By 1988, the giallo fever of the early 70s was over for some time. The genre then began to embrace the feel of the erotic thriller, but inside their heart, they all remain giallo.

Directed and written by Remo Angioli (who also wrote the Joe D’Amato-directed The Hyena as Harry J. Ball and this movie and Intimacy as Bob J. Ross) and Beppe Cino (The House of Blue Shadows), this is all about restaurant owner Paolo Piattelli (John Armstead, Interzone), an unfaithful husband to Silvia (Loredana Romito, You’ll Die At Midnight) who is blinded in a car accident where he is caught with his lover (Carmen Manzano). His wife then meets Alessio (James Villemaire), the motorcyclist who caused the crash, and hires him to be their driver. Despite being blind, Paolo still has a working Italian libido and equipment, so he gets caught again with his mistress, which causes Silvia to ask Paolo — who she has already fallen for, but so has a cook at their restaurant named Cosetta (Ann Margaret Hughes, Top Model) — to kill Paolo.

Silvia goes from a faithful wife to someone who has sex with her husband’s killer moments after he’s shoved that man off a cliff, as well as ordering the death of her new man’s other girl and then shooting him right in the head. It’s an arc, as they say.

In the 80s, giallo forgot the black gloves, the knives, the music and often, the plot. They did remember the synth and sax-heavy sex scenes as well as the outfits, because Loredana Romito has fur coats long after people were protesting them, as well as long nails and big 80s hair. She also smokes throughout the movie, something that may not be as much a part of a giallo as J&B, but it’s close. It also has so much nudity that you’ll wonder why anyone wears clothes.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Love and Death on the Edge of a Razor is the tale of Stefano Bruni (Peter Lee Lawrence), who is in Venice to meet with his father who wants him to marry Giovanna Selva (Ivana Novak), the daughter of a wealthy entrepreneur. This arranged marriage would help the Bruni family business. As for Stefano, he is in love with Lidia Caselli (Erika Blanc), but when he goes overseas, he learns from his father that she has died in a car accident.

Stefano begins to date Giovanna but he can’t get over the loss of his true love. He even sees her, despite the woman named Renata Pavanne who claims that she’s a journalist and has no idea who he is. He’s warned off of her by a mobster named Gianni Massara (Fausto Del Chicca). Yet he refuses to give up and the journalist admits that not only is she Lidia, but that she’s trapped by Gianni and part of his crimes.

Lawrence and Blanc had already worked together (Love and Death In the Garden of the Gods, The Long Arm of the Godfather, Hell In Normandy) and were close friends. Lawrence died just a few years after this film and according to his wife, Cristina Galbo, he did not commit suicide but instead died of a brain tumor at the way too young age of thirty. In just nine years, he made thirty movies.

The end of this movie is left open to you, the viewer, as Lidia is shot by Gianni and taken to an operating room. It makes you wonder if the world of the movie lives on beyond what we see in the fleeting time we get to know these people.

The film was directed by Giuseppe Pellegrini, who wrote the script with assistant director Dante Cesaretti and production manager Camillo Fantacci. This is the only movie that Pellegrini directed, but he wrote both The Vampire and the Ballerina and The Monster of the Opera.

You can watch this on YouTube.

A man is strangled by a transvestite prostitute in his home.

A woman is killed on a bus by a man holding a wrench.

The only thing that ties these crimes together is an illustration from a children’s book by the name of Der Struwwelpete.

Inspector Gaspare Lomenzo (Michele Placido) is on the case, reporting to higher ups played by Tom Skerritt and Eli Wallach. By sheer luck, he meets Jeanna (Corinne Cléry), who witnessed the death of a sex worker that may be part of this case. She was also at a party being held by a group called Wildlife’s Friends — led by Hoffmann (John Steiner) — that hired a prostitute for one of their events and had to kill her after she learned that it was all a front for diamond smuggling. Now, one by one, members of this group — also a front for swinging, not just gems — are being killed off.

This also has a filthy cartoon by Gibba in the middle of all this, as well as the idea that perhaps Loemnzo shouldn’t trust anyone, as Jeanna is a total noir character and the remaining members of the club contact Wallace for protection. And hey — didn’t Heinrich Hoffmann write and draw Der Struwwelpete?

Director Paolo Cavara may be best-known for working with Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco E. Prosperi to create Mondo Cane, but he’s not as celebrated as he should be for making two great giallo — this movie and one of the meanest in the entire genre, Black Belly of the Tarantula. He also wrote the script with Bernardino Zapponi (who wrote seven movies for Fellini and co-wrote Deep Red) and Enrico Oldoini.

So Young, So Lovely, So Vicious… was directed by Silvio Amadio, who also made the giallo movies Assassination In Rome, Amuck!, Smile Before Death and Twisted Girls, as well as Il Medium. He also wrote the story with Roberto Natale.

Also known as Sins of Youth, this tells the story of Angela (Gloria Guida, Bollenti spiriti), a young, beautiful and vicious girl who lives to sunbathe, party and spend her father’s money. But then she learns that her daddy (Silvano Tranquilli) has found a new wife, Irene (Dagmar Lassander). They’re even talking marriage, which worries Angela, because Irene seems to have morals. That means that her endless party seems to be coming to an end. But Angela is willing to go as low as it takes to stay her father’s favorite girl.

