EDITOR’S NOTE: Cinematic Void will be playing this on Saturday, Jan. 11 at midnight at the Coolidge Theater in Brookline, MA (tickets here) and Monday, Jan. 13 at 7:00 p.m. at Los Feliz 3 in Los Angeles, CA (tickets here). For more information, visit Cinematic Void. 

Aside from Mario Bava’s influential films, such as Blood and Black Lace, The Girl Who Knew Too Much, no other movie has left as indelible a mark on the Giallo genre as Dario Argento’s 1970 directorial debut. Before this, Argento was a journalist who contributed to the screenplay of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West.

The title of the film, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, is a metaphor for the protagonist’s predicament. Just as the bird is trapped by the beauty of the crystal plumage, Sam is trapped by the beauty of the art gallery and the mystery it holds. This metaphorical title sets the tone for the film and its exploration of the relationship between art and violence. In the film, Sam Dalmas (played by Tony Musante) is an American writer struggling with writer’s block. He travels to Rome for a change of scenery, accompanied by his British model girlfriend, played by Suzy Kendall. Just as he decides to return home, he witnesses a black-gloved man attacking a woman inside an art gallery. Desperate to save her, he finds himself helpless, trapped between two mechanical doors as the woman silently pleads for help.

The woman, Monica Ranier, is the gallery owner’s wife. Although she survives the attack, the police suspect Sam may be involved in the crime and confiscate his passport to prevent him from leaving the country. Unbeknownst to them, a serial killer has been targeting young women for weeks, and Sam is the only witness. Haunted by the attack, Sam’s memory is unreliable, leaving him without a crucial clue that could solve the case, adding a layer of suspense to the narrative.

This film introduces several tropes that would become hallmarks of the genre: the foreign stranger turned detective, the gaps in memory, and the black-clad killer—elements that later Giallo films would pay homage to. These elements, along with Argento’s unique visual style and use of suspense, would go on to influence a generation of filmmakers and shape the Giallo genre as we know it today.

Another recurring theme in Argento’s work appears for the first time here: the notion that art can incite violence. In this instance, a painting depicting a raincoat-clad man murdering a woman plays a significant role.

As the story unfolds, Sam receives menacing phone calls from the killer, and the masked assailant attacks Julia. The police manage to isolate a sound in the background of the killer’s conversations—the call of a rare Siberian bird. This bird, a Grey Crowned Crane, plays a significant role in the film’s narrative, serving as a clue that brings the police closer to unraveling the mystery. The film’s use of this rare bird as a plot device is a testament to Argento’s skill as a storyteller and his ability to create tension and suspense.

Alberto, Monica’s husband and the owner of the art gallery, ultimately attempts to kill her, revealing that he orchestrated the attacks. However, in true giallo fashion, mistaken identity is a crucial plot twist. Even though this film was made nearly fifty years ago, I won’t spoil the reveal of the real killer.

I recall my parents seeing this movie before I was born and disliking it so much that they would mention “that weird movie with the bird that makes the noises” whenever they encountered a confusing film. Ironically, I grew to love Argento’s work. My fascination with Giallo and difficult-to-understand films is a form of rebellion against their opinions.

This film, an uncredited adaptation of Fredric Brown’s novel *The Screaming Mimi*, was initially considered a career misstep by actress Eva Renzi. The film’s producer even wanted to replace Argento as director. However, when Argento’s father, Salvatore, spoke with the producer, he noticed that the executive’s secretary appeared shaken. When he asked her what was wrong, she revealed she was still terrified from watching the film. Salvatore convinced her to explain her fear to her boss, ultimately leading to Argento staying as director.

The outcome of this struggle? It is a film that played in one theater in Milan for three and a half years, leading to countless imitators—and inspired many elements in films featuring lizards, spiders, flies, ducklings, butterflies, and more—for decades to come. Argento would later continue his so-called Animal Trilogy with The Cat O’Nine Tails and Four Flies on Grey Velvet, then Deep Red before moving into more supernatural films like Suspiria and Inferno.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joseph Perry writes for the film websites Gruesome Magazine, The Scariest Things, Horror Fuel, The Good, the Bad and the Verdict and Diabolique Magazine; for the film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope and Drive-In Asylum; and for the pop culture websites When It Was Cool and Uphill Both Ways. He is also one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast and can occasionally be heard as a cohost on Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast.

