Paste Magazine
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14th November 2023
The Strangler: Paul Vecchiali’s Underseen Queer Arthouse Thriller
Paul Vecchiali’s 1970 film The Strangler defies genre categorization. Not quite a crime thriller, not quite a giallo, not quite a romantic drama, the film follows Émile (Jacques Perrin), a boyish Jack the Ripper figure who serially stalks the streets of Paris at night, strangling sad, lonely women with a white child-sized scarf. Anna (Eva Simonet) has recently dumped her cheating ex-lover, and fearfully believes herself to be the killer’s next target. She offers herself up as bait to the inspect