Valerio Barigozzi (Johnny Dorelli) is a giallo writer who also writes the Countess Esmerelda column in the newspaper. One day, he accidentally gets a letter from a serial killer that reveals the next victim. He starts to get even more letters and each killing moves him up into the editorial office, but it also makes him more of a suspect.

Unlike most gialli, the killings aren’t important or even shown as murder set pieces. We only see the end result. The real villains are those using these murders to advance their careers, like our protagonist. Like many a gialli, there is a score by Ennio Morricone.

Directed by Luigi Zampa and written by Sergio Donati, this even winks at the giallo genre by showing the posters for Spasmo and Death Walks On High Heels outside of a theater (as well as Carrie, Destruction Force and The Beast In Heat).

Don’t come to this expecting the black gloves and razor of the giallo. Instead, see how far someone will go to be somebody. It feels very much like Zodiac years before Robert Graysmith wrote his book and reminded the public that a very real killer was mailing confessions and clues to the San Francisco Chronicle.

You can watch this on YouTube.