LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN

CULTfilm presents:
A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin
by Lucio Fulci
1971, Italy, 103mins, English, Spanish, Italian w/ English subtitles

Carol Hammond, daughter of a politician, has vivid nightmares involving sex orgies and LSD. In one of her dreams, she finds herself murdering the neighbor she envies, only to wake up to a real investigation into her neighbor’s murder. Carol largely represents polite society, coming from a privileged family and being a housewife to a respectable husband. Inevitably, she feels some resentment towards her neighbour, Julia, who is an avid party animal, a soft-drugs-enthusiast, a sensual lover- a hippie to the core. Touching upon (repressed) sexuality and (conventional) femininity, A Lizard in a Woman’s Body deconstructs the cinematic femme fatale and challenges societal norms. Consequently, the film also hosts a discussion on class, with the two women embodying the traditional binary between Madonna and the whore. As such, they ventriloquize two different value systems, relevant today as much as they were in the 70s.

Directed by Lucio Fulci, one of the godfathers of gore, A Lizard in a Woman’s Body is considered an Italian horror classic, pioneering a genre otherwise termed as giallo. With its hedonistic zoom-ins, psychedelic montage and its allusions to the grotesque, it also earns a spot among cult classics!

Cineville valid at the door and online on the day of the screening!