Though a lot of Italian horror films found success worldwide during the country's big export boom, some really wonderful titles somehow fell through the cracks and never reached American shores. Perhaps the best of these is The Perfume of the Lady in Black, a magnificent work of slow-burning, gothic psychological terror that also forms the middle part of the great "Mimsy Farmer goes nuts" trilogy (with the far more widely seen Four Flies on Grey Velvet and Autopsy). A fragile and often fascinating actress, Farmer started in US exploitation films but really flourished in Europe where her wide-eyed but sexual presence was used successfully by some of the best horror directors. However, this is perhaps her finest achievement and a bona fide masterpiece worthy of rediscovery.

Living in a beautiful Italian village, industrial chemist Silvia Hacherman (Farmer) lives in an ornate apartment building populated by an array of eccentrics. She barely finds time to pay attention to her boyfriend, Robert (The Fifth Cord's Bonuglia), and is haunted by her tragic childhood which has left her with an odd fixation on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. After spending an unsettling dinner with her boyfriend and an African professor (as well as The Devil Rides Out's Arrighi) who tells her about the macabre practices of witch doctors, she becomes tormented by ghostly sounds, visions of a spectral woman in black at her dressing mirror, and a spooky little girl in white (Tenebrae's Wendel) who might be the younger version of Silvia herself. When one of her friends turns up dead upstairs, Silvia seems to be losing her grip on reality... or is she?

Though often classified as a giallo, this slippery little tale never lays out all its cards until the last five minutes -- and boy, does it pay off. The last scene is easily one of the most shocking finales ever devised for a horror movie, and while the events leading up to it have a methodical approach that often recalls Roman Polanski's Repulsion (right from the opening shot of a photo), the payoff here is completely different. Oddly, a couple of scenes (especially a late one on the apartment ledge) bear a striking resemblance to Polanski's masterful The Tenant which came out two years later, so perhaps it's a bit of cinematic quid pro quo. In any case, for much of the running time the viewer is never quite sure whether this is a ghost story, a murder mystery, a supernatural conspiracy, or a particularly harrowing descent into madness; even when you do find out, there's enough ambiguity and little spooky detours to make you wonder even after the end credits roll. Special mention also has to go to the excellent score by future Oscar winner Nicola Piovani (Life Is Beautiful, Flavia the Heretic), who combines two haunting main melodies with moments of symphonic dread. Incredibly, this was the debut film for directed Francesco Barilli, an actor who also wrote the screenplay for Who Saw Her Die?; his only other theatrical feature, 1977's Hotel Fear, is another terrific, genre-bending horror film that didn't get much play outside Italy and is well worth seeking out.

Most intrepid video hounds during the VHS era first stumbled across this film via bootlegs made from the scarce Greek VHS release, while an official DVD release eventually surfaced in Italy from Raro Video in 2008 with both the English and Italian audio with optional English subtitles. It was nice having a choice, though the English track is really the best way to go as that's the language all the principals were speaking and the film really needs Farmer's original voice to work completely. The subsequent 2011 American DVD edition, also from Raro, carries over the audio options and features a superior anamorphic presentation; this appears to be a newer transfer as the detail is stronger (for SD), there's no PAL speedup or visible correction issues, and the occasional distortion shimmering on the PAL version (which made it look like a 4:3 transfer blown up to 16:9) is nowhere to be found. The main extra is a video interview with Barilli (in Italian with English subtitles), "Portrait in Black" (24m26s), in which he talks about how the film came about, his view on horror films at the time, and his other cinematic careers; also included are a director bio and filmography and liner notes about the film's relationship to '60s horror cinema.

2016 turned out to be a big year for this film with upgrades in HD in two countries, albeit with very different results. First up was the Raro U.S. Blu-ray, taken from yet another scan that's significantly brighter and more detailed, with DTS-HD MA English or Italian tracks with the usual optional English subs translated from the Italian. This HD master as served as the basis for every other Blu-ray out there; color are fine and detail is strong, though it has that obvious scanner noise that plagued so many Italian-based transfers of the time and made films like this unwatchable on larger displays. The Raro also seriously botches the compression job with a chunky, blotchy authoring job that essentially turns the detailed, grainy look of the source into a low bit-rate mess. An odd Barilli short film, "The Knight Errant" (23m34s), is included along with a different director interview (15m30s) that pretty much covers the same material.

