Der geheimnisvolle Killer

I have to admit this movie delivers exactly what it promises--any number of attractive women (and at least one VERY unattractive man) stripping nude for their killer. The featured actress here is Edwige Fenech, and just as in every one her other movies, you pretty much know she is going to strip nude for somebody. She is actually outdone here, however, by the voluptuous Femi Benussi who has only about ten minutes of screen time but spends at least seven minutes of it completely nude and another two and a half squeezed into an ill-fitting bikini.

As other reviewers have noted this movie is pretty politically incorrect which, depending on your temperament, you will either find offensive or ironically amusing. The woman pretty much fall into three categories: dumb, slutty, and dumb AND slutty. Edwige Fenech's character is strangely unperturbed after her lover grabs her by the throat when she implies he might be connected to one of the murder victims. Femi Benussi's character hilariously hops into bed with both men and women literally minutes after meeting them. Another woman stops a guy from raping her by willingly agreeing to have sex with him, then when he gets a little too, um, excited she turns down money he offers for services he was unable to render. The movie has the same tawdry revenge-for-an-abortion-gone-wrong theme of "What Have You Done to Solange?" but the murder victims are adults rather than schoolgirls and the murders themselves are slightly less tasteless. Still this movie sure seems a lot more sleazy than the earlier film because it is not nearly as well acted or directed. Bottom-of-the-barrel gialli like this and the similar "So Sweet, So Dead" manage to be sleazy, moralistic, and of course hypocritical all at the same time. Maybe that's why I enjoy them so much.

The sleazy giallo picture here known as "Strip Nude for Your Killer" (1975) is misleadingly titled (no victim of the crazed killer is ever forced to strip; they're usually 3/4 naked to begin with!) but still manages to convey the film's two main selling points--sex and violence, dished out in fairly equal measure. The movie might more accurately have been called "Who's Been Killing the Entire Staff at Milan's Albatross Modeling Agency?" All we know for sure is that it's a leather-clad figure with a biker's helmet, a Darth Vader-like respiration problem, and a fondness for knife slaying. For the ladies in the audience, the picture features Nino Castelnuovo, so fondly remembered from 1964's "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg," still looking hunky here and sporting a perfectly round butt; and for the men, another exquisite appearance from the Queen of Giallo, Edwige Fenech, short-haired here but still quite dee-lish. "Strip Nude" has been directed in a nonstylish, nonflashy manner by Andrea Bianchi. Its plot does hang together, despite the seemingly unavoidable red herrings, though the killer's motivation ultimately proves to be unconvincing (don't even try guessing who the killer is!). There are any number of genuinely suspenseful scenes, though, and the soundtrack, by one Berto Pisano, effectively mixes Euro lounge jazz with a funky theme that suggests the Temps' "Papa Was a Rolling Stone." Of the half dozen or so Edwige Fenech giallos that I've seen recently, this one is by far the bloodiest and sleaziest (just wait till you see the 300+-lb. guy with his blow-up doll!), but still nothing compared to what filmmakers get away with today. The folks at Blue Underground should be thanked for a fine-looking DVD of a true Italian rarity; still, I'd be thanking them more had they supplied some subtitles rather than the lousy dubbing. And oh...was it just my imagination, or was that indeed an anal sex joke that Nino pulls on Edwige at the film's tail end?

Very watchable giallo, which as the English title suggests, wallows in nudity and sex (much of it with a seeming wink to the audience). Stylistically and plot-wise, it's pretty much giallo-by-numbers, with the expected camera and editing flourishes and some fairly good suspense. There are plenty of point-of-view shots of the heavy-breathing masked killer, shock cuts, lots of red herrings and obscure motivations, etc. However, it's the outrageous political incorrectness of it all that separates this one from the mainstream -- the male characters are all cranky and abusive and the females are eager to shed their duds in response. Certainly a must-see for Edwige Fenech fans, and the fade-out is unbelievably tacky, right out of one of those low-humour Italian comedies. There's also fine score, a mixture of funky Bitches-Brew jazz and woo-woo lounge stylings, which helps bridge the suspense scenes.

