Autopsy (1975): Armando Crispino really only did two horror films, 1972’s The Dead Are Alive and this 1975 giallo, which is a shame, as this is a pretty decent entry in the genre. Known in Italy as Macchie Solari (Sunspots), it does indeed feature sunspot footage from space before we see any major murders. And if you’re looking for a movie packed with autopsy footage, good news. It totally lives up to its title.

Simona Sana (Mimsy Farmer, who is also in Argento’s Four Flies on Grey Velvet and The Perfume of the Lady in Black) is a pathology student who is trying to work on a theory about suicides, one that’s disputed by a young priest, Father Paul, whose sister — Simona’s dad’s latest fling — has recently killed herself. It turns out there’s been a whole series of self-killings which are being blamed on, you guessed it, sunspots.

I mean, what can you say about a movie that starts with several of said suicides, like sliced wrists, a self-induced car explosion and a man machine gunning his kids before turning the gun on himself? Obviously, this is a rather grisly affair, with real corpse photos spread — quite literally — throughout the film.

In between all of the gore, corpse penises, two bodies falling to their deaths and crime museums, there’s also Ray Lovelock (The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue) as Simona’s boyfriend, an out there Morricone score and a heroine who hallucinates that the dead are coming back to life.

The plot gets pretty convoluted, but if you’re on this site, you obviously appreciate films like this and will get past it. This is an Italian 70’s murder movie, though, so if you get easily upset about the way men behave, well, be forewarned.

Murder Mansion (1972): Originally released as La Mansion de la Niebla (The Mansion in the Fog) and also known as Murder Mansion, this Spanish/Italian film fuses old school haunted house horror with the then new school form of the giallo.

The plot concerns a variety of people drawn to a house in the fog, so the original title was pretty much correct. There are plenty of European stars to enjoy, like Ida Galli, who also uses the name Evelyn Stewart and appeared in Fulci’s The Psychic as well as The Sweet Body of Deborah. And hey, there’s Analía Gadé from The Fox with the Velvet Tail. Hello, George Rigaud, from All the Colors of the Dark and The Case of the Bloody Iris! They’re all here in a movie that seems to make little or no sense and then gets even more bonkers as time goes on.

This was one of the 13 titles included in Avco Embassy’s Nightmare Theater package syndicated in 1975 (the others were Marta, Death Smiles on a Murderer, Night of the Sorcerers, Fury of the Wolfman, Hatchet for the Honeymoon, Horror Rises from the Tomb, Dear Dead Delilah, Doomwatch, Bell from Hell, Witches Mountain, Mummy’s Revenge and The Witch). How did these movies play on regular TV?

There’s a history of vampires in the house, the previous owner was a witch and hey — this is starting to feel like an adult version of Scooby Doo with better-looking ladies. That’s not a bad thing. But if you’ve never watched a badly dubbed giallo-esque film before, don’t expect any of this to make a lick of sense.

Crazy Desires of a Murderer (1977): Sure, that’s a pretty lurid title — the Italian title I vizi morbosi di una governante translates as Morbid Vices of a Housekeeper — and trust me, this lives up to it, what with an older woman using a mentally challenged man and a teenager sexually — not at the same time! — and then a game of charades which is mostly people yelling out the names of films while everyone else gropes one another.

There are more than a lot of camera zooms in here, as well as bad sartorial choices and even worse life ones. When Ileana and her bunch of hip friends — their words not mine — gather at a gothic castle owned by a wheelchair-bound older relative of one of the girls, things get pervy, weird and murder, just as you’d expect.

If you are a hip friend or have hip friends (at which point that makes you a hip friend), then you should take this warning: do not go to hang out in gothic castles. Nothing, in my movie — not life — experience says that things will go well.

Meanwhile, two of these with it pals are using Chinese treasures to smuggle heroin — as you do — while Elsa the party girl ends up with both of her eyes torn out, just like Ileana’s mother had done to her by a relative who has lost his mind and is possibly prowling the catacombs of the castle.

This would be the last film that Filippo Walter Ratti would direct. You may have seen his other movies, including Mondo Erotico, Operation White Shark and Night of the Damned. Screenwriter Ambrogio Molteni also wrote the two Black Emanuelle movies, as well as Yellow Emanuelle, Sister Emanuelle and Violence in a Women’s Prison.

Speaking of Emanuelle, you may recognize Annie Carol Edel from Emanuelle and Francoise or perhaps from Almost Human or even The True Story of the Nun of Monza. No? How about Isabelle Marchall from Black Emanuelle? Or Patrizia Gori from Cry of a Prostitute, The Return of the Exorcist or as Francoise in Emanuelle and Francoise?

