in a small and picturesque sicilian village and someone be brutally kill young and sexually curious boy . the local police force keep busy try to track the killer and whittle the list down to five or so main suspect and include voyeuristic village retard giuseppe ( vito passeri ) and an elusive and grungy and voodoo doll poke backwoods witch name maciara ( florinda bolkan ) . there also don alberto ( marc popel ) and a handsome young priest who run the local boy school and andrea ( tomas milian ) and a journalist help to aid the police and and the beautiful patrizia ( barbara bouchet ) and a gorgeous and but seriously screw up drug addict who seem to have a thing for very ( i mean and very ) young boy . a typical with the giallo subgenre and the plot would not be fully reveal until the last few frame and but if you can hang in there long enough and this film pay off . the script ( write by fulci and gianfranco clerici and roberto gianviti ) keep red herring to a minimum and will keep you interested and the story be ably support by excellent location work and cinematography ( by sergio doffizi ) and musical score ( by riz ortolani ) . the acting and particularly bolkan and be also very good . fulci fan who be wean on his 80 grotesquery like the beyond and zombie will find more artistry and less gore on display here than they might anticipate and but they will still enjoy a particularly nasty chain whip scene in a cemetery ( bizarrely and yet effectively and set to singer ornella vanoni ballad quei giorni insieme a te ) and a long tumble down a rocky embankment that fulci like so much that he reuse it in his film the psychic ( 1977 ) . scene of the child be kill be mainly keep off screen ( except for a brief strangulation ) and but the camera doesn not hesitate to linger on their corps . the film be not release theatrically in america and and presumably because of some anti catholic element in the storyline and receive only a limited theatrical release in europe .