Writer/director Michael S. Ojeda’s The Russian Bride is bound to be a divisive film, with everything hinging on how much fun each viewer decides to have with an effort that starts out with pseudo-heavy, gothic melodrama before going all out with a third act that swings for insane, exploitation cinema fences. My interest levels went back and forth during the movie’s running time, but when it was all over, the film provided enough jaw-dropping, head-scratching moments — peppered with a few unintentional laughs — for me to give it a recommendation.

Almost everything in The Russian Bride is about as subtle as a hammer to the skull — which you are guaranteed in this outing — not the least of which is Corbin Bernsen’s scenery chewing realization of Karl Frederick, a very well-to-do retired physician living in a secluded mansion who chooses single mother Nina (Oksana Orlan) to be his titular wife. Her young daughter Dasha (Kristina Pimenova) is part of the package deal, and viewers sense that has something to do with the plot early on when Frederick sees her on his computer screen for the first time, and gives a less than subdued foreshadowing reaction.

Ojeda’s screenplay is heavy on the tropes, from red herring villainous-seeming sorts, to just-short-of-moustache-twirling baddies, to Nina’s plight going from one cocaine-addicted man to another, to the possibility of supernatural forces at play, to lightning strikes at dramatic moments, especially with a character posed for effect in that particular shot. What makes The Russian Bride worth seeking out is its absolutely nutsoid third act, when Nina, so drugged up by villainous forces that she can barely move a facial muscle, makes a heroic comeback to save her daughter from certain doom. Orlan throws her all into this insane transformation, and truly makes it a blood-soaked blast. She is terrific throughout, wonderfully portraying a loving, protective mother and a woman trying to adjust to a new life in a different set of circumstances, but her furious, frantic turn in the final third of the film is absolutely top notch.

The film is interesting in that it balances a fine line between being hokey and predictable, and being engaging and fascinating. For every negative such as occasionally bad CGI, there is something high quality such as Jim Orr’s gorgeous cinematography. When the story seems to be laying on yet another predictable element, an outré quirk comes along to grab the attention of viewers once again. Another high point of the film is the solid work by the supporting cast members, who know how far to push their characters without wandering into hamminess territory.

The Russian Bride is one to watch for fun, preferably with a theater audience or with friends at home, and not one to overanalyze. For those who wish to do the latter, though, there should be plenty to mine for discussions regarding both the immigration experience in the United States and the current wave of neoexploitation — or perhaps postexploitation? — cinema. As for me, I’m in on this one for the decidedly absurd good time it ultimately provides. 

Open Windows is a screen-life movie, a found-footage film that takes place mainly on a computer’s desktop and various screens, including surveillance cameras and phones.

Nick Chambers (Elijah Wood) is a superfan of actress Jill Goddard (Sasha Grey, who is a sex-positive model, writer, musician, DJ and, yes, former adult star; she’s closer to a multimedia artist than just that last item on her resume) and has won a dinner date with her. As he waits in his hotel room, he watches a press conference – at Fantastic Fest — for her newest horror movie; her manager, Chord (Neil Maskell), interrupts to tell him the date has been canceled.

Soon, Chord is teaching him how to spy on her through her laptop and phone and attack her manager—and secret partner—Tony (Iván González). He keeps stringing Nick, also called Nevada, by three shadow figures.

Chord is an anarchist hacker who plans on streaming Jill’s murder online unless people close the window and refuse to watch. Hardly anyone does, as she’s such a public figure. He fakes her death, only to learn — spoilers after this — that Nick has been Nevada all along and that he’s here to bring Chord into the open and stop him permanently.

Director and writer Nacho Vigalondo also made Los Cronocrímenes, a movie I adore. This isn’t as good, and it’s because it feels slavish to the way that it was filmed. He’s also made Colossal, a kaiju film with a human at the center. Even when his movies don’t totally work, like this one, they have something to say and remain well-made.

Both Wood and Grey are excellent in this as well. Wood plays the worried webmaster well and later becomes the more confident super hacker. As for Grey, she would have been a perfect Giallo queen if this was sixty years ago. As it is, we’ll have to be happy with her being in a movie influenced by the genre.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Cinematic Void will be playing this on Friday, Jan. 17 at 7:30 PM at the Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA with Short Night of Glass Dolls (tickets here). For more information, visit Cinematic Void. 

