When the maker of The Gestapo’s Last Orgy makes a giallo, you just have to figure that it’s going to be sleazy. Seriously, this is Play Motel level sleaze, filled with victims who’d rather get drunk, have sex and avoid reality while they’re all getting killed off one after another. To make matters even sleazier, they’re all related to one another. Throw in some police who are about as effective as the cops always are in these films and you have, well, something.

Known in Italy as Delitto Carnale (Carnal Crime), director Cesare Canevari also made A Hyena In the Safe, a much better regarded giallo, before this movie. He also made Matalo!, The Nude Princess and A Man for Emmanuelle.

This is Marc Porel’s last film after a career with movies like Don’t Torture A Duckling; Live Like A Cop, Die Like a Man and The Psychic. He was also married to Barbara Magnolfi, Olga from Suspiria.

Moana Pozzi is in this before her career in adult films. She and Ilona “Cicciolina” Staller were the two biggest Italian female stars of the 1980’s and even formed their own political group, Partito dellAmore (Party of Love), before she died at the young age of 33 from liver cancer. A life of scandal had led to rumors of her being killed, but an inquest in 2005 proved that it really was cancer that felled this gorgeous actress.

This is the kind of movie that wants to be porn, but doesn’t go that far, and yet isn’t good enough of a mystery to be a giallo of any note. If you want something sleazy that’s actually a decent film, let me recommend something like Strip Nude for Your Killer.

Known in Italy as Concerto per Pistola Solista (Concert for Solo Gun), this Michele Lupo (Arizona Colt) film takes place in England instead of the Italy we’ve come to depend on for our giallo adventures.

As a family comes to an estate for the reading of the will of Henry Carter, Second Earl of Vale, and get murdered one after the other. Is it because his niece Barbara got all of his money? Was the sniper who killed the butler trying to shoot her all along? Did the makers of Knives Out watch this and figure that everyone would think they were making an Agatha Christie film and not aping a giallo?

Inspector Grey, who takes the case, is played by Lance Percival, who was the voice of Paul and Ringo in Yellow Submarine. Beryl Cunningham (So Sweet, So Dead) and Marisa Fabbri (Rabid Dogs) also appear.

Chris Chittell plays George, who is pretty much the villain of this movie. You may remember him from The Wild Geese and They Call Him Cemetery. There’s a scene where he decides to sexually assault one of the maid, who tells him he could have just asked and she would have given in. They end up making love, but visions of his overbearing mother lead to more bloodshed. Ah 1970! What a time you were for things no one would try in a movie today.

Ida Galli, who also used the name Evelyn Stewart, is on hand. She was in Special Mission Lady Chaplin, Footprints on the Moon and The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail.

This might not be my favorite giallo of all time, but it’s fine for what it is. It’s closer to a detective tale with some trapping of pre-Argento and much Christie influence. It’s not bad, but I just demand more weirdness from my murder movies.

You can watch this on Amazon Prime.

A mysterious woman, dressed all in black, is killing beautiful women. Tano Cimarosa — usually an actor — directs this film, where we soon learn that all of the women are connected to affairs that they had with another woman, which was quite shocking in 1975.

Former Miss Italia Daniela Giordano (Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key), Dagmar Lassander (Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion, The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire and The House by the Cemetery) and John Richardson (Black Sunday) all make appearances.

This is really just for those that have to see every giallo ever made. Which would be me. Probably you too, if you’re reading this.

This 1986 late model Italian giallo — with a title that translates as The House of Good Returns  — was written, directed and produced by Beppe Cino. It is the only horror movie he’s made.

Twenty years ago, a young girl died here. Now, Luca and his fiancee Margit have come back, reopening old memories and unleashing Ayesha, a mysterious woman, and a series of killings.

Yes, Luca killed that girl accidentally when she put on a mask to frighten him. But now, that very same Onibaba mask is being worn by a killer. Of course, that mask comes directly from the 1964 film Onibaba, but this a film that shows its influences for all to see, like large chunks taken from Deep Red. But hey — remixing is art, after all, and this movie looks great, feels like a dream sequence and is the only giallo I’ve ever seen with music that would fit better into a Woody Allen film.

While this was released on VHS in countries like Italy, Spain (The House of No Return) and Germany (The House of the Blue Shadows), it was never put out on DVD until its 2020 TetroVideo reissue. It still hasn’t been dubbed into English. In a strange way, it’s Japanese look reminds me of another completely off-kilter movie that makes dream logic sense, Blood Beat.

Gerd Oswald made the noir films A Kiss Before Dying and Crime of Passion, making him the perfect director for this film. Of course, he’d also direct Agent for H.A.R.M., but let’s stick with his mysery work for now.

Virginia Wilson (Anita Ekberg, two years before La Dolce Vita and as stunning as perhaps any human being has ever or will ever be) is just trying to take a shower at the beach when an escaped mental patient stabs her dog and attacks her. Luckily, her stepbrother Charlie blows him away.

Now she’s the one inside the sanitarium, but not for long, as Dr. Greenwood convinces her to fall in love with him, fake her death and become an exotic dancer at Gypsy Rose Lee’s El Madhouse nightclub. It’d be paradise if it wasn’t for that serial killer following her.

Most of the music in this movie is recyled from On the Waterfront. The book that inspired it, written by Fredric Brown (who also wrote the original Star Trek episode “Arena”), was the inspiration for one of the best known giallo films of all time, The Bird With the Crystal Plumage. The script was written by Rober Blees, who also was the scribe for Frogs, Dr. Phibes Rises Again, Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? and High School Confidential! 

Red Norvo and his Red Norvo Trio, which is actually a quartet and Charlie Mingus played bass in the group before he became a composer, shows up as well. You can also see Red back up Dean Martin for “Ain’t That a Kick In the Head?” in the original Ocean’s 11. The jazz vibraphonist — along with his wife Mildred Bailey — were known as Mr. and Mrs. Swing.

This movie was exactly what I needed to watch. It’s quick, has some great musical numbers and Eckberg was already carrying herself like a star.

Let me tell you, when I read about this movie — about Brigitte Nielsen playing a music video director who is obsessed with finding love and making a movie about Billie Holiday while taking care of her jewel-covered turtle — I knew I had to track it down.

It’s running on our site during giallo week and it’s not particularly a giallo. But I honestly have no idea what kind of movie this is. That said, it does have Tomas Arana (The Church), David Warbeck (The Beyond) and Geretta Geretta (Demons) in it, so there’s that.

To top that off, writer and director Ivana Massetti was pretty much the same person as the lead character in this film, a female director in a time where that was quite rare. She had the idea to experiment here and make a film with hardly any dialogue. Or story, to be honest.

Domino wants love, so when she gets a phone call that promises her that romance is possible and that love can be real, she starts to see the world with much different eyes. She can certainly do better than having a mannequin for a lover, right? But what if that voice on the other end of the phone is a lie?

I guess it has some giallo feel as she’s being stalked by a man and wants to turn the tables on him. There’s also a dream where she speaks to the ghost of Holiday. Honestly, you’ll have to decide for yourself whether this movie is art or pretension, because I tend to love things that make no sense and any time I recommend them to people, I get the strangest looks.

Shh — I loved this insane, gorgeous and yet completely inane film. You can watch it on YouTube and decide for yourself.