A Lizard in a Woman's Skin
A Lizard in a Woman's Skin is a 1971 film from Italy and France, directed by Lucio Fulci, running 103 minutes. reelscum files it under giallo.
- Year
- 1971 · 1970s films
- Runtime
- 103 min
- Director
- Lucio Fulci
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- known (28/100)
- Also known as
- Lizard in a Woman's Skin · Schizoid
Defined in the glossary: Giallo
Fulci does psychedelia. The dog scene got him prosecuted.
Fulci does psychedelia. A politician's daughter dreams of murdering her hedonistic neighbour and wakes to find the woman really dead, and the film spends its length unsure whether the dreams are memory, guilt or frame-up. The hallucination sequences are extraordinary, all fractured light and bodies.
It caused Fulci genuine legal trouble: a scene of vivisected dogs was so convincing that he was prosecuted until the special-effects artist produced the props in court. The London setting and the swirling Morricone score give it a specific early-70s haze.
Gorgeous, disorienting, and one of the strangest entries in the cycle.
Trailer
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Where to watch
Legal options in Finland (nearest we have)
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The cycle in depth
- The giallo, 1963 to 1976
A line of yellow paperbacks, a killer in black gloves, and Mario Bava building the American slasher a decade before Hollywood cashed the cheque.
Filed alongside
The New York Ripper
Genuinely nasty and hard to defend. The killer quacks. It doesn't help.
Torso
Sleazy for an hour, then a brilliant silent final act.
Alice, Sweet Alice
American giallo in Catholic New Jersey. Genuinely disturbing and well acted.
The Girl Who Knew Too Much
The one usually called the first giallo. Still half a krimi.
Don't Torture a Duckling
Fulci's best film and his angriest. A giallo about mob justice in a village.
What Have You Done to Solange?
Unusually sad for a giallo, and much better for it.
Opera
Needles taped under the eyes so she cannot look away. Argento's last truly great film.
The Psychic
Fulci does a clockwork giallo. A woman's vision of a murder turns out to be her own future.
All the Colors of the Dark
Satanic paranoia in Swinging London. Edwige Fenech is excellent.
The Case of the Bloody Iris
The Fenech giallo distilled to its purest form: models, murders, and no reason to solve any of it.
Four Flies on Grey Velvet
Argento's third. Unavailable for decades, and worth the wait for the last shot.
StageFright
A killer in a giant owl mask, a locked theatre, and Soavi announcing himself.