Steinesongo Too many fans seem to be blown away

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

crystallogic I like how experimental some of these early gialli are. This is another movie about kind of spoiled rich people playing games with each other and getting into sordid trouble. Murder is involved, but not in the way you'd think after seeing the first half of the film, and I think that's one of the clever things about it. The story is more engaging than some, and, for once, actually more involving than set pieces, of which they are few (no prolonged stalking/murder sequences or anything like that).Also, the movie is really funny at times, and I think it's absolutely intentional. The scene with the PR guy and all his "chicken poses" is priceless and like something you might find in a Monty Python sketch. I think there's some nice satire here of the rich industrial class, and a political subtext about automation and workers' rights. You see this sort of thing in vintage Italian genre films sometimes, and it's nice to see that sometimes, a thriller isn't just a thriller, if you know what I mean.Finally, this is a slightly experimental film, with lots of fast edits and artistic scene transitions that often tell you things that aren't explicit in dialogue or scene itself. Also, the music -- I think it's great, in all its clanging and banging around and discordance, but it definitely won't be to everyon'e staste. A tip from my partner: "if you imagine a chicken playing the music, it becomes a thousand times better".

tuco73 I wouldn't label this as a "giallo", there is no particular suspense or scary moments, so don't expect anything like that... it mainly is a criticism on capitalism, mass production and industrial society, within a good story which involves obviously a murder. It may sound a bit Marxist as a statement, and maybe that was Giulio Questi's political view, but seen today it results in a naive but quite original and experimental movie from the seventies. Some moments (the best ones) are truly grotesque and surreal... some very nice actresses and lots of beautiful advertising posters from the time in the background, the actors are very good and generally speaking it is a good and entertaining movie. The only major problem I had was with the music, which is over-used and not pleasant at all... it could work conceptually, but the truth is, after a while you cannot stand it anymore. An interesting movie, surely not to everybody's taste. 7/10

The_Void The first thing you will notice about Death Laid an egg is it's completely ridiculous title, and I've got to say that it's a fitting one because this film is as silly and as convoluted as Giallo get, and considering some entries in the cycle - that really is saying something! Giulio Questi's film takes in ideas of prostitution, adultery and monsters on a chicken farm and blends it all into one less than coherent piece. Normally, this would be the sort of Giallo that annoys me; as aside from its ridiculous plot, it's also short on tension, stylish murders and nudity. However, the film has a certain straight faced ineptness about it that serves in making it all the more compelling, as the lack of tension is masked over with an idea of the unknown - as at no point in this film do you know what the director is going to present us with next! The plot follows a four way relationship between a man, his wife, her assistant and a publicity agent, who witnessed the man apparently committing an act of murder. The plot thickens as the man and his wife own a chicken farm; and a scientist working there manages to create headless and wingless monster chickens!It's a shame that this film doesn't benefit from competent writing as the direction is superb and the cast do well in their respective roles. It would seem that writer-director Questi had a few ideas to make a film out of, and decided to land them all in the same piece. The idea of the 'monster chickens' wouldn't be out of place in a Sci-Fi film, while the sub-plot revolving around the wife and her assistant is more along the lines of the pseudo-lesbianism in later Italian films such as The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion. Death Laid an Egg is still an interesting Giallo, however, as it came early on in the cycle and the fact that the director is happy to experiment with so many different and offsetting themes is admirable as the genre was still in it's infancy at the time. The film benefits from a beautiful pair of female performers in Ewa Aulin and Gina Lollobrigida, and all of their scenes are the highlights of the film. The ending is perhaps the worst aspect of the movie, as it just sort of comes out nowhere and gives the film what is possibly the most abrupt conclusion in Giallo history. But even so, this is a brilliantly surreal film and it keeps itself going nicely, even when the plot does become a little too incoherent.

Bogey Man Giulio Questi's early giallo is very different from the genre, but it can be called giallo since it has a mystery audience has no idea about until the very end. But the mystery doesn't involve the identity of the possible murderer but the various and altering relations between the characters. Marco, Anna and Gabrielle live together and work together, in a huge chicken farm / factory owned by Anna. Soon it is clear all three, plus their friends, have another things in their minds; they act what they don't say and vice versa. This gives the director Questi a great opportunity to handle topics of greed and money that easily blind.The way how Questi handles his theme is very satiric, thus making the film close with Mario Bava's Reazione a catena / Bay of Blood 3 years later. Both films have serious theme about man's ability to turn violent in his search for monetary benefit and freedom and both films discuss this satirically, with maximal effect since comedy is often at its best when the subject stays serious and universally important. As a pure giallo mystery, the film is also quite rich since the audience has no idea what is going on until the very end when it is revealed. Questi uses very interesting editing technique that makes many of the scenes "broken", using flashbacks, dreamy/nightmarish moods and so on. This forces us to dive deeper inside the characters and their varying points of views.The film has also an interesting topic about man's subconscious and instincts. Main character Marco is considered "morally corrupt" due to his unusual sexual preferences. But at the same time Questi shows how much there is inside human brain, needs, wills, desires, we don't necessarily want to talk about in fear of unacceptance or being classed as "sick." We are not as civilized, as perfect, as the moral codes of society try to suggest when they go after "the morally sick" Marco. There's also a very harrowing and unforgettably absurd scene at the experiment lab of the factory. The doctors have created a manipulated type of chicken that would be commercially extremely profitable to the factory while at the same time the manipulated monsters are a plentiful spitting at nature's face. Marco is against this, against the others around him while he has been named "morally wrong" and bad. Questi had important things and questions in mind and also the ability to turn them into a film.Real themes in a giallo thriller are quite rare and Questi has done it very well. This is among the earliest but also among the very best of the giallo.