the odd and convoluted (in a good way) plot involves a young couple who place an add to sell an antique yellow Persian rug. according to legend, the color yellow in a rug is used to compliment the color of blood. yeah sure. anyway, a man comes to buy the rug as the husband (Vittorio Mezzogiorno of Stunt Squad) rushes to save his car from the tow truck. the strange man, complete with German accent, interrogates the woman, becoming increasingly threatening, eventually attacking her and holding her hostage in her own house. she warns him that her husband will be home soon. he counters by informing her that her husband hired him.
her captor tells her a strange story about murdering his wife on the yellow carpet. he says he was just released from prison, and even produces a news paper article to back up his story.
the woman manages to get the upper hand and kills the intruder, stabbing him with a switchblade. she hides the evidendce, but in an amazing stroke of bad luck, the wife of the man she just killed knocks on the door. wifey explains that her husband is a retired stage actor, who occasionally flips his wig and forces his acting on lonely housewifes. she assures his wife that she hasn't seen him and hurries her out of the house. but know the man is gone. he wasn't dead after all-the knife was fake, it turns out the whole thing was some sort of evil radical psychotherapy. the man and wife were hired by her husband because she was fridgid.
Carlo Lizzani (Crazy Joe) does a great job of creating a tense and threatening atmospere, drifting from reality to dream and back again. Erland Joephsen turns in a wild performance that could best be described as a cross between Anthony Hopkins and Klaus Kinski. and he shoots heroin in his eyeball. it takes a real man to shoot heroin in your eyeball!
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