Denise (Teresa Gimpera) is in a bad marriage! Well, her boring husband Peter and/or John (Larry Ward) is actually very boring, but for real, she’s kind of a dickweed. She’s having an affair with Peter and/or John’s brother named Peter and/or John (Larry Ward’s twin brother Larry Ward). They have concocted a preposterous scheme to get rid of the dull schlub by driving him insane with drugs and overly complicated psychosis-inducing shenanigans. Everything gets more complicated when a creepo named Gert (Giacomo Rossi Stuart) shows up with his blackmailing schemes. Yes, his name is Gert. 92 minutes.

My only memory of having seen Shadow of Death (1969) AKA Macabre was finding it extremely dull. I was hoping that a nice Blu-ray from Mondo Macabro and over a decade’s worth of films in between would boost this one for me. That was very optimistic of me. Italian cinematographer Antonio Piazza’s camerawork is excellent, so the film is pretty to look at, and Franco Micalizzi’s lovely music score is top notch. Neither of these things can help with the brutally deliberate pacing that had me climbing the walls.

I hate to hand out my newly patented TFG Award™ (AKA This Fucking Guy) to Larry Ward, but alas, I really dislike his performance as Peter and/or John. Every time he is on screen, I wish he was a different actor. The difference between the twins is that one of them sneers slightly more or maybe doesn’t. Teresa Gimpera is stunning as usual, and I’ll always have a soft spot for Giacomo Rossi Stuart, even though his character is so broad that he might as well have a neon sign on his back that says “baddie”. Why doesn’t he also have an eyepatch and one glowing red eye to go with his fake hand and scarred up face?

Hopefully, I’m dead wrong about this one and folks who dig Shadow of Death will read this review and think I’m crazy. Ideally, no one will read this review. Anyway, it doesn’t help matters that this type of gaslighting twisty plot was copied over and over again by so many other thrillers released around this time. Most films starring Marisa Mell are just freakin’ like this one. It’s nuts. If this was just a film about how beautiful Spain (and Teresa Gimpera) is, instead of a sleepy giallo, then Shadow of Death is a rousing success.

Mondo Macabro did their best with Shadow of Death. I think they had to source this from a couple of prints, because things get a little dicey. But overall, the picture and the sound are very good. The dialogue in the English dub sounds a tad flatter than the Spanish audio, but it’s not terribly distracting. The scenes with mild nudity that were shot for the Italian version are in the extras because at the time, Spain would have collapsed in ruin if movie audiences saw a booby. There is an excellent interview with Ángel Sala, director of the Sitges International Film Festival, who provides context about why Shadow of Death is good and a wealth of information about its director, Javier Setó.