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| “ | In every corner of Africa, be it jungle, savannahs, village, river, or even in the skyscrapers of our modern cities, a certain fear rides the hot winds. An ancient fear with many names. Black magic. Witchcraft. Superstitions, rites. Mysterious deaths. [...] In our country, there are still cults who chose victims without them even knowing it. By means of potions or evil rites, they are driven mad, then killed. It is a challenge thrown in the face of evil. The victim suffers a horrible death by an ancient sacrifice. But such practices require time and patience. They are like a test of man's mental strength over his weaknesses. | „ |
| ~ Andy describing the history of African cults. |
The African-Italian sacrificial cult (so named for this wiki) are the main antagonists of the 1974 giallo film The Perfume of the Lady in Black. The cult is an underground group of ritualists responsible for terrorizing numerous people with hallucinations for the purpose of building up to murdering them, their latest victim being protagonist Sylvia Hacherman.
Biography[]
The cult is a hidden sect residing in the tunnels of the Italian city the film takes place in. They conduct rituals derived from African religions, usually in a signature outfit of blue lab coats. They scout the city for people to potentially offer up as human sacrifices. It's often nearly impossible to discern which of their actions are real or conjured illusions.
Their latest target is Sylvia Hacherman, a chemist and a workaholic. She has a struggling relationship with her boyfriend Roberto, her father died at sea while in the navy, her stepfather Nicola raped her and her mother Marta, and Marta died from a fall off her balcony, which is implied to have been committed by Sylvia out of jealousy and competition in their separate lives. Roberto gets Sylvia to meet Andy, his African-Italian friend, and at his house and in front of his family, Andy recounts African sacrificial cults, whose targets are unaware of being sought after until it's too late. Andy then laughs it off as a joke before Sylvia leaves, but she's haunted by illusions meant to break her overtime. Sylvia's hallucinations begin when seeing Marta in the mirror, in a black dress and spraying perfume on himself. She goes back over her letters to her father, but she also eventually envisions her younger self walking through the house, arguing with her and even fighting over a music box with a small ballerina. Sylvia's hallucinations become more aggressive, as she sees Nicola raping Marta, and when Nicola tries to harass Sylvia, she cuts his face.
Coincidences show in her life, such as furniture she sees at stores like in her former home, only to disappear, or packages of the very items mailed to her door, broken, and then appearing as if nothing happened. When she puts flowers in the vase, they die, and thunderstorms scare her and drown out any noises her hallucinations make so she doesn't see them coming. Her shows declines as she becomes more distressed from her paranoia. A nail pricks Sylvia's hand when it sticks out of her tennis racket, and Andy drinks her blood from her wound Seeing her younger self dancing in grass, Sylvia mutters over and over "Sylvia's hurt herself". A blind oracle, Orchidea, recalls Sylvia's fast regarding her father and stepfather, resulting in her running out and shouting she hates everyone in the room. Her dear friend, a model named Francesca who lives in the same apartment building as her, dies in her bathtub and is scalded almost beyond recognition postmortem, Sylvia later receiving her cremains. Her next door neighbor Rossetti's cat appears to have one of Francesca's fingers in their food, and the cat later dies. All the while, the cult arranges its meetings in the tunnels to reconvene and plan their next moves, consisting of every person around Sylvia.
When she goes to a taxidermist, Nicola arrives and inquires why she listed their old address. Sylvia flees and goes to the house for answers, but Nicola follows her there, hits her, tears off her underwear, and rapes her. before Nicola has a chance to finish the rape, Sylvia kills him with a brick and then flees crying. She becomes more unhinged, bringing a hammer to crack open Marta's portrait on her grave, which is revealed to have been filled with a few beetles. After she pushes a hallucination of her mother off the balcony during a parade outside, she puts on her mother's dress and perfume and listens to her younger self telling her to kill. She hacks Rossetti to death with a meat cleaver, then lures Roberto over to hack him to death as well. The two of them are arranged around a dining table with Nicola in a simple Mad Hatter's Tea Party mock-up from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Sylvia follows her younger self up to the roof top, and the girl pushes her off to the pavement below. All that's visible is Sylvia dead from the impact. The cultists, including the three presumed murdered members by Sylvia's hand, surround her corpse in the tunnels while they're all in their lab coats, shuffling closer to the dead Sylvia. She's cut open, and each cultist grabs organs and tissues from her, biting into each as they fervent grab and run off chewing up their spoils before disappearing into the undergrowing, leaving Sylvia's hollowed corpse behind.
Known Members[]
- Andy
- Roberto
- Rossetti
- Nicola
- Orchidea
- Numerous other cultists