All of the movies in this set have been newly scanned and restored in 2k from their 35mm original camera negative. Plus, you get extras like a theatrical introduction with director Armando Crispino and a feature on his career, as well as interviews with actresses Ida Galli and actor Giuseppe Colombo. As always, there are also trailers and image galleries. Get it from Vinegar Syndrome.

Arrow Video has restored three giallo films and provided their usual impressive range of in-depth bonus features with this new box set, featuring Smile Before Death, The Killer Reserved 9 Seats and The Weapon, the Hour, the Motive.

Smile Before Death (1972): Smile Before Death* was a revelation to me. I came in expecting nothing and was rewarded with a film that has multiple antagonists and a continually twisting close, a near race to the finish to see who will end up on top.

Marco (Silvano Tranquilli, Black Belly of the Tarantula; So Sweet, So Dead) and Dorothy are trapped in an open marriage that feels incredibly confining. To make things worse, her best friend Gianna (Rosalba Neri, Lady Frankenstein, The French Sex Murders) is his mistress.

Is it any surprise that Dorothy gets killed and it looks like a suicide and that Marco did it? Soon, he’s in charge of her estate until her daughter Nancy (Jenny Tamburi**, The Psychic, The Suspicious Death of a Minor) turns twenty. So Marco retires and lives a life of leisure with his mistress until Nancy returns home.

That’s when everyone starts playing each other, with Gianna trying to get Marco to kill his stepdaughter, Nancy seducing him and — spoiler warning — Gianna falling for her as well.

Silvio Amadio only made one other giallo and that would be Amuck! Much like that film, this one also proves that Silvio was perhaps more interested in filming gorgeous women misbehaving as he was showing the kills when it came to giallo. No matter. This movie has plenty of plot to go around and I was genuinely surprised by the conclusion of this caper.

Roberto Predagio’s theme song — with plenty of scat singing by Edda Dell’Orso — will be burned into your mind by the end of this.

*The translation for the Italian title is The Smile of the Hyena. I have no idea what that means in relation to the film’s story and blame the animal-themed demand for post-The Bird with the Crystal Plumage giallo titles.

**Tamburi won the femme fatale role of Graziella in La Seduzione because Ornella Muti, the original actress, was considered too attractive.

The Killer Reserved 9 Seats (1974): To celebrate his birthday, wealthy Patrick Davenant (Chris Avram, The Eerie Midnight Horror Show, Emanuelle in Bangkok) brings his friends to his family’s unused theater — empty for a century, which is how long his family has been cursed, which in no way is taken from The Red Queen Kills Seven Times.

There’s his sister Rebecca (Eva Czemerys, Escape from the Bronx) and her lover — look how ahead of its time Italian giallo in 1974 was — Doris (Lucretia Love, who was in The Arena and the astoundingly titled When Men Carried Clubs and Women Played Ding-Dong). And he’s also decided to bring his ex Vivian (Rosana Schiaffino, once called the Italian Hedy Lamarr) and her new husband Albert (Andrea Scotti, Horror Express), along with Patrick’s daughter Lynn (Paola Senatore, Ricco the Mean Machine, Emanuelle in America (1977) and Eaten Alive!; due to an unplanned pregnancy and being hooked on drugs, she ended her career by appearing in an adult film, Non Stop… Sempre Buio in Sala before being arrested for possession and trafficking of drugs) and her boyfriend Duncan (Gaetano Russo, Crazy Blood), as well as Patrick’s fiancee Kim (Janet Agren, City of the Living Dead), her ex-boyfriend Russell (Howard Ross, otherwise known as Renato Rossini, The New York Ripper) and finally, to finish off this cast of gorgeous people who all hate one another, some dude no one can really figure out where he belongs (Eduardo Filpone, Flavia the Heretic).

Oh yeah — there’s also a caretaker played by Luigi Antonio Guerra from Spasmo.

Before you know it, everyone starts getting killed, including one death via stabs to the lady business and their cranium being nailed to a board. You’d think with all this mayhem, the movie would be pretty interesting, but sadly, it drags.

The mysterious stranger — when he’s not looking funky fresh in blue blazer and fancy medallion — is given to saying things like, “You know what I like about you people? … You’re so civil to each other as you tear each other apart.” and “I spent a night here a hundred years ago” and “The actors are present and now the play may start…”

Janet Agren gets to act out a scene from Romeo and Juliet before she dies at least.

You know how people decry American slashers because they punish anyone who enjoys sex or drugs or any behavior deemed aberrant? This movie takes that notion and delivers it in spades. Of course, it also presents sin in all its glory but uses violent death as the square-up reel.

