Massacre

 

"Please, Jenny. Film making isn't hard. It's like a machine that marches on."

The cast and crew of the supernatural horror film Dirty Blood are using a local hotel as production headquarters. Love triangles, rivalries and backstage scheming plague the production, but star Jennifer (Patrizia Falcone) escapes the madness by spending time with police detective Walter (Gino Concori), who is investigating a recent series of murders. Director Frank (Maurice Poli) decides to host a real séance in order to give his film a sense of realism, but things take a dangerous and spooky turn and soon, members of the cast and crew are picked off by the killer in gruesome fashion. Could the killer be the scheming Assistant director, Robert (Pier Maria Cecchini)? Or jealous actress Liza (Silvia Conit)? Maybe a demon really was released at the séance and is responsible for the murders. It's up to Walter to find out!

Massacre (not to be confused with Crimes) is equal parts sexy and gory, as any good giallo should be. There's plenty of nudity and blood and even a few severed limbs to get the horror fans excited. After a gruesome opening scene, the first half of the film focuses on the soap opera relationships of the cast and crew of the film-within-a-film. Robert and Liza are scheming to seduce Jennifer in order to cause a scandal while Liza is having an affair with lead actor Jean (Robert Egon), who has a contentious relationship with cast mate Adrian (Danny Degli Espositi). But in the second half (after the séance scene), all that information goes out the window and it's full speed ahead - the killings ramp up and the film devolves into a series of stabbings in quick succession. By the time you know it, most of the cast is history and the whole thing ends on a giant question mark.

• This movie is clearly on-brand for director Andrea Bianchi, who made Strip Nude for Your Killer and What the Peeper Saw. It was also produced by the legendary Lucio Fulci, which explains the gore effects.

• You may remember Maurice Poli, who plays the Director, from Five Dolls for the August Moon.

• The "scene in a cemetery" in the checklist above turned out to be a movie set in the film-within-a-film, but it still counts. 

• In one scene, a policeman reports that they entered all the evidence of the murders into a computer, which concluded that they're actually dealing with two killers. The police laugh at the absurdity of this, but the computer turns out to be correct.

What the Hell Am I Watching?

 In the opening scene, the killer effortlessly dismembers a prostitute with a small hatchet like she was made of Play-Doh.

Midway through the film, Adrian puts on a show for the camera, impersonating Joel Gray, Liza Minelli, Marilyn Monroe and Marlene Dietrich. I am dying to know how any of this fits into a movie about demon rituals.

The craziest moment in this movie is obviously the séance scene, wherein Madame Yurich's face contorts and inflates as she howls and gets blown back by a gale-force wind.

Fashion Moment:

Here's a moment where a movie about making movies pays homage to a classic movie:

 Also, I love the glam silver lamé gown Jennifer gets to wear in the demon ceremony scene. Very Dana Barrett.

What the Peeper Saw

What the Peeper Saw

"He has his problems..."

After a whirlwind romance and a marriage to Paul (Hardy Krüger), Englishwoman Elise (Britt Ekland) arrives in Spain to discover that her new stepson, Marcus (Mark Lester) is home early from boarding school. Elise soon learns that Marcus is very smart, but also very cold and calculating. After snooping around, she finds that Marcus was expelled from school for his voyeuristic compulsions and lewd behavior. But did he also have something to do with the death of Paul's first wife, Sara (Colette Giacobine), who died under mysterious circumstances?  Elise's search for the truth puts her deeper and deeper in danger, while distancing her from her new husband. Did Marcus kill his mother? Does Marcus want Elise dead? Or does he want something else from her?

Gross. 

Gross gross gross gross gross.

I know that some giallo movies tend to push the boundaries of good taste, but this one takes it in a weird direction. There are, of course, "sexy" gialli, but this is the first I've seen that involves an adult and a twelve year old. Apart from the ick factor, the first two thirds of the movie are really dull and then things pick up at the end with some strange turns, a dream sequence montage and a gleeful twist ending. Light on blood but heavy on exposition, bewbs and inappropriate boundary issues.

