An elderly heiress gets bumped off by her husband, who in turn gets bagged by another mystery assailant. This sparks a rash of brutal butchery with various friends, relatives and total strangers all being randomly massacred in order to determine who's got exclusive dibs on some valuable lakeside property. Celebrated Italian horror maestro Mario Bava delivers a bleak, dark, and blithely nihilistic meditation on how greed literally kills. Bava does an expert job of creating and maintaining an unsparingly harsh no-holds-barred tone; he even has four fun-loving teenagers serve as innocent lambs to the slaughter to further underline his grim central theme. Moreover, Bava stages the gruesome murder set pieces with his customary stylish panache: grisly highlights include a throat slashing, a hatchet to the face, a juicy decapitation, and, of course, the infamous impalement of two amorous adolescents in the middle of making love. In addition, Bava injects a mean'n'nasty streak of pitch-black gallows humor that runs throughout the entire picture and culminates in a marvelously twisted surprise shock ending that's the perfect startling punchline to what's essentially an extremely vicious cinematic shaggy dog joke. The cast are all up to speed. Former Bond babe Claudine Auger gives a genuinely chilling performance as the ruthless Renata; she receives fine support from Luigi Pistilli as her weakling husband Albert, Claudio Camaso as the reticent Simon, Leopoldo Trieste as the weird Paolo Fossati, and Lauri Betti as Paolo's bitchy wife Anna. The absolutely ravishing Brigitte Skay as the delectably voluptuous German vamp Brunhilda wears the shortest skirt imaginable and bares her beautiful body for a much-appreciated skinny-dipping scene. Evil brat child actress Nicoletta Elmi has a nice small role as Renata's daughter. Stelvio Cipriani's score neatly alternates between funky, primal, throbbing prog-rock and lush, melodic orchestral music. Bava's handsome and agile cinematography offers a wealth of stunning visuals. This film is wholly deserving of its substantial classic status.