This is the last movie that Giuseppe Bennati made. It fits in with post-Argento giallo, but doesn’t add much to the form other than a great title and poster.

The Weapon, the Hour, the Motive (1972): The Weapon, the Hour & the Motive examines not only murder but the idea that a Catholic priest — Don Giorgio — is having an affair with two different women — Orchidea (Bedy Moratti,  — Women in Cell Block 7) and Giulia Pisani (Eva Czemerys, The Killer Reserved Nine Seats) — and tries to break things off with both of them before he’s killed. Since Inspector Boito (Renzo Montagnani) has already fallen for Orchidea — whose husband has just committed suicide — what’s the hope for a fair inspection of who the killer could be?

The only person who may know is a young orphan who lives in the church named Ferruccio, who once watched while Don Giorgio self-flagellated, and who now is kept drugged and quiet. There’s also the matter of a skeleton-filled catacomb under the church in addition to nuns taking baths fully clothed and whipping one another fully nude.

This is the only film that Francesco Mazzei directed, while he also wrote This Shocking World, Sergeant Krems, Convoy of Women and A Girl Called Jules. He co-wrote the story with Marcello Aliprandi, who would direct a similar movie, Vatican Conspiracy, in 1982. Mazzi also wrote the screenplay along with Mario Bianchi, The Murder Secret), Bruno Di Geronimo (who wrote A Quiet Place to Kill, What Have You Done to Solange? and Puzzle) and Vinicio Marinucci (SS Experiment Love Camp). 

I can’t even imagine the reaction this movie had when it came out. Fulci had been abused by the way audiences, critics and social critics treated him after Don’t Torture a Duckling.

The Giallo Essentials: Black Edition from Arrow Video has new 2K restorations from the original camera negatives of Smile Before Death and The Weapon, the Hour, the Motive exclusive to Arrow and a 2K restoration from the original camera negative of The Killer Reserved Nine Seats.

The packaging has a rigid box with original artwork in a windowed Giallo Essentials Collection slipcover and reversible sleeves for each film featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Adam Rabalais, Peter Strain and Haunt Love.

Smile Before Death has new commentary by authors and critics Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson, the original Italian and English front and end titles, an image gallery, a new interview with Stefano Amadio, film journalist and son of director Silvio Amadio and never-before-seen extended nude scenes not used in the final film.

The Killer Reserved Nine Seats has new commentary by author and critic Kat Ellinger, interviews with Howard Ross and screenwriter Biagio Proietti, the Italian theatrical trailer and an image gallery.

The Weapon, The Hour, The Motive has new commentary by author and critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, a new interview with actor Salvatore Puntillo, an image gallery,  and front and end titles for the lost English-language dub.

You can order this set from MVD.

Also known as Watch Out Gringo! Sabata Will Return, this Italian Western was actually made in Spain by Pedro L. Ramírez (School of Death, The Fish with the Eyes of Gold) and Alfonso Balcázar from a script by Giovanni Simonelli (The Ark of the Sun God, Jungle Raiders) and José Ramón Larraz, who had already made Whirlpool and Deviation.

There’s no Sabata in this movie, but you’d be forgiven if you think there is a Trinity, as this movie feels a lot like that Italian Western. Rayo (Jorge Martin, e così divennero i 3 supermen del West, Electra One) and Texas (Vittorio Richelmy) must work together to find the hidden gold of Carrancho (Fernando Sancho), a thief who is being hunted by Luke (Daniel Martin, A Fistful of Dollars).

I have no idea how you can make a movie and have Rosalba Neri and barely feature her, but somehow these filmmakers did exactly that. I was waiting for her to show up and do something  but no, she’s basically silent and barely in this.

A very basic Eurowestern, neither all that good not all that bad. Instead, it does nothing to bring anything unique or say anything of merit.

Whether you call this La casa de las muertas vivientes (The House of the Living Dead), Night of the Scorpion, the Italian title Il cadavere di Helen non mi dava pace (Helen’s Corpse Gives Me No Peace or Helen Is Not Resting In Peace) or An Open Tomb… An Empty Coffin, this is a giallo made in Spain and Italy during the height of the genre. It’s directed by Alfonso Balcázar (Sartana Does Not Forgive, A Noose Is Waiting for You Trinity) from a script that he wrote with Giovanni Simonelli and José Ramón Larraz, the same team that made Watch Out Gringo! Sabata Will Return.

