Nude per l'assassino (1975)

... aka: Assassin for Models
... aka: Assassino per fotomodelle (Killer for Photo Models)
... aka: Der geheimnisvolle Killer (The Mysterious Killer)
... aka: Die Nacht der blanken Messer (Night of the Bare Knives)
... aka: Nackt für der killer (Naked for the Killer)
... aka: Nude for the Killer
... aka: Nude x l'assassino
... aka: Strip Naked for the Killer
... aka: Strip Nude for Your Killer

Directed by:
Andrea Bianchi

Gotta love a title that just cuts right to the chase. Shame about the movie itself. A young woman named Evelyn goes to get an abortion but doesn't come home as the gynecologist accidentally kills her. He and an acquaintance then place her body in a bathtub to make it look like she accidentally drowned instead. Not long after, the doctor is attacked and killed outside his home by a knife-brandishing psycho dressed in a black leather duds, gloves and a motorcycle helmet. We then meet talent scout, photographer and all-around lothario Carlo Bianchi (Nino Castelnuovo). At a pool, he spots the statuesque, bikini-clad Lucia Gerosini (Femi Benussi) and stalks her to a bar where he brags about his credentials ("Harper's Bazaar! Vogue! Elle!") and then invites her into the sauna so he can examine her, uh, portfolio. Seeing how everything looks great, he takes her back to his modeling agency, Albatross Photo, where she meets the rest of his co-workers and some of the other models.

Albatross is owned by aggressive and extremely unpleasant lesbian Gisella Montan (Amanda) and her equally odious, 350-pound husband, Maurizio (Franco Diogene), both of whom use their modeling studio to try to get laid. Gisella immediately takes Lucia to her office so she can also examine her, uh, portfolio, while Maurizio takes another model named Patrizia (Solvi Stubing) on a romantic date that includes a red-lit lesbian stripper stage show. Not too surprisingly, the wife usually gets her way while the hubby always strikes out. In fact, he's actually a mother-obsessed virgin with an inflatable doll, which begs the question: Why exactly are these two even married in the first place? The other primary models on display are Doris (Erna Schurer), a flat-chested blonde without eyebrows, and the scrawny, mustachioed Stefano (Wainer Verri). Among the primary staff are flamboyant make-up man Mario Ferreri (Claudio Pellegrini) and photographer Magda Cortini (Edwige Fenech), who's still in the process of working her way up in the business.

For some reason that can only be attributed to possible career advancement, Magda is interested in dating sleazy and obnoxious man-whore Carlo and gets the ball rolling by seducing him in a darkroom and then going down where, well, probably a thousand wanna-be models, have gone before. His idea of a charming post coital conversation involves talking nonsense about molecules in milk making coffee taste better and, when she looks perplexed, informing her "It's stupid for me to explain. You don't understand a damn thing anyhow." That's followed by him putting his hands around her throat and threatening to strangle her over a newspaper article. Magda behaves like it's all nothing and is casually chatting it up with him just a few seconds later. At first I figured this must mean Magda is also the killer because only a psychotic would agree to date Carlo in the first place. Hell, I'd even try to explain that to her except I have a sneaking suspicion she wouldn't understand a damn thing anyhow.

We discover that the woman who died getting the abortion used to be an Albatross model and the motorcycle-killer is targeting only agency employees. He / she starts by taking out the gay make-up man. Next up is Lucia, who's been putting out for Gisella in hopes of improving her chances of becoming a successful fashion model. After the two have a spat - Gisella slaps her and calls her a "cheap whore" for having slept with Carlo (well, if the shoe fits...) - Lucia is stabbed to death after walking around the house completely nude for a good five minutes. Next up, Maurizio takes Doris on a terrifying high speed drive to a country house where he attempts to rape her and then threatens to bash her head in. She responds to that by taking off her clothes, lying on the couch and cheerfully agreeing to have sex with him. However, he's unable to perform. After she leaves, he whips out his inflatable girlfriend but gets killed before he can even fully pump her up. As all of this is going on, a police commissioner (Lucio Como) wanders in and out asking incredibly moronic questions.

I can't fault this one for false advertising as there is indeed a killer and indeed a lot of stripping nude. However, I can fault it for being a colossal failure on nearly every other front. While the nudity is gratuitous and nearly non-stop, there's little suspense and the mystery elements and killer reveal are so incompetently handled it's almost laughable. Though the killer isn't unmasked until the very end, a really clumsy clue at the very beginning narrows it down for us considerably. The killer is given a photograph of eight people and it's revealed they are also in the photo. Another person pictured is already dead. The person who gives the killer the photo is about to die. And prior to handing the photo over, the victim names four of the others off who are pictured. That leaves just two people that it could possibly be. One of the two is prominently featured up until this point then suddenly just disappears (almost if they want us to forget all about them for a little while...) while the other is barely shown at all. So, yeah, there's not much of a "mystery" really going on here.

