# Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key

Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (Italian: Il tuo vizio è una stanza chiusa e solo io ne ho la chiave) is a 1972 slasher film directed by Sergio Martino and starring Edwige Fenech, Luigi Pistilli, and Anita Strindberg. The film revolves around a depraved writer and his mistreated wife, whose fragile relationship is further complicated by local murders and the arrival of the writer's beautiful niece.
The film was Martino's fourth giallo and loosely adapts elements from Edgar Allan Poe's 1843 short story "The Black Cat". Its title derives from Martino's earlier The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, in which the titular character (played by Fenech) receives a note containing a similar phrase. The film has been released under several alternative titles, including Gently Before She Dies, Eye of the Black Cat, and Excite Me.

## Plot

Oliviero Rouvigny, a washed-up, alcoholic writer, lives in an old villa in Teolo, where he abuses his wife Irina and their maid Brenda and hosts decadent parties for local hippies. Irina lives in fear of her husband and his cat Satan, who belonged to Oliviero’s late mother Esther, a former actress. Oliviero is protective of the cat and his mother's special dress that she wore to portray Mary Stuart.
After his mistress Fausta is found murdered, Oliviero is questioned by Inspector Farla after being identified by Fausta's boss Bartello. Oliviero claims that he was at home, and Irina reluctantly supports his lie. That night, Brenda puts on Esther's dress, unwittingly watched by Oliviero. Brenda is attacked by someone with a bill-hook and dies after Irina discovers her. Fearful after being suspected for Fausta's death, Oliviero buries Brenda in the cellar and orders Irina to clean his mother's gown.
The next day, the Rouvignys collect Oliviero's visiting niece Floriana at a nearby train station, where a gray-haired man appears to spy on them. That night, the gray-haired man delivers Esther's dry-cleaned gown to Irina, enraging Oliviero, who locks Irina in the closet to be clawed by Satan. Floriana teases her uncle Oliviero for his attraction to her and alludes to a rumor that he had an incestuous affair with his mother. She later finds Irina in the closet and frees her. Irina confides in Floriana about the abuse, murders, and cover-up, and the two have sex.
The killer murders prostitute Giovanna, whose aunt kills the attacker, revealed to be Bartello, who was an escaped mental patient faking a new identity. Floriana begins dating aspiring motorbike racer Dario. After being forced to drop out of a race, Dario has sex with Floriana in an old barn, where Oliviero spies on them. Irina stabs one of Satan's eyes out with scissors after he kills several of her pet doves. Local junk woman Mrs. Molinar witnesses this, and Irina drives her off.
Oliviero finds Floriana wearing his mother's gown. Floriana reveals she knew that her uncle spied on her when she slept with Dario, then the two have sex. Floriana later informs an unsurprised Irina about the encounter as well as Oliviero's desire to murder Irina, then implies that Irina should kill Oliviero and make it look like an accident.
Irina eavesdrops on the two in bed and overhears Oliviero's plan to murder her and hide her body in the cellar. Oliviero finds and beats her. Dario secretly invites Floriana to meet him in the morning to watch him race for a lucrative contract. Irina chases Satan into the cellar where she discovers that Brenda's corpse has been uncovered, which convinces her that Oliviero intends to execute his plan.
Irina murders Oliviero with the scissors. Floriana discovers the murder scene and helps Irina hide Oliviero's body in the cellar. Floriana reveals that she is after Esther's jewelry, which would be passed on to her now that her grandmother and uncle are dead. Irina gives her the jewelry, and the two have sex. A figure enters the villa and repeatedly types "vendetta" [revenge] on Oliviero's typewriter. Floriana, suspecting that Irina is plotting to kill her, flees the villa.
The figure is revealed to be the gray-haired man, Walter, who is Irina's secret lover and accomplice in her plot to kill her husband's family and retrieve the family jewels. Irina killed Esther and had Walter kill Brenda to cast suspicion on Oliviero, and, given his tendency to drink till he blacks out, cause him to wonder whether he killed Brenda in a rage.
On the highway, Walter creates an oil spill that causes Dario and Floriana to die in an accident, enabling Walter to retrieve the jewels. Irina later pushes Walter off a cliff to have them for herself. She returns to the mansion to find Inspector Farla and a police officer; Mrs. Molinar had filed a complaint after Irina maimed Satan. Inside, they hear Satan's meowing from the cellar. The police trace the sounds to the cellar, where they discover Satan walled off beside Oliviero's body, to Irina's horror.

## Cast

* Edwige Fenech as Floriana
* Anita Strindberg as Irina Rouvigny
* Luigi Pistilli as Oliviero Rouvigny
* Riccardo Salvino as Dario
* Ivan Rassimov as Walter
* Angela La Vorgna as Brenda
* Enrica Bonaccorti as Giovanna
* Daniela Giordano as Fausta
* Franco Nebbia as Inspector Farla
* Ermelinda De Felice as Madam
* Marco Mariani as Bartello
* Nerina Montagnani as Molinar
* Carla Mancini
* Bruno Boschetti as Vittorio
* Dalila Di Lazzaro as Stripper (uncredited)