Oliver Bromfield (José Antonio Amor) has lost his father and wife Helen (Gioia Desideri), which causes him to move back to the gigantic ancestral home in the mountains far from the closest village. Despite the fact that they are isolated from anyone else, he makes a point to tell his new wife Ruth (Daniela Giordano) to not listen to what anyone says about his family. If that isn’t enough to freak her out, perhaps the way that Oliver’s stepmother Sarah (Nuria Torray) kisses him will do it. Or maybe it’s the maid (Alicia Tomás) who doesn’t answer questions or the sister who refuses to speak to her. Look, if you marry into a rich family in a giallo, your chances of encountering weirdness and death are absolute.

So yes, Sarah keeps trying to seduce her stepson as well as spying on him as he consummates his new marriage. His sister Jenny angrily stabs butterflies — oh post-Argento giallo and its obsession with animals — as she laments the loss of Helen, who she definitely had an affair with and when Oliver found out, Helen took a dive over the railing. Maybe. Who can say?

Ruth slowly starts going insane, what with being trapped in this house of depression. Wouldn’t you be worried if you watch a kitten die after drinking the poisoned milk that you were about to drink — yes, this movie makes a The Cat O’Nine Tails ripoff while having a cat figured into said theft — and then come back to life?

Everybody in this family wants someone they can’t have and Ruth starts to realize that maybe she shouldn’t have said yes to this marriage deal. She even brings in a private detective (Osvaldo Genazzani) who she says is her Uncle Edgar to figure out what’s happening.

That’s when a killer with black gloves and a blade remembers that we’re in a giallo and not a soap opera and starts stabbing people with just twenty minutes left.

This may not rank in the best of all giallo, but there is that awesome clock that the voyeur stepmother uses to peep through which gives the opportunity for some great shots. And once it picks up, it picks up.

Queen Doll is a film about the dangers of nostalgia. When Carlos (Enrique Rocha) comes back to his hometown, he starts to remember moments of his past that he’s long forgotten. A copy of Tom Sawyer — the movie even has scenes from the book filmed and presented almost as flashbacks — has a map inside it which shows him where the home of a girl he knew named Amilamia.

Despite his somewhat normal life, Carlos has grown obsessed about the girl and what happened to her. Any woman that he sees that’s his age could be her, yet he thinks that she might have not ever had the chance to grow up. He follows the map to the home of an old couple and invents a way to get into the house to learn more. The couple admits that she’s dead and shows him a room with a life sized doll of her in a glass coffin, surrounded by the things she cared about most.

Now, her spirit follows Carlos and he finds her becoming part of his life, a life that he begins to ignore, even becoming distant from his fiancee Laura. Obviously, he’s going down a path that won’t have a happy ending. The scariest part is that he no longer is concerned.

Director Sergio Olhovich is still making movies today, fifty years after making this, his first full-length movie. He also co-wrote the script with Carlos Fuentes and Eduardo Luján. This is one strange and wonderful movie. It’s one that I want more people to track down and watch.

You can watch this on YouTube.

A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die is also known as Massacre at Fort Holman. At the time that it was made, Italian westerns had begun to copy themselves, as this was shot on the same set as The Deserter, in the same Almería, Spain locations as Leone’s films — you can see the homestead from Once Upon a Time In the West and the fort in this film was also used in El Condor — and even takes songs directly from Day of Anger.

It goes even further into Xerox territory by doing what several other Italian westerns had done: take an existing property and make it a cowboy film. This time, that movie is The Dirty Dozen.

Is it any wonder this was released by K-Tel?

What it has over most of its competitors is star power with James Coburn, Telly Savalas and Bud Spencer in the cast.

Disgraced Union Colonel Pembroke (Coburn) — reduced to looting a church — is arrested and tries to commute his sentence by saying that he has a plan to recapture Fort Holman, which he had previously surrendered to Major Ward (Savalas) and the Confederate army without firing a shot. He assembles the army which will help him take it back out of prisoners, including a deserter named McIver (Guy Mairesse, a murderer — of his commanding officer — and rapist — of his commanding officer’s wife — named Pickett (Benito Stefanelli), Fred the horse thief Fred (Ugo Fangareggi), medicine thief and black marketeer Will (Adolfo Lastretti), half Native American — and killer of his fellow soldiers for selling alcohol to the Apache — Jeremy (Joe Pollini, who was also the assistant director), Sergeant Brent (Reinhard Kolldehoff) — who somehow is wearing the cross of Pembroke’s dead wife — and a looter named Eli Sampson (Spencer). Only one of the group refuses, a religious pacifist agitator, who doesn’t want this strange opportunity for freedom and would rather the certainty of the gallows.