• You'll recognize the most famous actor in the cast, Mark Lester, from his title role in Carol Reed's Academy Award-winning musical Oliver.
• You might know Swedish actress Britt Eckland as a Bond girl or from The Wicker Man, Get Carter, or from dozens of guest appearances on all the classic '70's TV shows.
• The music in this movie was done by the great Stelvio Cipriani
• Co-director Andrea Bianchi is renowned for his sexually-charged gialli like Strip Nude for Your Killer.
• There's definitely a water motif in the movie - Sara is killed in her bath tub, a dog drowns in a pool, and several grownup scenes take place in bathrooms and swimming pools.
• Both of the fake murders occur during the aforementioned dream montage.

What the Hell am I Watching?

Paul and Elise go to a party, where a woman of African heritage has been forcibly pinned to a table while guests cover her with fresh fruit, shoving it into her face as she struggles to free herself.

In the most messed-up scene in the movie, Elise slowly strips in front of Marcus, getting him to answer questions about his mother's death. He answers a question for each article of clothing, until she's completely naked in front of the boy.

Fashion Moment

There's not a lot to talk about, fashion-wise. Paul looks good in a suit and Elise tends to prefer solid-colored, monochromatic outfits.

She does glam it up a little with this Pucci-inspired print and elaborate matching necklace in the party scene.

Strip Nude For Your Killer

Strip Nude For Your Killer

"In our kind of business a person doesn't take long to know who he does and doesn't like."

A mysterious murderer in a black helmet and leather motorcycle gear is killing the employees of a photography studio. Photographer Carlo Bianchi (Nino Castelnuovo) and his girlfriend and assistant, Magda Cortis (Edwige Fenech), are piecing together the clues. Could the killer be the studio's stern owner, Gisella Montagni (Amanda)? Or jealous model Patrizia (Solvi Stubing)? And what motive could possibly tie all the killings together? Carlo and Magda must race to find the vital clues and solve the case!

Some gialli are scary and some gialli are sexy. Strip Nude For Your Killer is definitely a sexy giallo, with pretty much the entire cast in minimal wardrobe (or nothing at all) throughout the film. And if you like something shocking to go with your bewbs, consider that the movie opens with a woman in stirrups dying from complications of a botched abortion. That really sets the tone for some brutal killings, unapologetic misogyny, and gratuitous sex. In short, it's everything you want in a giallo film.

• There's certainly nudity and there's a whole lot of killing, but no one is forced to "strip nude for the killer" as the title suggests.
• The traditional killer's costume of a black trench coat and hat is re-imagined as a tight leather jumpsuit and helmet, making him look like a psychotic member of Daft Punk.
• There's a water motif throughout the film: fountains, spilled booze, faucets, and pools are recurring elements thought the film. The killer's trademark is to turn on a tap to lure victims. It's all meant to remind the victims (and the audience) of the initial killing, which was staged to look like a drowning.
• The murder of Maurizio Montagni (Franco Diogene) is the Psycho shower scene, staged in reverse. He is standing in the bathroom and the killer strikes from inside the shower,  behind the curtain.
• In that scene, we can clearly see the camera crew in a mirror as Maurizio walks by.
• There is one off-screen killing: the gynecologist from the opening scene.
• I don't think the killer was killed at the end, so I didn't count him in the body count. It was just a fall down some stairs and he was wearing a helmet, so the injuries couldn't have been too bad.
 

What the Hell am I Watching?

After the credits, we're taken to some sort of... facility. I'm not sure if it's a rec center, a spa, or a sex club, but there's a bar and nearly-naked people are everywhere. Carlo tails the beautiful Lucia (Femi Benussi), lures her into the sauna, gets her naked, and then jumps her. What makes it most uncomfortable is that she protests the whole time before going along with every step. Rather disturbing in our modern era of "no means no."

Chubby Maurizio is the saddest character in the entire giallo canon. The poor guy is married to a cold, domineering woman who gets more chicks than he does and when he does try to have an affair, he bursts into tears, clumsily offers to pay the woman anyway, and finds solace with his blow-up doll. It's supposed to be funny, but I just find it depressing. It makes me even sadder when the poor guy is killed later.

Hey, Magda, honey? You're working with caustic chemicals in that film lab. Maybe take off the bulky fur coat?

And speaking of which, she must have done millions of Lira in damage, knocking down lights and furniture while trying to stealthily evade the killer in the photo studio.

Fashion Moment

It takes a confident man to wear a swimsuit like this.