There
are about one hundred Mormon congregations in Italy and they can all sleep
soundly. On the other hand, the rich and kinky Commie Catholics frequenting a
Buddhist-themed sex club are in deep merda. A mysterious killer decked out in a
black hat and gloves is violently murdering them one by one. It is all quite disturbing
for Lisa Boeri because she had club dealings with all the victims. Having it
all go down during the world financial crisis is not doing her any favors
either in Federico Zampaglione’s Tulpa (trailer here), which releases today
on DVD in the UK.
Right,
Tulpa is about as Giallo as you can
get, starting with the strangely reassuring mixture of Italian and phonetic
English. There is also plenty of sex and violence, so consider this a trigger
warning for just about anything. To relieve stress, Boeri frequents Tulpa, an
exclusive members-only club, operated by the mysterious Kiran, who serves up hallucinogenic
cocktails while presiding over the nightly orgies. Boeri is one of his
favorites for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, she is rather taken aback when
three of her recent partners are murdered by a serial killer (just for the
record, that would be two women and a man).
Of
course, the police have no idea what links the victims, because they do not
exactly advertise their membership (and naturally the killer collects their
Tulpa cards). Boeri will try to warn her most recent hook-up while navigating
the viperous office politics at her embattled financial services firm. Perhaps her
two intense worlds will intersect or perhaps the killer is of her own creation.
Either way, she cannot trust anyone.
According
to ancient Tibetan mysticism, a Tulpa is a sort of golem that is created
through meditation. That is all well and good, but Kiran, as played by the Romansh-Swiss-born
Nuot Arquint, only looks marginally more Tibetan than Tilda Swinton. Frankly,
the entire Tibetan Buddhist theme of the club is just bizarre, particularly all
those statues of Buddha the members frolic around. Fortunately, the enlightened
Buddha is past any worldly concerns. In fact, he might find humor in the
situation, especially when Zampaglione is reincarnated as a bed bug.
Be
that as it may or may not, Zampaglione certainly checks the rest of the Giallo
boxes. Claudia Gerini (who played Pilate’s wife in The Passion of the Christ) is naked a lot as Boeri and the murders
are all pretty gruesome. For further fan service, Zampaglione, his brother
Federico, and Andrea Moscianese collaborated on a score that evokes classic
Giallo soundtracks, but also incorporates a healthy dose of smooth boudoir
jazz. Likewise, cinematographer Giuseppe Maio periodically breaks out the fish
eyes for suitably distorted effects.
