Secrets and Perfume was directed by Vittorio De Sisti and written by Francesco Massaro and Franco Ferrini, based on the story “Scarlet” by Oreste De Fornari and Carlo Alberto Bonadies. It starts when store detective Eddy (Jerry Calà) and shopgirl Barbara (Lucrezia Lante della Rovere) get engaged and then perfume that she has been given by a secret admirer causes her to burst into flames. Working with Inspector Turroni (Umberto Smaila), he starts to look into the murder and learns that a sex worker named Portia (Eva Grimaldi) was also killed, also because of the same strange perfume. It turns out that both girls also had a piece of a picture taken years ago when they were childhood friends at a summer camp along with Mariri (Marina Viro) and a mysterious other girl, all watched over by Sister Melania (Mara Venier). Well, it must be this place, this horrible place, because the U.S. doesn’t have a copyright on summer camp accidents that cause revenge murders.

For some reason, this comedy giallo worked for me. I was in a good mood when I watched it and the idea that store lights would set a woman ablaze was so outrageous that I just had to watch and figure out where this would end up.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Professor Gabriele Luciani (Jacques Stany) has a pretty good scam going, as his wife Elisabetta (Fiorella Galgano) is bedridden in their gigantic castle. He’s already with her nurse Anna (Femi Benussi) but that’s not the only woman he’s cheating with, like his secretary Angela (Sonia Viviani). But when he finally poisons his wife for good and marries another lover named Roberta (Erna Schurer), he learns that she’s the daughter of the man who he stole the castle from in the first place.

Speaking of that castle — Castello Orsini-Odescalchi — other movies filmed there include Spirits of the Dead, Spellcaster, The Inglorious Bastards, Night of the Devils, Castle of the Living Dead and Challenge the Devil.

Also known as Naked and Lustful, this was directed by Alfredo Rizzo, who also made The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance, another giallo-esque film that has a version with and without hardcore scenes. That also has Femi Benussi in it and was filmed at Castello Piccolomini, the same location as Lady Frankenstein and Black Magic Rites. He directed eight movies but appeared in more than 110 films as a character actor.

The oddest thing about this is that its supposed to be some revenge when Roberta makes love to the villain to death. Most Italian men would see that as the best of all little and big deaths.

Luca (Luis La Torre) and Mirna (Erna Schurer, Deported Women of the S.S. Special Section) have broken up and he leaves for the island of Ostuni to recover. But he’s sure she’ll follow him, but he’s wrong, as she’s already moved on. But he soon forgets, as two gorgeous young women, Claudia (Monica Strebel) and Stefania (Lorenza Guerrieri, Naked You Die), are already fighting over him. Luca and Stefania hook up on the beach and she encourages him to fulfill his roughest fantasies, throwing her all over the beach, pinning her with her arms behind her back and even choking her. Then she disappears and he gets blackmailed with the photos that were taken of their violent tryst in the sand. Why is his ex Mirna blackmailing him? What does Claudia know? And where did Stefania go?

Snapshot of a Crime isn’t a giallo that many recall or speak of here in America. It’s structure is a big odd, as it has flashbacks and scenes repeated throughout the movie. Director Ezio Alovisi — working as Arthur Saxon — was making his first movie, so he really went for something perhaps beyond his reach. But you know, we should celebrate that. He took it over from Mario Imperoli, as it was started in 1970 and finished in 1974.

The scenery is gorgeous, the trio of actresses is even more beautiful and this feels like a Lenzi giallo. The best part? The soundtrack by Franco Bixio. I have no idea why more people don’t celebrate his work. He recorded this soundtrack with the British/Italian band The Motowns and it’s a fuzzed out dream.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Director and co-writer Gianni Manera only directed two other movies — 1974’s La lunga ombra del lupo and 1981’s Il cappotto di legno — and acted in 17 films, including this movie. He wrote the screenplay with his brother Enrico and Ivano Gobbo.

The title of this movie translates as someone is listening but it was released in English-speaking places as High Frequency.

Peter (Vincent Spano) is a satellite television communications technician who works in a control station in the Swiss Alps. His life is pretty boring, as other than watching monitors, he just plays chess over the ham radio and tries to find other people to talk to. One of them is Danny (Umberto Caglini) and one night, they accidentally get to watch a murder.

It’s very innocent how an older man and a young boy become friends in the time before the internet. Of course they would come together to try and stop others from getting killed. This looks more like an American movie, kind of like an Italian Cloak and Dagger.

Directed by Faliero Rosati, who wrote the story with Franco Ferrini and Vincenzo Cerami, the main story in this is about a man physically isolated helping a boy emotionally isolated by the loss of his father. I’m surprised that no one decided to remake it the U.S., as it’s very much the kind of movie that would come out at the end of summer.