Pembroke tells them that there’s gold inside and that he’s a convict just like them. The truth is that he only gave up the fort because Ward had taken his son and promised he’d be returned if he complied. He did and his son was killed.

By the end, everyone — save Pembroke and Sampson — is dead. War is bloody and ruthless and unforgiving, but so is revenge. Blake lies dead, killed with his own sword. Probably the same sword that killed Pembroke’s son. But even if he has vengeance, he’ll never have his boy back.

Director Tonino Valerii also made Day of Anger, My Dear Killer, My Name Is Nobody and the JFK assassination in the west film Price of Power. He’s pretty good, even if his name doesn’t come up much in the conversation on Italian directors. This was written by Rafael Azcona and Ernesto Gastadi, whose list of credits could fill our entire site.

You can watch this on Tubi.

A Spanish, French and Italian co-production, It Can Be Done Amigo was also called Saddle Tramps, which is a wonderful nom de plume for a movie. It also was called Bulldozer is Back Amigo, Hallelujah Amigo and The Big and the Bad.

Bud Spencer is Hiram Coburn and he’s very similar to the Bambino character that he became known for in the Trinity series. He’s being pursued by Sonny (Jack Palance), a gunfighter and procurer of women of ill repute who is upset that Coburn took his sister Mary’s (Davy Saval, Moon Pilot) virginity without marrying her. As part of their constant battles, the two meet an orphan named Chip who is soon fighting off the offers to buy the house he inherited from his uncle by a priest called Franciscus (Francisco Rabal), who soon brings in Sonny and Mary, then marries off Coburn to the pregnant young girl. Sonny tells Coburn that when his son becomes 21, he will finally shoot him. Hijinks, as they say, ensue.

How self-referential had Italian westerns become by 1972? This movie was shot on McBain ranch set from Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In The West. Bud Spencer’s character says, “So this is the famous well” in reference to the well that caused the railroad to be built so close to that farm.

This is a movie that has a farm with mud people like to eat and where Bud Spencer puts on glasses every time he has to fight someone. If you haven’t gotten into the silly side of Italian westerns, your enjoyment of this may or may not occur.

It Can Be Done, Amigo was directed by Maurizio Lucidi (The Designated Victim) and written by Rafael Azcona from a story by Ernesto Gastaldi.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Cut-Throats Nine arrives at a time when Italian westerns were struggling to stand out. This film does so by being as mean as it gets and filled with shocking levels of blood and gore. There was even a William Castle-style promo item, a Terror Mask, made so audiences could hide their eyes during the bloodshed and mayhem.

A remake of the original posted on The Daily Grindhouse.

Sergeant Brown (Robert Hundar) and his daughter Sarah (Emma Cohen) are taking a chain gang of seven convicts to the other side of a mountain range and the prison of Fort Green. Bandits attacks, looking for gold, not realizing that the chains that hold the men are made from it. Then, things get worse. Much worse.

A throat is slashed, the daughter is assaulted, a man is stabbed so many times that his entrails are visible, someone is shot through the eye and a man is burned alive. Brown is also convinced that one of the men killed his wife, so perhaps he doesn’t see the need to get them to their destination alive. But who knows if anyone will get there.

Director Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent made movies until 1995 but the main films of his career were made in the early 70s and the western cycle. It’s also bleak beyond hope, as even the one character that cares for Sarah beyond her father, Dean, may be the absolute worst of all of the convicts who are being used simply to transport wealth, their lives meaningless.

You can watch this on Tubi.

The Grand Duel was directed by Giancarlo Santi, who was Sergio Leone’s second unit director. He only directed two other movies on his own, Quando c’era lui… caro lei! and Con la voce del cuore, although he assistant directed on films like Death Rides a Horse and both of Luigi Cozzi’s Hercules movies. It was written by the man behind so many giallo films, Ernesto Gastaldi.

Philip Wermeer (Alberto Dentice) has been convicted of killing Ebenezer Saxon, the patriarch of Saxon City and also the man who killed his father. He escapes from prison and heads off to Gila Bend, a small town where he’s soon trapped by several bounty hunters all after the reward posted by Saxon’s sons. Sheriff Clayton (Lee Van Cleef) comes to town to take him back to jail, which means battling everyone after the price on Wermeer’s head.

Even after Wermeer’s innocence is shown and the Saxons are shown to be horrible people — massacring an entire silver mine worth of people, including their own men — they still want revenge. They even strip Clayton of his star and disgrace him.

By the end, Clayton must duel all three Saxon brothers and as a gentleman, he refuses to draw first. Like the best of Italian western heroes, he’s putting his life on the line to keep true to his beliefs.

You can watch this on Tubi.