Originally airing on ABC on November 9, 1988, Ladykillers inverts the expectation of giallo — you’d expect that this would take place in an exotic dancing club with women on stage, not men — and has not only men be the object of the camera’s gaze but a female detective in the lead.

Ladykillers is the kind of bar where women get dressed up to watch men get undressed to the hottest music of 1988, which means cover versions of “Glamour Boys” by Living Colour, “Pump Up the Volume” by MARRS, “Beds Are Burning” by Midnight Oil, “I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On” by Robert Palmer — well, originally Cherrelle  and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis wrote it — as well as “Stay With Me Tonight” by Jeffrey Osbourne and “Nasty” by Janey Jackson and I hope Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis got paid for all their music in this. The film has an incredible moment right at the beginning where someone in a Tina Turner glitter wig and a frock emerges from the crowd and unleashes a box cutter like they’re in A Blade In the Dark and slices a nude man to pieces and he dies in front of the women who were once yelling for him to take it all off.

Keep in mind that this is an American made-for-TV movie and not an Italian giallo!

Despite the murders in her club, owner Morgana (Leslie Anne Down) won’t close the place with all the business. I mean, what women are coming out to…oh yeah, true crime. It all makes sense. The police are on the case with partners — and former lovers — Samantha Flannery (Marilu Henner) and Cavanaugh (Thomas Calabro) not just looking for the suspects but Cavanaugh going undercover with a g string. Plus you get Susan Blakely as an advertising executive and Keith David as a cop. What else do you need?

Director Robert Michael Lewis also made A Stranger Waits, Computercide, S.H.E: Security Hazards Expert and Pray for the Wildcats. It was written by Gregory S. Dinallo, who wrote another TV movie that’s almost a giallo, Calendar Girl Murders.

The Los Angeles Times said that it was “inept” and “an excuse for a male flesh parade.” The New York Times claimed that it was “leering” and “prurient.” I enjoyed it. You knew that, right?

You can watch this on YouTube.