So now that we have the plot being a bust out of the way, we should make mention of the painfully awful dialogue, the fact there is almost no directorial style to speak of and that there's not a single likable character in the entire film. Carlo has to be one of the most repellent leads I've ever seen in any of these films. He helps cover for the doctor after the botched abortion by staging it like a drowning (and probably was the one who impregnated her in the first place), uses every woman he runs across, strangles and berates his girlfriend and then threatens to rear-entry rape our heroine during the "funny" final scene... and the filmmakers behave as if he's the most charming guy in the entire world! The fact they let him live and don't castrate him like they do another character is a missed opportunity if there ever was one.

As far as the violence is concerned, most of it takes place off-screen and we just see the thick-red-paint-drenched aftermath. While most of the kills are stabbings, they throw in a few variations like a pair of ears, a breast and a wiener being removed, though that and all of the nudity don't do much to elevate this poorly-plotted, by-the-numbers effort. Strip was made toward the end of the giallo cycle when this type of film was falling out of favor with audiences and ideas and innovation were clearly in short supply. Increasingly more graphic sex films were popular though, prompting many directors to focus almost entirely on nudity as opposed to paying much attention to the mystery / horror aspects of these "thrillers." That seems to be the case here. While I can't say I personally had much fun watching this dumb, cynical film, some people seem to like it.

Bianchi, one of the sleazier Italian directors of his day, primarily made sex comedies, horror films and porn (both soft and hardcore). He was brought in to shoot additional and more exploitative scenes for the controversial What the Peeper Saw (1972) and also made the possession / sex film MALABIMBA (1979), which had more explicit X-rated inserts added to it so it could play in adult theaters, Angel of Death (1987), which involves Nazi scientists conducting experiments in a jungle and a couple of late 80s slashers: Maniac Killer (1987) and MASSACRE (1989). He will forever be best know however for his trashy zombie movie fave Burial Ground (1981).

To my knowledge, this title did not get an official U.S. release until Blue Underground put it out on DVD in 2005. An English-dubbed version was released theatrically in the UK, but had five minutes of violence and nudity removed.

★1/2

Perché quelle strane gocce di sangue sul corpo di Jennifer? (1972)

... aka: Case of the Bloody Iris, The
... aka: Erotic Blue
... aka: Lágrimas de Jennifer, Las (The Tears of Jennifer)
... aka: Rendez-vous avec la mort (Appointment with Death)
... aka: What Are Those Strange Drops of Blood Doing on Jennifer's Body?
... aka: Why Are Those Strange Drops of Blood on the Body of Jennifer?

Directed by:
"Anthony Ascott" (Giuliano Carnimeo)

In a high rise apartment building, a miniskirt-clad "high class hustler" (Evi Farinelli) is stabbed and slashed to death by a gloved maniac while on an elevator in a scene some viewers have likened to a more famous sequence in Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill (1980). Both feature ladies getting killed in an elevator by a psycho whose identity has yet to be revealed immediately after having sex. The difference? Well, one features actual suspense leading up to the murder, the element of surprise about a would-be lead character being unceremoniously dispatched earlier than viewers anticipate and is well-edited and beautifully shot and scored, while the other is, well, none of the above. I'll leave it up to you to decide which is which. 

After the murder, three tenants living on the top floor; retired university music professor Mr. Isaacs (George Rigaud), elderly war widow Mrs. Moss (Maria Tedeschi) and nightclub performer / stripper Mizar Harrington (Carla Brait), discover the body and none seem overly concerned about it ("I gotta go now. Gotta be at rehearsal in an hour!") Meanwhile, at a photography studio, flamboyant fashion photographer / modeling agent Arthur (Oreste Lionello) is busy shooting topless photos while barking out orders in an annoyingly stereotypical queeny / whiny voice. Architect Andrea Barto (the handsome but flagrantly untalented George Hilton) shows up looking for a model to use in a campaign and Arthur suggests Mizar. Why? Well, according to him it's because she's "black... but not too black." While there, Andrea bumps into the photogenic though troubled model Jennifer Lansbury (Edwige Fenech; the then-girlfriend of producer Luciano Martino), who's just recently fled from a sex cult. The two immediately become smitten with one another.

Later that night, Andrea goes to Mizar's nightclub to watch her routine, which involves wrestling men in a frilly bikini for three minutes. If the male wins he can take her right then and there in front of the other guests. If she wins, well, I guess she's earned her paycheck. Sounds like a fair trade-off to me. Andrea doesn't get a chance to talk to her about his business proposal that night, nor does he get to talk to her the following night after she's tied up and drown in her bathtub. Now with a vacant unit, Andrea (coincidentally also the owner of the building) hooks Jennifer and her bimbo model friend Marilyn (Paola Quattrini) up with a new place to stay. I don't know about you, but I'd be a little leery moving into a apartment where two women were just murdered by a maniac still on the loose, but neither seem to really mind. 