1970’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage became a worldwide hit, bringing giallo to the world. But by 1972, in its native Italy, the films had already become self-aware parodies of the genre. Witness 1972’s The Case of the Bloody Iris (originally titled Why Are There Strange Drops of Blood on Jennifer’s Body?), directed by Giuliano Carnimeo (Exterminators of the Year 3000).

We start with the hallmark of this style: a beautiful woman slashed to death by a masked killer in a public location — this time an elevator in a modern high-rise. That body is discovered by a black exotic dancer — well, she’s more of a wrestler who challenges men in the crowd to fight her on stage — who soon becomes the next victim in a bathtub drowning with a killer that references the look of the killing machine behind Bava’s Blood and Black Lace.

That leaves us with two models, Jennifer Lansbury (Edwige Fenech, Your Vice is a Locked Door and Only I Have the Key, Strip Nude for Your Killer and many more — she even had a cameo in Hostel 2) and Marilyn Ricci, who become friends with Andrea Barto, the architect of the building (George Hilton, All the Colors of the Dark) and move into the vacant room of the first victim. Nevermind that the police believe that Andrea is the killer!

Meanwhile, Jennifer’s ex-husband, Adam, used to use her for strange group sex rituals — we see a flashback of him giving her communion and initiating her into the group. He’s been stalking her, trying to get her back. Turns out he could make love to anyone he wanted and was the jealous type. “You’re not any man’s special girl because any man can take you,” he tells her. She tells him that she wants to belong to someone special. He replies by attacking her in an alley and tries to inject her with a needle. She escapes and he exclaims that she will “come crawling back on her knees.”

The cops bumble their way through the investigation, more concerned with naked women than they are with the case itself. Oh yeah — Marilyn fakes her death in the same tub the black victim died in, driving Jennifer crazy. And also — Andrea is afraid of blood. And then again there’s that nosy old Mrs. Moss who keeps showing up to find the bodies and has a subscription to Killer Man comics. And another red herring — Adam tries to kill Andrea. Whew — so much to keep track of!

Here comes another one — the murderer keeps showing up in the window of the apartment, scaring Jennifer. And then Adam shows up to attack her. Running from her apartment, she finds refuge at her neighbor Sheila Heindricks’ place. However, Sheila turns out to be a lesbian — with a violin playing dad — who wants to molest her. She runs back to her place to find a blood stained orchid and Adam’s dead body.

There is some good news. Even though the police think Andrea is the killer, Jennifer still falls in love with him. They make love while the police watch. The next day, Marilyn says hello to someone in the street and is stabbed in front of the world. She falls into Andrea’s arms, covering him in blood before dying in Jennifer’s arms. Covered in gore, the blood freaks out the architect, who runs into the streets to hide.

Wow — like I said, this film almost becomes a parody of giallo convention as it piles on things. Why does the old man play violin all night long? Why is Andrea afraid of blood? Why are the police so incredibly stupid? Oh! I forgot about Arthur, the camp gay pornographer!

Turns out that Mrs. Moss has a scarred up son that lives in her place. He attacks Jennifer when she sneaks in, then Mrs. Moss calls her a whore around 19 times in 2 sentences. When Jennifer brings the police, the son is nowhere to be found.

The killer starts luring Jennifer all over the place, from a junkyard to the basement — along with her lesbian neighbor. A blast of steam decimates the next door sister of Sappho and the lights go down, leaving our heroine trapped. Turns out Andrea has been following her since the junkyard and demands Jennifer follow him in a way that reminds her of her horrifying ex-husband.

So whodunnit? Do you really want to know? Well, it wasn’t the old lady. And it wasn’t the architect. And it wasn’t our heroine. So that leaves…the violinist! He blamed the women of the world for turning his daughter to sin, taking her from him. He also killed the old woman’s son. He dangles Jennifer over a big stairwell, but she’s saved at the last minute by Andrea. A battle ensues, leaving blood all over his face, which gives us a flashback of his father dying in a car crash, bleeding all over his face as he was a child. Luckily for all concerned, Jennifer used the reel to reel in the violinist’s apartment to record his confession.

Whew. Your head is going to spin when you watch this one, trust me. That said — if you haven’t really gotten your brain trained toward giallo, you may want to skip this. I can never really figure out what other folks are going to like! But if you enjoy murder, models and murky plots, well, this one is for you.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joseph Perry writes for the film websites Gruesome Magazine, The Scariest Things, Horror Fuel, The Good, the Bad and the Verdict and Diabolique Magazine; for the film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope and Drive-In Asylum; and for the pop culture websites When It Was Cool and Uphill Both Ways. He is also one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast and can occasionally be heard as a cohost on Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast.