Strip nude for Your killer must be, for me, the most outrageously sexist giallo ever made. Fair enough, you've got to expect a fair amount of it in these movies(or else you'd be let down) but Andrea Bianchi runs with misogyny ball so far that he leaves the park, gets in a taxi with it, goes to the airport, and throws the ball on a plane to some uncharted island in the pacific.

Which, by the way, makes this film quite entertaining.

After someone kills a doctor who's botched abortion killed his patient, the film shifts focus to a modelling agency and all the suspects/victims therein. Specifically, we get to focus on Magda (Edwige Fenech), a photographer...and Carlo, who is also a photographer. Carlo takes the biscuit as the most sexist Italian movie hero I've laid eyes on. We first see him sexually harassing a young girl (and succeeding!), then he hooks up with Edwige, seemingly immediately moving in to her apartment, moaning about his coffee, and reading the paper while ignoring her. Edwige, for her part, doesn't seem to mind being called stupid, being shouted at, or even throttled. Ah, the innocence of young love.

Oh, and there's some murders too. Our motorcycle-helmeted killer starts working his way through the cast, and I won't really go into much detail about it as it's a giallo, but if you want to see an extremely fat man trying it on with a model, then this is the film for you. Our chicks are there for eye candy, except for the boss of the agency, so of course that makes her a lesbian.

Weirdly, I expected LESS from the director of The Zombie Dead, but here, at least on a technical level, he seems to do a bit better. There's some nice Argento/Bava style cinematography, and the music is what you'd expect. Violence wise it's touch and go, with some nice gore effects but not much carnage. However, clothes fly off without much prompting so you've not got much to worry about there.

Fun stuff...not a top giallo, but I can't help but be impressed.

And, as usual, the ending is jaw-droppingly stupid, and morally questionable.

One thing I know about this film is that Burial Ground director Andrea Bianchi must have had a great time making it, as filming naked women and bloody murders looks like a lot of fun! As the lurid title suggests, Strip Nude for Your Killer is one of the more trashy examples of the Giallo tradition, and that has lead many to lambaste it as a sub-par effort; I, however, could not disagree more! The film is definitely over the top and silly, but that's the reason I watch Giallo, so criticising it for that is ridiculous. The film takes in pretty much every trash element of the style of film-making, from naked babes to a masked killer and the film is like a catalogue of less than tasteful actions and images. Strip Nude for Your Killer opens with a shot that leaves nothing to the imagination, and shows a woman having an abortion in a backstreet 'medical centre'. After she dies, her gynaecologist arranges for the corpse to be put in a bath full of water. He is killed soon after, and it doesn't take long for more dead bodies to begin piling up at the modelling agency where the unfortunate young girl worked...

It is customary for the Giallo murderer to don black gloves for his crimes, but Bianchi goes all the way again with this idea and has his killer completely dressed in motorcycle leathers! The film benefits from a thick layer of sleaze that runs throughout and fans of lurid cinema are likely to be in heaven with Strip Nude for Your Killer. The fast paced plot is bolstered by some very graphic and nasty murders, as well as a plentiful helping of sex scenes; some of which involve Italy's finest Giallo actress, Edwige Fenech! Fenech has had her hair cut down for her role here, but she's still the sexy little minx that Giallo fans love her for being, and seeing her strip nude is always a treat! It's obvious that the plot itself wasn't important to the director as the film doesn't feature a lot of plot points and the unmasking of the murderer completely lacks any mystery. This film won't do anything for people that like their movies to be politically correct, as the women use their bodies more than their brains and the twisted sense of humour is liable to offend. None of that deterred me, however, as while I admit that this isn't the greatest Giallo...I really, really enjoyed watching it. Recommended!