Their first night there, Jennifer is awoken in her sleep by the psycho's hands wrapped around her throat but he miraculously disappears right afterward. Time to move yet? Nope. Go to the police? Can't have that. Not only is there a killer on loose, but Adam (Ben Carra), Jennifer's red herring "celestial husband" from her sex cult days shows up, threatens her with a syringe, breaks into her apartment, rips her clothes off and tries to rape her. Move? Police? No and no. It isn't until Jennifer is almost raped a second time, killed a third time and she finds Adam dead in her closet with a knife sticking in his stomach that she finally goes to the cops. And when she does, the Commissioner (Giampiero Albertini) promptly informs her "I'd like you to keep living in that house... but I'm sure it would be worth the risk." Oh please!

As par for the course in these films, nearly everyone is made out to be a suspect by the most idiotic means imaginable until they get bumped off. Andrea is something of a pathological liar. He owns the apartment where the murders are taking place but claims he's never actually been inside the building before (seriously?), then later contradicts himself. He lies about not knowing Mizar (who is referred to primarily as "that negro girl" by the cast after her murder), but previously had gone out to dinner with her. During another scene, Andrea hauls off and violently slaps Marilyn in the face for simply trying to scare him, which doesn't seem to bother her all that much since she's chipper and bubbly a second later. Andrea also claims to have a "phobia of blood," so he can't be the killer, right? Uh huh.

Jennifer and Marilyn's new neighbors are all weirdos. Mrs. Moss has a thing for gory horror magazines and can be heard talking to someone through the walls, though she claims to live alone. Professor Isaacs happens to own the same coat as the killer and seems to always be entering and exiting his apartment right after the murders. Isaacs' lesbian daughter Sheila (Annabella Incontrera) is also around trying to hit on anything in a skirt. Like many other films from this era, this seems to be trying to equate homosexuality with mental disorder by making Sheila out to be a suspect simply because of her sexuality. A lot of time is also wasted on the Commissioner, who steals mail from the crime scenes for his stamp collection (what a pro!) and his goofy sidekick Lorenzi (Franco Agostini), who's around primarily for comic relief.

Perhaps as much as any other movie in its subgenre, Bloody Iris is going to appeal only to diehard and very forgiving giallo fans. It's hard to tell how big of a role the horrid English-language dubbing plays in its idiocy, but the acting, plot and dialogue are all amazingly terrible. After she's stalked, assaulted multiple times and nearly raped and murdered, Andrea nonchalantly encourages Jennifer to "Try to put the whole thing out of your mind." Yeah, sure. I'd even be able to forgive many of these dumb-dumb moments if this contained good music, creative camerawork, lots of sleaze or an interesting story, but the film is also sorely lacking in those areas, too. Though the photography is competent, it's never especially colorful or creative. One 360 degree spin around a room, constant zooms and a kaleidoscope shot during a flashback sequence are hardly anything new. Bruno Nicolai's score is both repetitive (the same track seems to loop endlessly over and over again) and too upbeat; extinguishing any chance for suspense or terror... not that the dialogue and "comedy" didn't already do that. The sleaze quotient is minimal. Violence is mild even for this subgenre and though there are some classy unclothed shots of the beautiful Fenech, you can see her nude - and more nude than she is here - in many other, better-made films.

Worst of all is this film's astounding disregard for coherence and basic logic. I know many horror films, particularly of this type (or the later slasher flicks) are burdened by idiotic plots and moronic character actions that we are supposed to just ignore, but this one is just plain insulting to anyone's intelligence. Aside from what's already been mentioned, there's a stabbing in broad daylight in a crowded public square that no one seems to even notice until the victim keels over dead in the street. Andrea just happens to be there and the victim randomly happens to stumble right into him and rub blood all over his jacket. Andrea also just happens to be in the apartment's boiler room when another murder occurs. When Jennifer wants to break into a neighbor's apartment, she simply uses her apartment key to access theirs (!?) When she visits a junkyard, a door opens by itself, a hood shuts by itself and a 2000 pound car topples off a stack of other cars all by itself for no apparent reason aside from the director's desperation to provide some cheap jump scares. At the end, Jennifer randomly hits buttons to stop an audio tape and ends up accidentally hitting the record button so that the killer's entire confession is taped. How convenient! These moments of ridiculous coincidence just keep occurring over and over again right up to the finale, when the psycho's identity is revealed and he/ she claims to have killed to "protect" another character... a character they've already killed!

Originally titled Perché quelle strane gocce di sangue sul corpo di Jennifer? ("What Are Those Strange Drops of Blood Doing on Jennifer's Body?"), Bloody Iris was issued on a giallo box set by Anchor Bay, which also includes the films Short Night of the Glass Dolls (1971), Who Saw Her Die? (1972), both from director Aldo Lado, and Antonio Bido's The Bloodstained Shadow (1978). Director Carnimeo (known primarily for spaghetti westerns) also made the subpar Ratman (1987).

★1/2