Director Josh Gerritsen delivers a fun, well-crafted creature feature in the independent offering Island Zero, a made-in-Maine movie that is destined to surprise viewers. Though elements of Stephen King, H.P. Lovecraft, and 1950s monster movies are evident, the film builds a dread-filled world all its own.

On a remote island about 40 miles off the coast of Maine, a group of locals, seasonal employees, and a visiting author prepare to return to the mainland. Unfortunately, the ferry they are waiting for never arrives, part of a mysterious pattern in which local fishermen and boaters disappear, their vessels sometimes discovered with bloodstains. As the island residents and guests are further cut off from the outside world because of power outages, the mysterious situation escalates as horrendous deaths begin occurring on land, as well.

Working from a screenplay written by his mother Tess Gerritsen, helmer Josh Gerritsen has crafted a suspenseful monster movie that offers characters and relationships in which viewers can become fully invested. The situations, dialogue, and performances feel naturalistic, so that when victims are being stalked and the ugly truth behind the incidents comes to the forefront, viewers have plenty of reason to be invested in characters and whether or not they will see the occurrences through.

The sizeable cast is solid throughout, including Adam Wade McLaughlin as marine biologist Sam, whose obsessive interest in following up on his late wife’s research is causing strife between him and his girlfriend Lucy (Terri Reeves), and Laila Robbins as Maggie, a doctor working temporarily on the island, who suppresses a tragic past that may actually help with the group’s survival. The supporting players give performances that range from spot-on to downright endearing. 

Alisha Cratty’s makeup work and Eric Anderson’s special effects are commendable, and while body parts and the red stuff are on fine display in Island Zero, the film focuses more on psychological tension and an ever-building sense of dread. Mark Farney’s cinematography captures the gloomy greys of the isolated island and its surroundings marvelously, complementing the foreboding atmosphere.

One area where monster movie fans might be disappointed is the lack of screen time for Island Zero’s beasties, but I feel that Josh Gerritsen and crew did a clever, admirable job of presenting them considering the film’s budget. What makes the attack scenes work is the investment of the actors, the dynamics between their characters, and a good story. 

Island Zero is a taut suspenser that creature-feature fans should find to be a fantastic discovery.

The Seduction is director and writer David Schmoeller’s follow-up to Tourist Trap. While that film exists in its own strange universe, where Chuck Connors just so happens to have psychic powers, this is based in the real—well, not always—world of Los Angeles. According to star Morgan Fairchild, Schmoeller was inspired by a story about a viewer stalking a TV reporter.

Jamie Douglas (Fairchild) has finally broken through and become an anchor on the local nightly news. Things are good — people like her — and she has a boyfriend named Brandon (Michael Sarrazin). The problems start when she begins to receive calls, letters and gifts from a man named Derek (Andrew Stevens, preparing to own the 1980s erotic thriller genre but not before he’d go from being a psychosexual deviant to chasing one with Bronson in 10 to Midnight). Soon, he also bothers her friend Robin (Colleen Camp) and drops by work to bring chocolates; Jamie, if anything, is too friendly and gently turns him down.

After he doesn’t stop calling her, Jamie learns that Brandon- a photographer- lives next door. He walks right in and starts taking photos of her. Her boyfriend beats him bloody, and when they talk to a cop named Maxwell (Vince Edwards), they learn that there’s not much they can do. As for Derek, he’s already bothering Robin, demanding that she talk to Jamie for him.

A doctor tells her that Derek is infatuated but to a degree that makes him psychotic. Would you say, mental enough to hide in the closet and go one-handed while she takes a bath? Oh Derek, can’t you see that a model named Julie (Wendy Smith Howard) is in love with you? Why did you tell her that you’re engaged?

Jamie starts to realize that Derek could be the Sweetheart Killer, a serial murderer that she’s been reporting on. He goes so far as to change her teleprompter while she’s on the air, leading to her having a breakdown in front of the entire city. Brandon tries to comfort her in the hot tub, but he’s soon killed by Derek mid-coitus; as our killer buries him in his front yard, the cops put Jamie on hold. On hold! Who is working there, Father Tom from Amityville II?

