Errore fatale (1988)

 

(AKA Fatal Temptation) After an auto accident, a formerly faithful and innocent wife becomes an adulterous murderer.

Sleazebag husband Paolo Piattelli (John Armstead) shows his mistress (Carmen Manzano) around his estate. She's awed by his ancestral wealth.

They have sex in the cellar.

Silvia Piattelli (Loredana Romito), Paolo's wife, returns home early.

Silvia speaks with the cook Cosetta (Ann Margaret Hughes), and is none the wiser about Paolo's bad behavior.

Silvia takes a shower.

Silvia hops into bed with Paolo.

Loredana Romito provides a surprising level of graphic nudity during this scene.  She's naked and has sex many more times in this film, but nothing comes close to this. Almost the entire sex scene is viewed from this angle.

As you might have guessed, Paolo is a selfish lover.  As soon as he's done his business, he rolls over leaving Silvia high and dry.

The next day Silvia is disappointed to learn that Paolo is cancelling their plans. She doesn't know he's actually on another tryst with his mistress.

But their rendezvous ends in tragedy as Paolo's sports car swerves to avoid hitting a motorcyclist named Alessio (James Villemaire).  The car goes careening off the road and Paolo is seriously injured.

Paolo is brought home from the hospital and waited on by Silvia.  He's blind and walks with a cane now.

Alessio the motorcyclist is hired as their chauffeur. Silvia is attracted to him, but she's still a devoted and loyal wife.

But that all changes when Paolo invites his mistress over while Silvia is away.

Silvia catches them having sex.  She suspected it after the wreck, but now she's sure.

So, Silvia goes and has sex with Alessio.

Indeed Silvia and Alessio have sex on the daily everywhere around the house.  Paolo may be blind, but he ain't deaf.  He knows what's up.

Silvia crawls into bed with Paolo, but it's more to taunt and tease him than genuine affection.  Paolo blew that when he got caught cheating.

Silvia convinces Alessio to push Paolo off the yacht.  He is resistant but Silvia can be very persuasive.  But that the final second Alessio can't go through with it.

But of course Silvia eventually gets her way.  They lead blind Paolo down a wooded path and Alessio pushes him off a cliff.

Alsessio finds Cosetta's body in her Volkswagen - she's been shot in the head.  Silvia did this when she learned that the cook knew about their scheming to murder Paolo.  Silvia was also unhappy that Alessio and Cosetta were having romantic relations.

Silvia takes a bath.  She hears someone approach and thinks it's the reanimated corpse of Paolo (which she has been having nightmares about lately).  

But it's just Alessio - still covered in Cosetta's blood.  He's come to confront Silvia about the murder, but she seduces him into the tub.

After sex, she blows his ass away. The film ends with Silvia looking introspectively at the ocean - a totally different person than she was when she frolicked on this beach with Paolo when they were in love.  She crushes a crab underfoot, letting us know she's now become a heartless killer.

CHARACTERS

Silvia Piattelli (Loredana Romito)
Paolo Piattelli (John Armstead)
Cosetta (Ann Margaret Hughes) cook
Alessio (James Villemaire)
Paolo's lover (Carmen Manzano)

RATING: ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆ 5/10

REVIEW: Let's face it, by 1988 we'd seen this same basic story played out a million times. It's also filmed rather badly, with lots of boring scenes that seem like they could have been cut or trimmed.  Worse still is the soundtrack: an instrumental which sounds a lot like  "It Might Be You" by Stephen Bishop plays throughout the film - and I'm sure to have that awful song stuck in my head for days to come. Loredana Romito provides an amazing sex scene - however, the sex is pretty listless and drab, but saved by the perhaps serendipitous shots from behind.  Romito does a good job and is the sort of voluptuous Italian actress like Serena Grande, but after the aforementioned sex scene there's not much more to write home about.