A mysterious murder, a witness on the run, and a villa between land and sea set the stage for Sergio Bergonzelli’s 1970 thriller In the Folds of the Flesh.

Thirteen years after burying a body in the backyard, the solitude enjoyed by the icy Lucille, adult son Colin, and stepdaughter Falaise is interrupted by a trio of visitors, following up on the disappearance that had taken place years prior. Their refuge – a sizable estate, complete with lush gardens, pet buzzards, and underground Etruscan tombs – is the main setting, crafting a twisted Gothic tale of a family at odds with the outside world.

The plot grows ever convoluted – with mistaken identities, truths revealed, and an ongoing swirl of revelations by the film’s conclusion – though this feels trivial in comparison to the underlying, deranged home life of the main trio. While not blood relatives, the now-adult Colin and Falaise grew up together in the same villa, and their close connection teeters on the incestuous, with hardly any suitors entering their orbit.

This singular location gives the film an effective Gothic atmosphere. Three gloomy individuals are cooped up together, festering and fermenting in isolation through the years. Their only contact with the outside world is the occasional outsider, who must quickly be disposed of. Their long-running pattern and depraved way of life forms a unified front, which finally meets its match with an aggressive, violent home invader.

Its geographic setting – a stately home between land and sea – further entrenches their isolated way of life. They stay in one place, unmoving, in juxtaposition with the busy freeway on one side, and the open ocean on the other. The street brings police cars, motorcyclists, visitors dropping by, as the only connection to the outside world, a place the disturbed trio dares not tread. 

In addition to the gloomy Gothic air, the film layers on exploitative elements, primarily through the witness, a violent ex-con seen in the prologue and thirteen years later. When he returns, years after seeing a body buried on the estate grounds, he uses violence to assert dominance, forcing himself upon both women, and is seemingly the first invader they can’t readily do away with.

Even with a lean story, In the Folds of the Flesh lacks a real rhythm, and feels longer than its 90-minute runtime. As layers of truth are unpeeled, they have diminishing returns: as memories of events and identities are revealed, the impact ultimately feels trivial, not adding to the scandal or shocking events that have already taken place. The film’s main success is through its intriguing atmosphere and central tension: three disturbed, violent individuals combating a new, even more aggressive threat.