Nigel P Possibly a little groovier than many giallo films from this period, thanks to Maria Bava's direction fused with an exotic score by Piero Umiliani, 'Five Dolls' opens with a swinging, debauched party culminating with a delightfully dishevelled Edwige Fenech (as Marie Chaney) faking her own bloody death. Those crazy kids.We are introduced to a plethora of characters involved in a confusing myriad of affairs and casual romances, all acting like moustache-twirling villains. Taking time out from their lives to relax on a sumptuous, sun-kissed island, their vacation is marred only by the presence of a murderer in their midst. As they try unsuccessfully to find out about the mysterious Professor Farrell and his secrets in a series of playful, titillating asides and clandestine meetings, things become pretty complicated fairly quickly. Murders, missing money and 'formulas' … it all gets a bit much. In fact, it's tempting not to worry about all that and concentrate instead in the visuals which are often breath-taking. There are various scenes held on the beach at night; I'm tempted to think a blue filter was applied to the camera during a sunny day to achieve the effect, but whatever, the results are visual indulgence – stunning. Umiliani's bossa-nova score, with thick and chunky organ rhythms enhancing scenes in which characters search amidst lowing palm trees on the isolated beach for the latest corpse – rarely has the macabre looked and sounded so incredible.Whilst I think it is fair to say the result is definitely a case of style over substance (lots of people you don't really like coming to blows in very sixties' locations reminiscent of the model sets used in Gerry Anderson's puppet series), there is much to enjoy. The images of the growing number of corpses being bagged up and hung in the cooling room amongst the animal cadaver food supply is delightfully sinister.

qmtv 3 Stars for Edwige Fenech. 0 for the rest of the film. Somehow, someway Mario Bava found a cult following who will dismiss his poor choice of story/scripts/plot/dialogue/human communication and emotion, and praise his colors/sets/cinematography and maybe music, and his dark sense of humor. Bava lovers say style over substance. Disregard story, it's all about how cool it looks. So, the people who want stories are supposed to regard Bava as some kind of an abstract painter? I'm thinking more like some fool who throws a bucket of paint on a canvas and call it art? Let's face it, be honest, we're all adults here, or try to be, Bava sucks. And so does this guy Argento. Suspiria is one of the most amateur pieces of garbage I've ever seen, everything from the candy color lights to poor acting, scenes, sets, dialogue, story, music, cinematography, etc. I recently watched his Flies & Plumage movies. Garbage. It's a cult propaganda. Maybe I'm wrong that cult movies aren't just people who love certain movies, maybe the Argento cult really belong to some crazy German Witches who run a ballerina school for international students. Fresh Meat!Getting back to Bava. Planet of Vampires, poor cartoon garbage. Bay of Blood, poor story some decent scenes. Black Lace, pretty near garbage story. This movie, the story idea is there. The script, screenplay, dialogue, scenes, all suck. Music was good, entertaining. Cinematography was good, but not great. Sets great. Edwidge was great. The rest of the cast were OK. But, without the story and the scenes this thing is a joke. It went from great, to boring, to what the hell is this. The scene with the girl walking in the beginning, and then looking through the window at the party and Edwidge dancing and the fake killing, is all great stuff. Where did they get all those plastic body bags, from Planet of Vampire? Those glass balls, suck! No thrills, no death scenes, we get the aftershow!If the producers were to edit a 10 or 15 minute version, with only Edwidge than this particular version may get an 8 stars or even 10. As it stands, this is the best Bava movie I have ever seen. And it gets 3 stars for Edwidge alone. Minus points for all the garbage one must sit through.

jadavix "Five Dolls For an August Moon" is a tedious proto-slasher with giallo touches. It features the typical cast of older, debonair gentlemen with their young bimbos conducting affairs with whoever else - one in a lesbian tryst, for an even more giallo-type sense of trashiness (the slasher genre was too conservative for lesbianism).Anyway, the characters are all utterly charmless and distant. Slashers generally went with obnoxious teenage stereotypes; gialli use bloodless rich people. Either way, it's impossible to care about them.There is also no real attempt at suspense. The movie doesn't even try to make you care about what's going on; it's like looking at a series of photos of the location that occasionally have dead people in them.There is no on-screen violence that I remember, no nudity except for one scene with Edwige Fenech (who is wasted here) where you might have to squint, and no real reason to watch that I can think of, unless you are a Bava completist.

lastliberal If you like Giallo, and I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't, then Bava is the man to watch. This may not be his best, but it is still good.Like many have said before, it is make imminently more enjoyable by the presence of Edwige Fenech. She can make any so so movie a good movie. She can also make a good movie great! Unfortunately, someone is killing off the residents of an island one by one, and poor Fenech has a knife stuck in her assets. What a waste.Not a typical Giallo as almost all the murders take place off camera, and the blood and gore is minimal. No nudity either. With the abundance of beautiful women that is a real shame.