You can watch this on YouTube.

The synthpop band Freur did the music for this, but they ended up getting better known when they took the name of this movie as their own: Underworld.

They’re not the only famous people who are part of this movie — also called Transmutations — that nobody really talks about. Clive Barker — yes, that Clive Barker — wrote the story and co-wrote the script with James Caplin. As for the lead, it’s Denholm Elliott — yes, Marcus Brody — as Dr. Savary, a doctor who has created a mind-controlling drug that he uses to keep an army of deformed sewer dwellers under his command. And the main reason, beyond Barker, that I chose this as my underground sewer movie? It has both Miranda Richardson and Ingrid Pitt in it!

But when Savary abducts high class hooker Nicole (Nicole Cowper, who went below the crust again for 1988’s Journey to the Center of the Earth) from her brothel, businessman Hugo Motherskille (Steven Berkoff, Octopussy) gets her former lover Roy Bain (Larry Lamb) on the case. Meanwhile, all these proto-Nightbreed creatures are doing monster cocaine to stay alive.

So how did this weirdo movie ever happen? George Pavlou wanted to direct a movie (he’d also direct another early Barker script, Rawhead Rex). Barker wanted to write one, so he put together a mash-up of mobsters, monsters, film noir and horror. The money people wanted something else, so they got it rewritten and Barker washed his hands of the whole thing. And then Vestron Video released it as Transmutations.

It looks great though! 1985 great, all blue color and billowy dresses and face paint and movie punk and you know, who cares if it’s kind of silly? Monsters in sewers kidnapping prostitutes who can enter your dreams with the power they get from magical powder? Sounds kind of wonderful, when you think of it.

This Kino Cult release has two disks. The UHD has a brand new HDR/Dolby Vision Master from a 4K scan of the 35mm original camera negative. There’s also a new audio commentary by director George Pavlou, moderated by Stephen Thrower. The blu ray disk has a brand new HD master from a 4K scan of the 35mm original camera negative, the same commentary, the 103-minute Transmutations version, behind the scenes footage and an image gallery. You can get this from Kino Lorber.

Directed by Renato Borraccetti, who wrote the script with Fernando Luciani, Two Eyes to Kill disappeared after playing theaters and never was released on video. It was sold on eBay in 2014 and was restored as part of a crowd funding mission. The reason why the version online is so short is that one of the reels is missing.

Jean (Fabio Testi) is sentenced to death but keeps his trumpet, playing jazz on the night before he’s taken to the guillotine. He claims he’s innocent until his head comes off his shoulders. The real story, however, is about nightclub owner Max (Jack Taylor), who is being sold out by one of his girls, Rosy (Gia Sandri) and her friend Pierre (Barth Warren). She’s recording everything that happens in the club using her gigantic glasses, which is pretty crazy. They’re playing a game to destroy him, even cluing his girlfriend Nadia (Aichè Nanà) into the fact that he’s assaulting young women.

Why? Well, they were friends with Jean, so we didn’t meet him for no reason. They’re trying to drive Max insane by tormenting him with the sad trumpet song Jean played before he died.

This movie has Eurospy gadgets that may be made from thick paper, lunatic women dancing on stage — Aichè Nanà has a shirtless man appear and start whipping her! — and a jazzy soundtrack by Piero Umiliano and trumpet player Nini Rosso. I wonder if we will ever see a completed cut of this or this is the best we get. Regardless, it’s pretty interesting to check out. I mean, the entire movie seems to be set in a few rooms and curtains take the place of walls.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Source: Eurofever, Cinema Italiano Database

Martin Yakobowsky (Mark Benninghoffen) is a Chicago lawyer assigned to resolve a case close to where he grew up in Iowa, a place that he though he had left behind after his testimony in a triple murder case led to a man going to the electric chair.

As for the case, it’s between Polish farm workers — the same people Martin grew up with — and a state congressman. But while he’s back home, Martin becomes obsessed with the case he testified in, the murder of a call girl and her friends. He can’t remember what he saw years ago and he’s started to hear strange noises out of the storage room next to his hotel room. Was the girl he died his girlfriend? Did she die in that noisy room?

The 1940s atmosphere and being set in the U.S. — and filmed in Iowa and Illinois — don’t let on that this is an Italian giallo. Not only was it directed by Fabrizio Laurenti (who made Witchery and The Crawlers using the name Martin Newlin; Joe D’Amato may also have directed some of those movies), but it has a story by Fabio Clemente and Luigi Sardiello that was scripted by Pupi Avati.

Yes, that’s right. Pupi Avati.

This feels a lot like The House with the Laughing Windows at least as much as it explores the memories that we have in our youth and how they aren’t always true as we get older. This also has one of the most sensual razor kills ever, if that can be possible.

I have no idea why more people aren’t talking about this, a film written by an Italian legend and filmed in America. I also can’t believe it took me so long to discover it.

You can watch this on YouTube.