Strip Nude For Your Killer (1975)

Strip Nude for Your Killer

This movie is a winner.  It starts with an abortion and ends with an anal sex joke.  It also stars one of the future Girls of Grindhouse Edwige Fenech and she gets naked.  A lot.  In fact, all the lovely ladies in this film are pretty much naked all the time, until they get killed that is.  Then they just lie there on the ground, all naked and bloody with blood on their naked, bloody bodies.  Naked. 

Andrea Bianchi's 1975 giallo Strip Nude for Your Killer really is a pretty damn good movie.  It doesn't have much in the way of plot, but it makes more sense than most gialli that rely on style over story.  This movie's story is thin but at least it's coherent.

During a failed abortion in a back alley clinic, a fashion model dies in the stirrups from cardiac arrest.  The doctor and an unknown accomplice take the woman's corpse back to her apartment and put her in the bathtub to make it look like she died there of natural causes.  Soon after, the doctor is murdered.

A sleazy, womanizing photographer named Carlo works for the same agency as the dead model.   As a way to get women in the sack, he brings them to the agency with promises of fame and fortune in the pages of the world's most glamorous fashion magazines.  After successfully seducing a voluptuous redhead (Femi Benussi) and adding her to the agency's roster, she is murdered, which is unfortunate because she liked to walk around naked a lot.

Then other models and those associated with the agency also begin dying at the hands of an unknown killer who wears a motorcycle suit and helmet, and likes to get all stabby with a switchblade.  Who could be committing these heinous murders?  What reason could this person have?  How could such a slimy, little man get with such beautiful women?  Trust me, the reason for the murders and the revelation of killer's identity won't blow your mind, but it's a fun ride getting to that point.

"That's-a spicy meat ball-a!"

Strip Nude for Your Killer is unique as a giallo in that it doesn't take itself too seriously.  In fact, it often seems that the murder-mystery aspect of the film takes a backseat the tongue-in-cheek, misogynist, Italian sex jokes.  I imagine some will find this annoying but others will find it refreshing.  I'm in the latter camp. 

If a campy and sleazy, yet bloody Italian murder-mystery doesn't appeal to you, I still recommend watching this film because Edwige Fenech is in it, she gets naked and she is freakin' hot.

Violence Rating/Index: 3.5 out of 5
Booby Rating/Index: 4.5 out of 5

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The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (1971)

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A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (1971): Biting, Gnawing Terror Claws At Your Brain!

A Lizard in a Woman's Skin

A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, also known as the slightly edited Schizoid in the United States, is one of my favorite Lucio Fulci films.  In fact I have an original one-sheet of that poster art hanging on my wall. I'm not exactly sure what I like so much about this film but perhaps it's the ample amount of boobage, blood, psychedelia and sideburns. Everything just seems to come together for me.  It's a giallo so basically the story revolves around a murder investigation with some crazy Fulci elements thrown in.  It can be slow sometimes but never so slow that one loses interest in the mystery.

A somewhat repressed and sexually timid woman (Florinda Bolkan) dreams each night of explicit encounters with the sexually liberated woman who lives in the flat next door.  After lengthy psychoanalysis she is unsure what to make of these dreams.  One night she dreams that she stabs this drugged up hippie chick to death with a letter opener only to wake up to the fact that this woman really has been murdered and that she is the prime suspect.  Did she do it or was it a dream?  That's not the only thing going on in this film.  There's blackmail, a philandering husband, a rich politician/lawyer who smokes a pipe, LSD, bats and of course, the infamous "dog scene."

"Damn this astigmatism."

From IMDB:

The scene in which Carol encounters the disemboweled dogs in the clinic became quite controversial because of the startlingly realistic (and graphic) appearance of the fake prop dogs. Director Lucio Fulci was nearly sent to prison because it was believed that the dogs were real and Fulci had allowed animal cruelty on the film. However crew members were able to testify in court that the "dogs" were indeed fake and no animals had ever been harmed. Special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi even presented the dog props in court to convince the jury. This was the first time that an effects artist had to testify in court that their work were fake.

A similar incident happened with the Italian gore-fest Cannibal Holocaust.  Also from IMDB:

The film caused some scandal in Italy at the time of its release. Ten days after premiering in Milan, the film was seized by the courts, and the director, Ruggero Deodato, was arrested and charged with obscenity. He was later charged with murder and faced life in prison on the belief that several of the actors were murdered for the camera. Deodato contacted Luca Barbareschi and told him to contact the three other actors who played the missing film team. He presented the actors, alive and well, to the courts, and thus, the murder charges were dropped. The film remained banned in Italy for another three years.

So there you go.  All of you guys who like movies like Saw and Hostel owe more than a little to the Italian directors of the 1970s who pushed the envelope of gore and nudity, and even had to go to court to defend their films.

Violence Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Booby Rating: 3.5 out of 5

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The Perfume of the Lady in Black: The Little Girl Who Lives in My Head.

