Reflections in Black

A young woman nicknamed Nellie is murdered with a razor by a woman dressed in black.The next victim named Emma has her throat slashed in a park.The police begins their investigation and question lawyer Anselmi with whom Emma worked as a secretary.The third woman is slashed to death by enigmatic beauty in black.All the victims were friends of layer's wife Leonora Anselmi."Reflections in Black" aka "Vice Wears Black Hose" is a dreary and unremarkable Italian giallo with plenty of sleaze and some sexy Euro-exploitation starlets including Dagmar Lassander and Magda Konopka.My copy runs 74 minutes and I don't have any idea where to find fully uncut 90 minutes Italian version.If you like your gialli with sleaze and full-frontal nudity check this one out.6 out of 10.

Well, it's safe to say that Reflections in Black isn't the most interesting example of the Giallo genre, but it has more than its fair share of sleaze and the short running time ensures that the film doesn't really have time to run of steam. One of the most nauseating things about this film is the cinematography. Director Tano Cimarosa doesn't really seem to care about the sets and colour schemes that set Giallo apart from the thriller genre on the whole and goes for a grisly look and feel to the film. This does, of course, blend well with the film's sleazy nature...but it's not very easy on the eyes. The sleazy plot line focuses on the brutal slashing of a number of women. After interviewing a few suspects, it soon becomes apparent that the murderer is focusing on the friends of Leonora Anselmi. Leonora is married, but that doesn't stop her from having numerous relationships with other women…

Director Tano Cimarosa seems keen to keep the focus on sleaze and savagery throughout, and if we're not witnessing a woman being slashed open with a razor blade, we're watching two of them getting it on. Normally, a film like this would get a high rating from me; but because the cinematography is so painful, none of it is pleasing to the eye and that ensures that it's all rather uninspiring. The cast features two recognisable names, those belonging to John Richardson, the star of a number of Italian films including Bava's Black Sunday and Lenzi's Eyeball, and Dagmar Lassander; who also appears on a number of cult cast lists. Neither really has room to impress here. Despite putting more focus on sleaze, the plot is actually quite complicated; and is made more so by the fact that all the characters are wafer thin and it can be difficult to work out their motives because of that. The ending doesn't come as much of a surprise, although I wasn't really expecting it to. Overall, Reflections in Black really isn't a good film; but I hesitate to completely condemn it as it's a great exercise in crappy film-making, and it does at least do some of the things that you want a Giallo to do.

This is one of your sleazier gialli right up there with scuzzy favorites like "Strip Nude for Your Killer" and "The Slasher Is a Sex Maniac". The plot even by giallo standards is hopelessly convoluted and ridiculous with far too many thinly-drawn and similar-looking characters for any non-Italian viewer to keep straight. To his credit, the first-time director, sleazeball character actor Gaetano Cimorosa, obviously tried to inject some visual style into the proceedings, but to little avail. Still there is fun to be had here; at least, if you can get past the unusually homophobic storyline that has any number of heterosexually desirable bisexuals and lesbians being killed for no other reason than their sexual orientation (even as the movie itself hypocritically wallows in prurient lesbian sex).

Normally, I'd describe the plot right here, but, believe me, it really doesn't matter with this one. The movie is currently available in two versions. The English version is full-screen with Dutch(?)subtitles, but it looks pretty decent. The Spanish language version (obviously from the post-Franco, post-censorial "destapa" period) is wide-screen and is the only version featuring nudity from the ravishing Dagmar Lassender and Magda Kopovka. Unfortunately, its also WAY too heavily padded with softcore sex scenes that manage to slow even further the movie's already glacial pace, and it looks horrible to boot. Pick your poison (lucky me, I own 'em both).

We've all been there - the middle of a murder mystery just because you happen to be a lesbian countess with an angry husband, and the victims being all your ex-lovers. Them damn police don't let up with their questions either. Don't they know that lesbian sex scenes are a giallo film's way of distracting you from the lame plot?

Yep, the killer has black gloves and an open razor, the victims are young and often naked ladies, and there's loads and loads of nudity to keep you awake between the interminable police investigation scenes. The main focus seems to be mainly on John Richardson the policeman and his sidekick, who suspiciously is played by director/actor Gaetano. There's also a keen rookie cop and his girlfriend that clog up the investigation side of things too, and bulk out the plot.

As usual a photograph is a main plot point, there's a few effective stalking scenes, but even the rampant nudity couldn't really carry this one all the way through. They didn't give Giacomo Rossi-Stuart enough screen time either.

Following a string of brutal murders, the police in charge find the investigation leads to a connection between a small-time hustler and a club for the city's wealthy patrons that even brings out a young lawyer to help solve the rash of bloody deaths in the city.

This here was quite the fun and enjoyable enough giallo. Like so many of the genre's efforts, what really makes this one so much fun is the rather strong mystery at the heart of the investigation which propels this one along. The quest to uncover the killers' method killing, the presence of the strange incriminating photograph working as a potential hitlist and their strange connection to the mysterious woman that they've all been in contact with, this one goes through the stages quite nicely in order to start this one off in rather fine Giallo fashion. With so much time on the investigation here going through these rather disparate clues and tying them into the main couple that gets caught up in the slayings makes for a rather strong opening start here that gives the film the groundwork needed to launch into it's proper giallo stalking that occurs in here. Starting with the opening hit on the female victim on the city street with the policemans' failure to stop it in time to the double ambush in the park and the surprise encounter in the apartment all make for a series of decent stalking scenes complete with all the usual Giallo trappings as the killer pops up out of nowhere to deliver the death-blow in rather striking fashion and brings about the kind of fun stalking in the finale where it's based upon the stalking in the apartment and how it fully leads into the big reveal of the killer and how it's all finally sorted out in here which is quite a nice time overall. Coupled together with all the fine nudity and sleaze typically associated with the genre at the time, there's quite a lot of positives here to enjoy even if there's still a few minor flaws present. One of the biggest issues is the fact that there's just not a whole lot of actual stalking action present here which really comes from the fact that there's just so much investigating with the police officers standing around debating clues and their significance. They really tend to dominate the film for the most part of the film and all they do is go over the importance of what they've found and how it's supposedly connected to what's going on, and when it's not dealing in those areas it's about the bland day-to-day lives of the couple caught up in everything alongside the police along with the few scenes of them investigating what's going on which really leaves this one with a rather low body count due to a small group of bodies to deal with as there's only so many chances here to work that when it's spending more time on those outside factors. The other big issue here is the fact that there's absolutely no surprise at all who the killer is and it's laundry list of suspects are all so obviously red-herring material that it never once hides who's doing the killer so that the main investigation is rather clumsy even with how well it's written up. These here are what hold this one back.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Full Nudity, Graphic Violence, drug use and sexual situations.