this unique, hallucinatory horror-thriller. Mimsy Farmer portrays Sylvia, a chemist who begins to suffer from strange visions. She sees a mysterious woman in black applying perfume in a mirror, strangers following her everywhere she goes, and a ghostly little girl reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland, who may be Sylvia herself as a child. It turns out that Sylvia stabbed her mother's sexually abusive boyfriend to death long ago, and now her visions are driving her to madness and cleaver-murders. The other possibility, however, is that literally all of Sylvia's friends are Satanists conspiring to cause her suicide. This is a remarkable film, weaving reality, fantasy and memory into an almost seamless fabric to dizzying and poetic effect. Admittedly, there are several logical lapses and unanswered questions, but the film's singular vision more than compensates for such oversights. Barilli went on to direct the unnerving drama Pensione Paura.