L'assassin jouait du trombone (1991)

REVIEW
Canada does not have a great number of thrillers under its belt. Quebec has even fewer. However, when they do make thrillers, they have an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach.

Thus is it with Roger Cantin's L'assassin jouait du trombone, possibly Quebec's only giallo-style thriller and possibly the weirdest giallo-style thriller ever made.

Augustin Merleau is a wannabe actor-comedian. He has finally accepted defeat, however, and taken a job as night security guard at a movie studio. One night, when his teenage daughter drops by, they witness a series of murders in the studio, performed by a mysterious trombone-playing assassin, seen only in silhouette. (In homage to Fritz Lang's M, the assassin plays "In the Hall of the Mountain King.")

In an effort to clear his name, Merleau sets out to solve the mystery, in the meantime getting hooked up with a gang of thugs and their sexy leader, The Countess.

It is hard to describe this film's oddness without spoilers; but suffice to say this is probably the only thriller containing a trombone-playing assassin, an evil robot, a wheelchair-bound mad scientist, and a secret underground lair beneath a movie studio.

Bizarre, sometimes farcical, pushing the envelope on 'suspension of disbelief,' this film is recommended to anyone with a taste for off-beat thrillers and gialli and unusual genre-mixing.


FACTS
Writer-Director - Roger Cantin
Starring - Germain Houde, Anaïs Goulet-Robitaille, Gildor Roy
1991
96 min.

WHERE TO GET IT:
While it is quite hard to find, it is available on DVD in Quebec, and can be found at Quebec video stores (www.archambault.ca, e.g.). If you're interested, please send a Title Request to Netflix. If they receive a few requests, they'll certainly pick it up.

TIDBITS:
Briefly run on English Canadian television as Four Stiffs and a Trombone.

The cinematographer, Rodney Gibbons, was also cinematographer for My Bloody Valentine and Screamers.