Set in London, the film follows Carol Hammond (Bolkan), the daughter of a respected politician, who experiences a series of vivid, psychedelic nightmares consisting of debauched sex orgies and LSD use. In the dream, she commits a graphic murder of a neighbour whose life she is envious of (Strindberg) and awakes to a real-life criminal investigation into the murder of her neighbour.
The film was released in France as Carole, and was later re-released in the US as Schizoid.[1] The French release print is the longest at 101 minutes.[2]
Plot
Carol Hammond is the daughter of a wealthy lawyer and politician named Edmund Brighton. Her husband Frank is a lawyer working for Brighton's practice. They all live together in a large apartment with Joan, Frank's teenage daughter from a previous marriage. Carol has been visiting a psychoanalyst because of a string of disturbing dreams she's been having featuring her decadent neighbour, Julia Durer. Julia's frequent, late-night parties infuriate and yet excite Carol, evoking images of wild drug-fueled orgies.
Edmund asks Frank if he has been unfaithful to Carol, which Frank denies. Then a phone call is made by an anonymous woman who claims to Edmund that she has damaging information about his family. But unknown to everyone, Frank is indeed having an affair with his personal secretary, Deborah, whom he meets after work at her country house for a romantic tryst.
Carol's dreams become more elaborate. As she describes to her psychoanalyst, they depict a lesbian encounter between herself and Julia, culminating in Carol grisly stabbing Julia to death. In an enigmatic coda to the dream sequence, Carol sees a kaftan-clad hippie couple who have apparently witnessed the murder without intervening.
The following day, it's revealed that Julia has indeed been murdered. Inspector Corvin from Scotland Yard arrives to take charge of the investigation. The room and condition of the body are identical to their depiction in the dream sequence. To make matters even more incriminating, there is a discarded fur coat near the body. Learning of the murder, Carol insists that she visit the crime scene; when she enters Julia's apartment and sees the body, she faints.
After weeding out a false and self-serving confession from a delirious regular at Julia's parties, Corvin focuses on Carol. Meanwhile Carol, during a shopping excursion with her stepdaughter Joan, see the two hippies from her dream sequence. Following them to an abandoned theatre where other hippies hang out, Joan asks them if they know Carol or have ever seen her before. The hippie couple claim they had not. As the evidence against Carol mounts, the police surreptitiously obtain her fingerprints, which match those found on the murder weapon. Carol is soon arrested and charged with murder. However, Corvin second-guesses whether Carol is really the killer, as she had described the murder scenario to her psychoanalyst before it actually took place.
As Carol is awaiting trial at a maximum security sanitorium, the male hippie breaks in and chases her through the grounds. Carol enters a room in which four live dogs have been restrained and gruesomely vivisected; she faints in horror. When she comes around, there is no trace of the threatening intruder. The sanitorium director thinks that Carol's experience must have been another one of her elaborate hallucinations. Meanwhile, Edmund, eager to exonerate Carol, discovers that Julia had been blackmailing Frank for money as not to expose his affair with Deborah. The development is enough to get Carol released on bail, but Frank remains free and desperately tries to prove his innocence.
While relaxing at Edmund's country estate, Carol is contacted by the female hippie and agrees to meet at the Alexandra Palace. Once there, Carol is attacked by the male hippie in the cellar and chased through the building. The male hippie corners Carol on the roof, stabbing her in the process, but is forced to flee when police arrive. Joan meets with the hippie woman concerning her stepmother's wellbeing; the next day, Joan is found murdered in a field with her throat cut.
Corvin visits Carol to ask about the hippie couple and Julia's blackmail scam. He finally tracks down and arrests the hippie couple, Hubert and Jenny, whom he takes to the crime scene to question them about Julia's murder. Although Hubert admits to stalking Carol and murdering Joan, they insist they don't remember anything about that night of Julia's murder except for recalling "a lizard in a woman's skin". Then a phone call comes informing the police that Edmund has been found dead at his estate, the victim of a suicide, and leaving behind a note confessing to Julia's murder.
Several days later, Carol is at her father's grave when Corvin arrives to offer his condolences. When he asks Carol about the phone call that her father received from Julia, Carol admits she knew about the call even though Edmund never told anyone about it. Too late to realise her slip, Corvin deduces Carol's guilt as she was with Julia Durer during that day the phone call was made. As it turns out, Carol really did kill Julia after she threatened to go public with their lesbian relationship, and used her nightmares in a bid to plead temporary insanity. Carol was fearful that the hippies would identify her, but they were too high on LSD to make their testimony credible. Carol is then led away by Corvin to a waiting police car.
The film is perhaps most famous for a scene in which Mrs. Hammond opens the door to a room filled with dogs that are apparently being experimented on. The dogs are cut open with their hearts and guts still pulsating. The scene was so graphic and realistic that several crew members were forced to testify in court to disprove the accusation that real dogs were used in the film.[5]Carlo Rambaldi, a special effects artist, saved Fulci from a two-year prison sentence by presenting the fake dog props in court to a seemingly unconvinced judiciary.[5] This was the first time in film history that an effects artist had to prove his work was not real in a court of law.
Critical reception
AllMovie wrote, "Lizard in Woman's Skin [sic] is a wild ride that offers plenty of bizarre moments that will stay stuck in the viewer's mind."[6]
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