The Perfume of the Lady in Black

For today's review I thought it would be nice to change from campy Chuck Norris kung-fu to something beautiful and bizarre.  I watched The Perfume of the Lady in Black thinking it would be a giallo, but instead it turned out to be an Italian supernatural thriller and I'm okay with that.

This film has repeatedly been compared to Polanski's Rosemary's Baby and Repulsion.  The similarity to Rosemary's Baby was apparent throughout the film and even the haunting musical score reminded me of it often.  As far as being like Repulsion, it's similar in that it's also about a willowy blonde who loses touch with reality but I didn't get the schizophrenic, claustrophobic feeling that Repulsion forces on the audience.

I'm not sure what to think of The Perfume of the Lady in Black.  It's similar to a David Lynch film in that I was left scratching my head after the credits rolled wondering what the hell actually happened.  What was real and what was imagined?  I'm still not sure.  There is a twist ending that throws everything out of skew and I don't want to ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen the movie, but I will tell you that it comes completely out of left field.

"Is it your back?"

I hesitate to reveal too much of the plot, as scattered and confusing as it is.  The Perfume of the Lady in Black is essentially about a workaholic scientist who gradually loses her sanity when repressed memories begin to manifest as physical realities.  Soon there is no separation between what is objectively real and what is a projection of her own fractured psyche.  And of course there is a significant amount violence and nudity along the way.

There is a haunting beauty to this film and the ending alone makes it worth watching.

Violence Rating:  3.5 out of 5
Booby Rating:  3.5 out of 5

What Have You Done to Solange?

Also Known As

• ¿Qué habéis hecho con Solange? (Spain)
• Das Geheimnis der grünen Stecknadel (Germany)
• Mais... qu'avez vous fait à Solange? (France)
• Mannen i svart (Sweden)
• Que Fizeram a Solange? (Portugal)
• Solange (UK) (video box title)
• Terror in the Woods (USA)
• The School That Couldn't Scream (USA)
• The Secret of the Green Pins (USA)
• Tromos sto parthenagogeio (Greece)
• Vahset - Solange'e ne yaptiniz? (Turkey) (Turkish title)
• Viasmos sto parthenagogeio (Greece) (reissue title)
• What Have They Done to Solange? (USA)
• What Have You Done to Solange? (UK) (video title)
• Who Killed Solange?
• Who's Next? (UK)

Main Details

• Released in 1972
• Color
• Running Time: Italy:103 min | UK:102 min | West Germany:96 min
• Production Co: Italian International Film | Clodio Cinematografica | Rialto Film Preben-Philipsen (as Rialto Film Preben Philipsen GmbH & Co. KG)
• Distribution Co: Italian International Film (1972) (Italy) (theatrical) | American International Pictures (AIP) (1975) (USA) (as "Terror in the Woods") | Constantin Film (1972) (Germany) (theatrical)

Cast and Crew

• Directed by Massimo Dallamano
• Written by Bruno Di Geronimo, Massimo Dallamano
• Starring Fabio Testi, Cristina Galbó, Karin Baal, Joachim Fuchsberger, Günther Stoll, Camille Keaton
• Produced by Leo Pescarolo, Fulvio Lucisano, Horst Wendlandt
• Original Music by Ennio Morricone
• Cinematography by Joe D'Amato (as Aristide Massaccesi)
• Film Editing by Antonio Siciliano, Clarissa Ambach 

I had never seen What Have You Done to Solange until I decided to review it for this blog.  I didn't have the highest of expectations but I was more than pleasantly surprised.  This is one of the best giallo (Italian whodunit) films that I have ever seen.  Just when you think you know what is going to happen, everything changes and then when you think you know who the killer is, you are wrong.  The film keeps you guessing the whole time, adding new elements and plot twists until the very end.

The film begins with an Italian born teacher having an adulterous affair with one of his English Catholic schoolgirl students.  That's right, our protagonist is an Italian pedophile. He and his underage lover are out on a romantic rowboat rendezvous when she witnesses a man in dark robes shove a butcher knife up the nether regions of a female classmate on the riverbank.

When news of the murder comes out and other girls start dying in the same manner, Henry -the Italian pedophile- is linked to the first crime through a dropped pen at the murder scene, but he cannot reveal his reason for being there because his German wife would find out about the affair.  He is therefore implicated in the murders by a pipe smoking detective, Inspector Barth.  Eventually convinced of Henry's innocence, these two team up to investigate these gruesome murders and reveal the story of Solange.  Who is killing these girls?  Who the hell is Solange?  Will a pedophile be allowed to continue teaching gym class?  You will have to watch to find out.

What Have You Done to Solange is a pretty great film.  If you are a fan of murder mysteries or just like ample violence and boobies in your movies, this one's for you.  In my opinion, this film is on par with or possibly even better than the gialli of the masters Argento, Fulci and Bava.  I highly recommend it.

Violence Rating: 3.75 out of 5
Booby Rating:  4 out of 5