There's no lack of mood and atmosphere, key elements both, but there isn't enough anchoring them to plot or character for it to matter.

Not knowing anything about this movie before I sat down to watch it, I'd assumed from the title and the star (Mimsy Farmer, fresh from Dario Argento's Four Flies on Grey Velvet) that it was going to be a giallo. In fact, The Perfume of the Lady in Black owes more to that particular brand of psychological horror at which Roman Polanski used to excel. Indeed, albeit substituting voodoo for devil worship, there are definite echoes of Rosemary's Baby to be found here. Attractively photographed and nicely scored throughout, the film is technically a cut above much of the trash that was being made at the time, and even the typically bad dubbing cannot quite ruin Farmer's decent performance. Unfortunately, the plot makes no sense whatsoever and, though the movie is commendably and refreshingly bloodless for most of its running time, the incongruously gory climax leaves a nasty aftertaste.