Is it a giallo? Mitigating factors: Pino Donaggio did the music and the spy in it is played by David Brandon, who was in Stagefright, Delirium and Olga O’s Strange Story.

Heat of the Flame follows Gabriela (Christine McClure) who probably shouldn’t have married bank manager and mayoral hopeful Javier (Antonio Ferrandis). He’s kind of like Neil Wardh, an older man than his wife and someone who only cares about work. She has time on her hands, so she day drinks with a writer who goes by Carlos (Francsico Nieto) and remembering the affair that she had with Father Luis (Jess Franco regular Antonio Mayans).

As the marriage starts to fail, there’s also a giallo killer who uses a whistle while he stalks his prey. Gabriela is kidnapped and sexually assaulted by the killer, but lives to tell the tale. Also, as this is a Spanish exploitation movie, she also finds herself not afraid but actually turned on by the experience and wants more.

How bad is your marriage when you willingly walk back into the arms of someone who has been killing woman in your small village? I know that this comes shortly after the end of Franco ruling Spain and that divorce was probably not discussed, but what kind of a life does Gabriela want?

Director Rafael Romero Marchent also wrote A Quiet Place to Kill and directed Santo vs. Dr. Death. The script was written by Santiago Moncada, who wrote the great A Bell from Hell, The Swamp of the Ravens, and The Corruption of Chris Miller.

Directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky and written by Martin Ambrosch and Claudia Kolland, Cold Hell is about a cab driver named Özge Dogruol (Violetta Schurawlow), who deals with the worst in humanity as she drives the of Vienna every day. She comes across a crime scene and thinks that she’s been spotted by the killer but the police think she hasn’t found anything and is in no danger.

Özge is a character that is anything but a stereotype. She’s Muslim, she’s a Muay Thai fighter in training and she has no problem either knocking men out who are abusive to her or running after the killer to try and catch whoever they are.

Her cousin Ranya (Verena Altenberger) is dating, even though she’s married to Özge’s boss Samir (Robert Palfrader) and depends on Özge to cover up her affairs. She also borrows the Muay Thai championship jacket that our heroine wears, which has the killer come after her and snuff her out, which adds a layer of guilt to the reasons why Özge need to find that smiling knife murderer who is also a radical religion believer who is killing Muslim sex workers based on how the Koran speaks of Hell.

Not only is Özge an outsider in this new country, she is in her family as well. They’ve never believed that her father molester her and now that Ranya’s young daughter will be raised in their house, she takes her away even though she’s been trailed by a giallo-style killer. To protect herself, she moves herself in to the home of a burned out cop, Christian Steiner (Tobias Moretti), who is taking care of his father Karl (Friedrich von Thun) who has dementia.

I really enjoyed Cold Hell — it refers to the icy netherworld of Islamic religion — and how it was never an expected story or had a lead you can easily pin down.

Several years ago, Eva (Bianca Koedam) left Poland to become an interpreter, which has paid off well. But when her sister Maria (Jennifer Driver, who shows up in the Guns N’ Roses video for “Since I Don’t Have You” as she was dating Axl Rose at the time; she’s also in the movies Apri gli occhi e… sogna and Fairway – una strada lunga un sogno) visits Milan, she arrives just in time to see her sister once before she is killed after one of her many evenings as a call girl.

After her sister’s friend — another call girl — is killed giallo-style by being thrown off a building and through a glass rooftop, Inspector Tony Messina (Raz Degan, an Israeli-born model to actor) takes Maria seriously. Their plan? She starts answering her sister’s phone and goes to meet her clients, hoping to find who murdered her, all while carrying a baby monitor so Tony can listen and keep her safe.

Director and co-writer Carlo Vanzina — with Enrico Vanzina (the brothers are the sons of famous Italian director Steno) and Franco Ferrini — made two other giallo before this, the odd Mystere and, of course, Nothing Underneath. He would go on to make the third film in that latter film’s unconnected life, Sotto il vestito niente – L’ultima sfilata. Like all of his films, this is quite slick and with the quality of its dubbing, you may even think that it’s an American movie.

This definitely has a crew that knows giallo, as the cinematographer is Luigi Kuveiller (The New York Ripper, Deep Red) and the score is by Pino Donaggio. There’s never any danger, however, nor do we even get to see a black glove or gleaming blade. In fact, Eva is killed by accident. That said, it looks slick and moves quickly, even if Tony ends up being a jerk and Maria is never sure if she wants to go all in on acting as a call girl or constantly covering herself up.

You can watch this on YouTube.