Enigma rosso

This rather obscure giallo is relatively tame in terms of gore, but gets its creepiness from certain plot elements, like the young age of some important characters. The plot has too many suspects to keep track of and is difficult to follow at times, but that's not surprising considering that SIX (!) people worked on the script. Add some high-grade nudity from some VERY beautiful schoolgirls, a bizarre method of interrogation (choking the suspect while on a wild roller-coaster ride!), and a perfectly functional Fabio Testi performance in the lead and you have an uneven but creepy giallo. Too bad I only saw a badly cropped version of it, called "Trauma". (**1/2)

Co-written by Massimo Dallamano, this is the third film in the thematic 'schoolgirls in peril' trilogy. The first two films – What Have You Done to Solange and What Have They Done to Your Daughters – were directed by Dallamano himself and are among the upper bracket of the giallo sub-genre as a whole. Trauma, on the other hand, was only co-written by Dallamano, its director was the much less known Alberto Negrin. It would only be fair to say that it's clearly the least essential entry of the three. However, as is the way with most gialli, it's still pretty involving and entertaining.

The story follows a detective who is investigating the rape and murder of a young girl. On the back of this other murders start. This is one of those gialli that is quite heavy on the police procedural side of things, with less emphasis on the various shady characters on the periphery of the story. It more or less gets away with this as Fabio Testi - who plays the cop - is a good presence. The movie overall lacks the sense of style and tight plotting of the first two films but it ramps up the sleaze factor with extended shower scenes and a sex-party that incorporates the use of a somewhat prominent dildo. Of course, the very fact that the young ladies in this are members of a girl school merely adds to the overall shadiness! The murder-mystery is certainly good enough, although admittedly by-the-numbers for this sort of movie. Perhaps surprisingly, the violence has been played down somewhat. Murder scenes are often very important in gialli but in this instance they aren't memorable at all and certainly not graphic in any way. It's more focused on the mystery and this is eventually wrapped up in a slightly unpredictable way it has to be said and for that it does receive plus points. Additionally, Riz Ortolani's soundtrack is once again very good and adds a lot to accentuate the suspense.

A young sixteen year old girl is found dead in a river sexually violated with a blunt instrument.Inspector Di Salvo investigate this vicious and senseless crime in St Theresa's boarding school for girls.Unknown black gloved killer called Nemesis begins preying on girls from the school.It seems that there is a vice ring where rich and influential men pay well for teenage favours.The final installment of Massimo Dallamano's schoolgirls-in-peril giallo trilogy offers some delicious sleaze and full-frontal nudity.The pace is brisk and the school shower scene is truly gratuitous.There are some stylish shots for example an underwater shot from the corpse's point-of-view.Riz Ortolani's score is as always fantastic.8 nubile schoolgirls out of 10.

I like giallos a lot, and this one was pretty good, but in some ways it could have been better. I still need to see "What Have They Done To Your Daughters" and "What Have They Done To Solange", as I've heard those two entries are a lot better than this concluding entry, which is also known as "Trauma", "Rings of Fear", and "Virgin Terror". It starts out pretty good, with the mutilated body of a teen girl named Angelo being discovered, and Inspector Di Salvo (Fabio Testi) is assigned to find her killer, before he "carves up someone else". Basically, it goes on with him questioning Angelo's friends and family and finding strange clues, such as a diary, a strange cat sketch, a lot of money, as well as many secrets kept hidden by Angelo's friends, a bunch of slutty schoolgirls named Franca, Paola, and Virginia, who call themselves the inseparables. Di Salvo does more digging and recovers many more strange things. There is a funky groovy score by Riz Ortolani, lots of red herrings, good acting, and a fun first half, but then the second half of the film kind of falls apart. The motives of the killer(s) are confused and come off as kind of laughable. Then, there are a few more strange events that lead up to a conclusion that leaves you uttering one single word: "What?". It is basically confusing. I had to rewind the last fifteen or twenty minutes and watch it again. Overall, if you're a hardcore giallo fan, go for it...but for others, you may just be bored. Hopefully the other entries in the series are better than this one!

Naughty schoolgirls, perverted killers and unorthodox police officers… What more could you possibly hope to see in a late 70's Italian Giallo, apart from perhaps some large portions of graphic nudity and gritty bloodshed? Well, "Rings of Fear" has ALL of this (and more…), but still it certainly doesn't rank among the best efforts in this wondrous sub genre of horror. Even though no less than SIX persons are credited as scriptwriters, this film undoubtedly is the weakest installment in Massimo Dallamano's trilogy revolving on "Schoolgirls in Peril". The unofficial franchise began magnificently, with "What Have You Done To Solange?" – arguably one of the best Gialli ever made – but already lowered in quality a bit with "What Have They Done To Our Daughters", which felt more like a crime film with loads of car chases and gangster networks. "Rings of Fear", however, features the least amount of surprises and shocks and painfully suffers from the one demerit Gialli should never suffer from: predictability! Dallamano and his army of co-writers attempt to mislead us with red herrings and mysteriously behaving side characters, but even if you're only just slightly familiar with the standard Giallo trademarks, you can see right through every plot twist and easily unravel the identity of the culprit(s) yourself. It nevertheless remains a worthwhile horror gem for Italian horror fanatics to purchase, though, if it were only to behold the awkward and thoroughly unorthodox investigation methods Insp. Gianni Di Salvo (Fabio Testi) uses to unmask his sleazy killer. Di Salvo is charged with the case of an attractive 16-year-old schoolgirl who was raped and sadistically cut open with a large sharp weapon. The victim's witty younger sister informs him that Angela, along with three of her boarding school girlfriends, formed a secret alliance known as "The Inseparables" and frequently escaped from their dorm to serve as lustful & sexy entertainment for rich businessmen. Di Salvo knows where to look for the killer, but due to some of the suspects' prominent reputations the commissioner holds him back. "Rings of Fear" is an overall amusing Giallo because the story contains so many odd & unusual sub plots. For example, the inspector's girlfriend is a notorious shoplifter and his own interrogation techniques are rather ingenious, to say the least. He invades the boarding school in the middle of the night to question the scarcely dressed teachers and even drags his main suspect onto a wild roller coaster to force him to testify. The gorgeous (barely legal?) teenage girls provide this film with a more than fair amount of full-frontal nudity and lusciousness; while the light-hearted dialogs and Testi's utterly cool performance contribute in making "Rings of Fear" easy and undemanding viewing. The exciting score is courtesy of Riz Ortolani ("Cannibal Holocaust") and Alberto Negrin's direction is overall competent. Recommended viewing for trained Italian sleaze-fanatics, but newcomers to the Giallo-industry should probably postpone their viewing of "Rings of Fear" until they've seen some of the works of Dario Argento and Sergio Martino, or Massimo Dallamano's initial masterpiece "What Have You Done To Solange?".