The Fish With the Eyes of Gold (1974)

A Spanish-made entry in the Giallo genre, The Fish With the Eyes of Gold (1974) certainly has a title worthy of any pure-bred Italian Giallo, but otherwise falls somewhat short of being a successful entry in the genre.  It isn't as if it doesn't have all of the ingredients you'd expect for this type of film: an incredibly complicated plot, lots of misdirection with regard to the killer's true identity, plot twists which seem to come out of nowhere, lots of murders and interesting locations. It also boasts plenty of gore, as the murders are all pretty bloody.  But somehow, it just ever really seems to come together satisfactorily.  It gets off to a great, intriguing, opening, with a female tourist on a beach being stalked by a frogman, who eventually emerges from the water to stab her to death, with a passer-by in a boat coming upon the scene and glimpsing the killer as they escape.  But ultimately this turns out to be the first of a series of misdirections which are to characterise the plot as it unfolds.  The misdirection is even telegraphed, with the sight of the bloodstained female victim triggering a psychological reaction in the witness (and subsequently a flashback to a childhood memory of seeing his mother being stabbed to death by his father - accompanied by a spilled bowlful of goldflish flopping around on the carpet).  The striking violence of the opening is followed up post-credits with the introduction of the main character, hitch hiking along a nearby road, who is picked up by a young woman who has just fallen out with her boyfriend and ends up in bed with her in an hotel room, only to wake up to find her bloody body next to him.

Unfortunately, director Pedro L. Ramirez never manages to build on these opening scenes, with the pace slowing down as the script takes the film through a series of convoluted double crosses as various characters are offered up as suspects, before being either murdered or cleared by having other murders occur where they have an alibi.  Despite the hero's propensity for turning up in the same vicinity as the bodies, the police detective investigating the killings never seriously entertains him as a suspect, (obviously he's seen a few Giallo movies himself).  But always, no matter which way the plot twists and turns, we can't get away from the fact that the identity of the killer was clearly signaled from the outset - the other suspects offered up are either too obvious or insufficiently motivated.  The only really effective trick the film has up its sleeve when it comes to diverting attention from the real killer is that it turns out that there are actually two murderers on the prowl - the first responsible only for the initial killing, the other using this as a cover for their own killings by using a similar method.  (A similar plot device was subsequently used by Dario Argento in Tenebrae (1982).)  In an additional complication, the first killer is simultaneously pursuing a vendetta against the second and makes several attempts on their life in the course of the film.

It isn't just the lack of pace - which robs the film of any sense of urgency - that undermines the execution of this complex plot.  Despite shooting against some interesting sun-drenched Spanish coastal locations, including an aquarium full of exotic fishes, there something curiously flat and engaging about Ramirez's direction, which never feels like it is getting the best out of these backdrops.  They never spring into life or exude any atmosphere, simply sitting passively as the action goes by.  The murders too, with the exception of the first, are likewise rather perfunctorily filmed, with none of the panache or artistic flourishes usually associated with the genre.   The script also fails to make the most out of its main protagonist's outsider status - he is apparently an Englishman who works in the record industry, in the locale to visit his artist friend and his wife.  Yet this status makes him neither any more of a suspect than anyone local, nor does it give him any special insight into the local community and the murders, as one might expect.  The titular 'fish with the eyes of gold' is a piece of jewellery worn by the second victim which is taken by the killer, possibly because it might be an indicator of their identity.  Although, as it turns out, it, along with all the comments about the killer being 'fish obsessed', is simply another red herring - it is the drawing it is based upon which turns out to be the key to identifying the killer.  Overall, in spite of its shortcomings, The Fish With the Eyes of Gold is still an enjoyable enough ninety minutes of Giallo mayhem.  Certainly, some of the early scenes are memorable and the whole business of the hero waking to the dead body and his reaction do work in throwing the viewer off kilter, questioning whether or not he might be responsible - but then the plot mechanics kick in and this plot line peters out as other misdirections and diversions pile up.  At the end of the day, it is only a middling entry in the genre, never summoning up the sustained atmosphere of feverish uneasiness and borderline surrealism that characterises the best Giallos.