This is when Jamie goes full-final girl, blasting at Derek with a shotgun and starting to stalk him right back, repeatedly calling him and telling him how bad she wants him. As he comes back to the house to attack her, he runs into Julie, who tearfully announces that she knows that Jamie doesn’t really love him. He blows right past her — he has murder and sexual assault to do — before she turns the tables and becomes aggressive with him, begging him to have sex with her, revealing his impotence. Angered beyond all hope, he attacks her, just in time for Julie to announce that she’s seen Lipstick and wasn’t that part cool where the rapist got shotgunned?

This has a decent horror pedigree, as it’s the third film produced by Irwin Yablans (Halloween) and Bruce Cohn Curtis, who also made Roller Boogie and Hell Night.

The Seduction is a scuzzy film; I have no complaints. Yet it still has a theme song, “Love’s Hiding Place,” sung by Dionne Warwick! This song was written by the film’s composer, Lalo Schifrin. He may have written the Mission: Impossible theme but got no respect from the credit crew on this, as they spelled his last name incorrectly.

It left me wondering how so many early 80s American Giallo movies have the only nude appearances by major actresses. I’m looking at you, Blind Date, with Kirstie Alley going bare. I was shocked to see multiple nude scenes by Fairchild in this with nobody double being used. Bonus points for the script, which has Colleen Camp’s character declare, “Art, fart!”

Double word score for Lucan star Kevin Brophy appearing, Tom DeSimone’s brother Bob being in the cast as a shutterbug, and Fairchild’s sister Cathryn Hartt as a teleprompter person.

Triple overall score for this being the last Avco Embassy Film.

IMDB BS footnote for this one: “Apparently, veteran actress Bette Davis really liked this movie, and after viewing it on cable television, she allegedly sent the movie’s star, Morgan Fairchild, a congratulatory letter complimenting her work on the film.”

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Cinematic Void will be playing this on Friday, Jan. 31 at 7:30 PM at the Little Theater in Rochester, NY (tickets here). For more information, visit Cinematic Void. 

After The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and The Cat o’Nine Tails, Argento had one more movie left in his “Animal Trilogy.” Luigi Cozzi (Starcrash) would both write and assistant direct the film and the results are…interesting. It’s a lot funnier than his other giallo and was considered his swan song to the genre until his movie The Five Days failed at the box office.

Rock drummer Roberto Tobias is being stalked and as he finally catches up to his pursuer, the man pulls a knife. A struggle ensues and Roberto accidentally stabs the man while another masked figure laughs and takes photographs.

The next day, Roberto reads about the man’s death — Carlo Marosi — and gets a letter with a photograph of him murdering the man. He begins having reoccurring dreams that he’s being decapitated. Even worse, he wakes up to a masked man attacking him, who tells him that he won’t kill him because he isn’t finished with him.

Roberto’s wife Nina (Mimsy Farmer, Body Count, Autopsy) returns home and he confesses the murder to her and tells her that he can’t go to the police to stop the harassment. He does turn to his artistic friend “God” Godfrey (Bambino from They Call Me Trinity) and a con artist named the Professor (Oreste Lionello, The Case of the Bloody Iris and the Italian voice for Woody Allen) for help.

Whoever is behind Roberto’s stalking and harassment is a troubled soul who had a horrific childhood and spent some time in an insane asylum. Roberto’s maid Amelia knows who it is, but she pays for it with her life, as the killer uses a straight razor to slice her apart.

Later that night, Dalia (Francine Racette, Donald Sutherland’s wife, so well done Donald) comes to stay with Nina and Roberto, despite him wanting her not to be there. It also turns out that our hero never really killed Carlo, who has been working with his blackmailer, who dispatches him with razor wire.

Roberto then hires Arrosio, a flamboyant investigator who has never solved a case, but hopes that this is the one that he will solve. Amelia’s murder has been discovered and the cops are on the case, so Nina says that she’s leaving town, feeling unsafe in her own house.

It turns out that Dalia has always loved Roberto, so they have sex. As you do. Look, it’s a giallo. Other strange things are afoot, like Roberto’s cat getting kidnapped and beheaded, Nina getting an inheritance, strange photos of Nina and Dalia’s family and more nightmares.

That’s when giallo science intrudes: the killer was in a mental institution called Villa Rapidi, where they were considered dangerous until their father died. This knowledge — and discovering the killer’s identity and finally cracking a case — leads to Arrosio’s death.

Dalia then notices that Roberto and someone in a photo with his wife look quite similar. Just as she puts it all together, she’s stabbed and killed.