Slightly later in 2016, German label X-Rated Kult released its own pricey Region B release of the film, which comes from the same scan but features a more skillful albeit imperfect compression job and deeper blacks. (Like the Raro, it's a single-layered Blu-ray that comes in just under the maximum amount allowed.) LPCM audio options include the Italian, German, or English tracks with optional German subtitles. Extras include a German audio commentary by Marcus Stiglegger (no subs), trailers (German, English, or Italian), the Barilli interview from the Raro release, two audio tracks from the Piovani soundtrack, the English opening and closing titles, and a German interview with Gerd Naumann and Bodo Traber.

Though the slimmest in terms of extras, a better presentation of the film by a welcome margin came with the 2017 UK Blu-ray from 88 Films which gives the film over ten more gigs to breathe on a dual-layered disc and benefits significantly in the process. Black levels are closer to the German release, and the depth and detail in motion look the most impressive of the trio despite that same scanner noise swimming over it all. LPCM English and Italian tracks are present in the usual pristine quality with English subs for the Italian version. Extras include the English trailer, the Italian opening and closing credits (the main feature here has the English ones as opposed to the other two Blu-rays), reversible sleeve options with the two most familiar poster designs for the film, and an insert with liner notes by Calum Waddell, "The Sweet Smell of Giallo," addressing some of the genre-hopping gray areas in which this film plays so memorably.

Anyone pining for a truly worthy, satisfying presentation of the film finally had their patience rewarded in 2025 with a U.K release from Indicator as separate UHD or Blu-ray options. If any film would benefit from the advantages of Dolby Vision, this is it, so the UHD is the way to go if you're able. The HDR10-compatible color grading is gorgeous and brings out many layers of vivid but subtle colors that weren't even hinted at before; the lush production design worthy of a Rousseau painting really has a luster here that increases the film's impact tenfold. That scanner noise is now a thing of the past, now with fine film grain and impressive detail appreciable throughout. The film can be played in either its English or Italian-language versions with their respective title sequences, and the DTS-HD 1.0 mono audio on either sounds great (with optional and improved English-translated or SDH subtitles included). An audio commentary by Eugenio Ercolani, Troy Howarth and yours truly obviously can't be assessed here but will hopefully prove to be enjoyable listening.

The archival Barilli interview is ported over here, but you also get a new, far more extensive interview, "Exploring Beauty" (19m59s) and "The Death of Cinema" (16m5s), covering his initial forays into film over TV, his theories on creativity and losing your inhibitions about artistic expression, the significance of locations and other touches in this film, his appropriate comparison to painting here, the challenges of getting the script ready, his thoughts on the film's cult following, and more. Another archival interview with him, "The Death of Cinema" (16m5s), covers his early film experiences with some of Italian cinema's giants, going into directing at the industry's high point in the '70s, and the process of coming up with this story in a "magical Rome." In "The Memories of the Lady in White" (11m23s), Wendel in an audio interview talks about her early acting career including her actor father, her jobs in commercials, the move to films ranging from Amarcord to gialli, the process of dying her hair blonde for this role which caused some awkwardness at school, her positive memories of Barilli, and working with the "sweet and ethereal" Farmer, as well as the decision to keep acting later full-time after her parents separated. In "The Profumo Affair" (34m19s), Stephen Thrower takes a deep dive into the film's history, its place in Italian genre history, its echoes of other films, the difficulty of assigning this within a horror or mystery subgenre, and Barilli's strong points as a director and his biographical details. In "Notes of Black" (33m28s), Lovely Jon provides another insightful Italian soundtrack dissection, here analyzed Piovani's lyrical approach, the two signature themes, and the unusual choice of having such a prestige name doing this film within the larger framework of his other achievements around this time. "Barilli's Roma' (5m51s) takes a then-and-now comparison tour of the various locations including the Piazza Mincio fountain and square, followed by nice 4K scans of the English and Italian trailers (in beautiful Dolby Vision) and a 22-image gallery of posters, lobby cards, a 45 single, and other odds and ends. The limited edition also comes with an 80-page book featuring a new essay by Paul Duane, a comprehensive Barilli text interview, and an archival Farmer profile.

INDICATOR (UHD)

88 FILMS (Blu-ray)

X-RATED KULT (Blu-ray)

RARO (Blu-ray)

RARO (DVD)

Updated review on September 24, 2025