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This is, especially in the first half, quite recognizable as THE CAT AND THE CANARY (with a hefty dollop of THE BAT tossed in), but with almost all the comedy stripped out, and the body count raised to AND THEN THERE WERE NONE levels. Franco’s story diverges more and more from its model in the second half, where Lina Romay’s heroine becomes less and less important to the plot.

The result feels a lot like a late-period Italian Gothic (improbably, and unconvincingly, set in Louisiana), with a throughly nasty set of characters being bumped off by a figure in a skull mask. The identity of the killer isn’t much of a mystery, but the film trips along at a brisk clip, and looks quite handsome.

Shot the same fall of 1973 as FEMALE VAMPIRE, this could hardly be a more different film than that fugue of eroticism, loneliness, and despair. Lina Romay, as the innocent heroine, is the most demure she’s ever been on-screen, and as if taking its cue from her (literally) buttoned-up performance, the rest of the film is just as restrained in almost all departments. It’s a most unusually conventional film to see from Franco at this period.

That makes it more accessible, if ultimately less interesting, than its close contemporaries, but it’s still well worth a look, and there are some striking visual flourishes (notably the film’s final conversation, where the male love interest remains a silhouetted shadow on a screen throughout).

Finally, there’s also a plot development that weirdly anticipates THE BOURNE IDENTITY.