Ready for more giallo science? The police perform an optographical test that takes a photo of the retina to show the last image that Dalia saw before she died. Even Argento — a man who made a movie about a girl who can physically speak to insects and becomes friends with an orangutan — thought this idea was stupid until Carlo Rambaldi showed him how the special effect would look.

The last image that Dalia saw? Four flies on grey velvet. No one knows what this means.

Roberto waits for the killer to come for him but then Nina arrives. He tries to get her to leave because the killer is coming when he notices her necklace: a fly. As it swings, he sees it: four flies. In true giallo fashion, the killer is someone who we obviously didn’t ever consider.

A fight breaks out and she repeatedly shoots her husband as she explains how she was placed in the asylum by her abusive stepfather — who raised her as a man — and was only cured when the man died. When she met Roberto, what she felt wasn’t love, but the madness that her stepfather caused within her. She finally would get her revenge by using Roberto as the replacement for the man she couldn’t get back at.

Nina runs away as Godfrey arrives to save Roberto, but she rams the back of a truck. She’s decapitated as the car explodes.

Deep Purple almost did this movie (several members of the Beatles were considered for the role of Roberto), but their schedule didn’t allow it to happen. Ennio Morricone, who worked with Argento on The Bird with the Crystal Plumage worked on the film, but had a huge argument with the director about the score. Goblin would come in and work with Argento for the first time here. Morricone and Argento finally reconciled and worked together on The Stendhal Syndrome.

This film wasn’t commercially released for the home market until 2009, other than an incredibly hard-to-find French VHS version. That’s because the rights to this film in America are owned by Paramount Pictures, which had chosen not to release it. Shameless did put out a UK release that is all region a few years back.

This is one strange giallo. The ending car crash took twelve cars to get right and combined with the music in the scene, it’s really unsettling. This is also one of the first movies to use high speed cameras to shoot bullet time, years before Hong Kong movies and The Matrix. I love the killer’s rant at the end of the film, particularly because big chunks of it are still in Italian! This might be hard for you to find, but it’s worth tracking down.

“The ultimate high tech thriller,” this Nico Mastorakis-directed movie — he also wrote it with his regular script partner Fred Perry — succeeds in getting one part of the Giallo genre right: its science is absolute bullshit.

Jonathan Ratcliff (Joseph Bottoms) is an ad exec working in Greece who should be happy with his life and his current flame, Claire (Kirstie Alley). Yet one day, he thinks he sees Marien (the doomed in real-life Lana Clarkson), a woman from the past who went insane after being assaulted by multiple men. He drops everything and starts to stalk her, even after discovering her name is Rachel. And then, the movie is flipped around when Jonathan loses his sight. Helpless to protect Rachel from a knife-wielding point of view, Giallo’s gloved psychosexual murderer — the Scalpel Killer — runs wild through the dark nights of Athens; he has Dr. Steiger (Keir Dullea) create a medical miracle: a small unit that allows his eyes to see Atari 5200-style graphics of the real world. If he uses it too much, he’ll fry his brain. The killer might get him before that.

The Scalpel Killer makes his way through several victims, starting with Antigone Amanitou, who goes from her shower directly to being drawn on and operated without the benefit of any painkillers. His second victim is a pre-Star Trek: TNG Marina Sirtis, back in the days when she was stuck being the victim of Michael Winner in Death Wish 3 and The XXX Lady. There’s some wonderful stalking POV here, making this feel closer to Italy than Greece. The Scalpel Killer changes his M.O., taking out a married couple, played by Kathy Hill and Louis Sheldon, before finding one more single lady in the tub, played by Noelle Simpson.

While Ratcliff may not be the most compelling hero, the film introduces some unique elements. The concept of headphones that transform sound into visuals is fascinating, as is the scene where Ratcliff accidentally unplugs the headphones, rendering himself blind and in danger as he’s being stalked on the edge of a building.

Masorakis knows how to make these video store-era movies. Sure, they can get overloaded and too long, but he also hires gorgeous actresses, somehow convinces them to disrobe (this is Alley’s only nude scene) and also has some genuinely good moments amongst the silliness, such as when the killer sits at Rachel’s bedside and silently watches her sleep. If it had more gloss and fashion, it’d be close to the Italian model mid-80s Giallo that I am obsessed with, but for what this is, I’m satisfied. Ladies, I wish you had a more interesting protagonist, but this definitely matches the genre’s need for enticing victims.

