Le regine (1970)

Le regine: Directed by Tonino Cervi. With Haydée Politoff, Silvia Monti, Evelyn Stewart, Ray Lovelock. A young motorcyclist helps a man with a flat tyre, who ends up dead after crashing his car. The young man takes a detour into the forest, and stumbles on a lakeside house, occupied by three sisters, but they’re not who they pretend to be.

“Another u0026quot;Euro-Cultu0026quot; offering I was unaware of (prior to the week-end before last, in fact) but, proving intriguing upon reading its synopsis, I decided to get hold of immediately; this fact, however, did not really have anything to do with my watching it so quickly – just that the disc the film was recorded on was handy at the time. Anyway, QUEENS OF EVIL was quite good, if not exactly a u0026#39;lostu0026#39; gem; thematically, it anticipated THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK (1987) – though I have never watched the latter myself – since the plot revolves around a bearded young man traveling on a motorcycle (Ray Lovelock) ensnared by three lovely women (Haydeeu0026#39; Politoff, Silvia Monti and Evelyn Stewart) he encounters and who are ultimately revealed to be witches; incidentally, while the girls live in seclusion in the woods, their abode is decked-out with all the modern trimmings one associates with the fashion world (including blow-ups of each of them hanging above their respective beds)! Lovelock and Stewart were both u0026quot;Euro-Cultu0026quot; stalwarts (he even supplies the rather thin vocals to the soundtracku0026#39;s two numbers!); I first noticed Politoff in the equally obscure giallo INTERRABANG (1969) – where she had emerged the best of another sensuous trio – but, here, it is Monti (the one I was least familiar with) who particularly shined as the herou0026#39;s most fiery seductress. Though the filmu0026#39;s languid pace was to be expected, it also proves somewhat uneventful until the violent twist ending – organizing a party to which they invite their devilish friends, the girls reveal their true nature and turn on the mystified u0026#39;hippieu0026#39;…egged on by their leader, an aging aristocratic type Lovelock had actually met (and apparently saw killed in a car crash!) at the very start of the picture!! For the record, I had previously watched the good Spaghetti Western TODAY ITu0026#39;S ME…TOMORROW YOU (1968) from the same director, with two more (and still different) titles I will hopefully manage to check out during my ongoing u0026quot;Euro-Cultu0026quot; marathon.”