The credits promised a sequel that never arrived, Run, Stumble and Fall.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Editor’s note: Cinematic Void will be playing this movie on January 6 at 7:00 p.m. at the Music Box Theater in Chicago, IL. You can get tickets here. It is also playing January 18 at 7:30 PM ET at The Sie Film Center in Denver and will be hosted by Theresa Mercado of Scream Screen. You can get tickets here. For more information, visit Cinematic Void.

There’s no way to calculate the influence of Blood and Black Lace. It takes the giallo from where Bava started with The Girl Who Knew Too Much and adds what was missing: high fashion, shocking gore and plenty of sex. The results are dizzying; it’s as if Bava’s move from black and white to color has pushed his camera lens to the brink of insanity.

Isabella is an untouchably gorgeous model, pure perfection on human legs. But that doesn’t save her as she walks through the grounds of the fashion house and is brutally murdered by a killer in a white mask.

Police Inspector Sylvester takes the case and interviews Max Morlan (Cameron Mitchell!), who co-manages the salon with his recently widowed lover, Countess Christina Como. Soon, our police hero discovers that the fashion house is a den of sin, what with all the corruption, sex, blackmail, drugs and abortions going on under its roof. Isabella was murdered because she had kept a diary of all the infractions against God that happened inside these four walls.

Nicole finds the diary and tells the police she will deliver it, but it’s stolen by Peggy. As she arrives at the antique store her boyfriend Frank owns, the killer appears and kills her with a spiked glove to the face. The killing is shocking. Brutal. And definitely the forerunner to the slasher genre.

Even after the cops arrest everyone in the fashion house, the murders keep on piling up. Peggy claims that she burned the diary, so the killer burns her face until she dies. Greta is smothered to death. And Tilde is killed in the bathtub, then her wrists are slit open, spraying red into the water and marking her as a suicide.

So who is it? Come on. You’re going to have to watch it for yourself.

The success of Black Sunday and Black Sabbath had allowed Bava to do anything he wanted. His producers thought this movie would be a Krimi film, like an Edgar Wallace adaption. Instead, Bava gave more importance to the killings than the detective work, emphasizing sex, violence and horror more than any film in this form had quite before.

Blood and Black Lace was a failure in Italy and only a minor success in West Germany, the home of Edgar Wallace. And in America, AIP passed on the film due to its combination of sex and brutality. Instead, it was released by the Woolner Brothers with a new animated opening.

Today, Blood and Black Lace is seen as a forerunner of body-count murder movies and the excesses of later Giallo films. It’s a classic film, filled with Bava’s camera wizardry and love of color. There is everything perfect about movies.

Jackson Barr is back to write the third in the Body Chemistry series, along with director Jim Wynorski, who seems perfect to make this movie. There’s also a new actress playing sexpert Dr. Claire Archer, as Shari Shattuck (star of two Cannon films, The Naked Cage and Number One With a Bullet, as well as video store classics like Arena, Uninvited and Death Spa) takes the reins — literally — from Lisa Pescia.

The not-so-good doctor has come back to Los Angeles, where Freddie Summers (Chick Vennera) is trying to make the movie of her life, along with studio boss Bob Sibley (Robert Forster) and producer Alan Clay (Andrew Stevens). Clay wanted his wife, Beth (Morgan Fairchild), to play the role of Claire, but there’s a problem. The sexologist knows Summers from her past — he was a character in the first movie — and only agrees to make the film if Clay has an affair with her.

It’s nice that Andrew got his mother Stella a part, even if this is softcore pornography. She doesn’t get nude, but Delia Sheppard and Becky LeBeau sure do. And hey, this starts with Robert Forester physically attacking two nude sex workers in a frenzy, a fact that is forgotten after it happens, kind of like the real Hollywood.

All Alan wanted to do was make nature films. Now he’s making exploitation movies and stuck between two gorgeous blondes. That doesn’t sound like the worst life. Despite having a successful online show — in 1994! — and being a best-selling writer, Dr. Claire Archer still needs to wrap men around her wizard’s sleeve and use people because she’s evil. Yes, a woman in charge of her sexuality, who knows how to use it to get ahead and has become popular because of it, has to be a harridan.

I prefer Pescia in the role, but this has enough for me to enjoy, including the filmmakers grabbing a crew member to play Morton Downer Jr. in a flashback.

You can watch this on Tubi.