Giallo a Venezia

Giallo a Venezia, also known as Giallo In Venice, has a reputation for being one of the sleaziest films produced in an already sleazy sub genre. Giallos, for the uninitiated, are Italian horror films known for their extreme violence punctuated by scenes of explicit sex. They heavily influenced the American slasher films of the late 70s and early 80s, but for the most part these American films were not as extreme as their Italian counterparts.

There are few death scenes in Giallo a Venezia but they are quite gory. There's an immolation, a graphic dismemberment, and the usual requisite stabbings. Giallo a Venezia does feature plenty of sex and nudity, but the bare bodies on display do further the plot. After finding a married couple's dead bodies on the Venice beach our main character, a detective, is baffled by the crime's seemingly lack of motive. We spend the rest of the movie inter-cutting between the detective working on his case and flashbacks of the deceased married couple. The film's flashback structure is unique telling the story of the married couple's last days before their death. Their marriage is, to put it politely, very rocky. The husband is a cocaine addict and frequently indulges in kinky sex to debase his wife.

While Giallo a Venezia may lack the social commentary of Lucio Fulci or the swooping camera-work and visual styling of Dario Argento, it is still a giallo that can comfortably stand on merits of its own. Unlike some other giallos that have been loving restored and even presented on Bluray, tracking down a copy of Giallo a Venezia may present quite a challenge. I had to settle for a sub par VHS rip.

"Giallo a Venezia" is,without a doubt,one of the sleaziest movies ever produced in Italy.Along with "The New York Ripper"(1982,Lucio Fulci)and "The Killer Is Still Among Us"(1985,Camillo Teti)this is possibly the nastiest giallo ever made.The film begins with a double murder on the Venetian docks:architect Fabio(Gianni Dei)is stabbed with a pair of scissors,while his wife Flavia(Leonora Fani)is drowned.The fact that Flavia was pulled back from the water by the killer after being drowned,intrigues inspector DePaul(Jeff Blynn)and his assistant Maestrin.As they begin investigating friends of the couple,such as Marizia(Mariangela Giordano from "Burial Ground" and "Malabimba"),they soon discover that Fabio was in fact a sex crazed cocaine addict,who could only achieve sexual gratification by violence and sick voyeurism put upon his wife.During the investigation Marizia begins to receive threatening phone calls from ex-lover and soon after that a series of brutal murders is set in motion.Director Mario Landi("Patrick Still Lives")fails to create any suspense or mystery.What Landi looses in mystery he more than makes up for with some of the most brutal violence and sex ever put on the screen.The violence in "Giallo a Venezia" is truly shocking.A prostitute is stabbed repeatedly in the crotch in one of the most sickeningly audacious murder sequences ever filmed.Another gory highlights include Giordano being tied naked to her kitchen table and having her leg cut off with a handsaw by the killer and Marizia's lover being doused in gasoline and set alight.The long sex scenes are pretty explicit and it's quite obvious that Landi's intentions were only to show as much sex and blood as he could.To sum up,if you like sleaze and extreme gore then you should check this one out.Recommended!

...if for no other reason (of which really and truly there aren't any to speak of unless the trinity of coke, sex and murder is what gets you going) - then for Berto Pisano's stellar, lush, textbook pornographic musical score, all in routinely dizzying major 7 chords, swirling strings and the bop-bop melody firmly rooted in the 60's, already horribly dated by the time this was filmed (late 70's) but very charming and very pleasant nonetheless - for those into that sort of thing - it's a standout winner. What makes this additionally twisted is that the soundtrack is often strangely out of sync with what we see on screen (people are having copious amount of often kinky sex but are also being whipped, stabbed and mutilated to some rather blissful musical sounds, adding to the perverse appeal). The film is certainly a very decadent Eurotrash oddity worth checking out, provided you watch with your ears. And with your brain on leave.

10:26 AM - Nov 22, 2018 #783 543) Giallo In Venezia (1979, Italy, Giallo, Director: Mario Landi)

Notable actors: Leonora Fani! Mariangela Giordani!

If Maurizio Merli and Richard Harrison got it on and had a child, that child would be actor Jeff Blynn. Blessed with Merli's bushy, fair hair and moustache, he also has the glare of real life ninja Harrison.

Jeff is a cop in Venice and he's got some case to solve: the murder of a married couple, one drowned, one stabbed in the crotch. More confusingly, the drowned woman has been removed from the water and left beside her husband. There was a witness to this, an old man who spies on everyone, but he's not talking for reasons that don't make any sense and aren't really explained at all.

Jeff goes to a friend of the couple, played by Mariangela Giordani, and there things start getting stranger. She's nervous as hell (I would be too seeing as Jeff insists on sitting right next to her and munching on boiled eggs all the time!) and seems to be avoiding Jeff's questions, until she caves in and the film descends into sleaze for what felt like about six hours.

Y'see, husband Fabio and wife Flavia (played by Leonora Fani, who is well named judging by how often the camera lingers on her crotch) are a couple of pervs, especially Fabio. Fabio likes to mix things up a bit in the sex department, as we'll see over and over and over again as Jeff conducts his investigation. This includes:

1) Getting strangers to spy on him while getting it on with Flavia. 2) Spying on strangers getting it on with Flavia. 3) Letting strangers cop a feel of Flavia in the cinema while knocking one out. 4) Having orgies with hookers and Mariangela Giordani. 5) Reading porn magazines, sniffing coke, whipping Flavia and then having sex with her for about ten seconds before blowing his wad. 6) Bumming Flavia while she was trying to put a washing on.

In a film that's just over an hour and half long, all this perversion doesn't leave a lot of time for Giallo-style antics, and maybe this is why director Landi just goes ahead and reveals the killer about half an hour in. That said, this is a giallo, not a slasher film, and things are that straightforward. They're not that great either mind you and the mystery is rather weak.

The violence and sex, however, is amped up to the max, well beyond what you'd expect. One character is tied to a table and has her leg graphically cut off while she watches on, while another is repeatedly stabbed in the fanny over and over again. You've got to kind of wonder what Landi was aiming for. The whole film is a wall to wall sleazefest that does live up to its reputation. And for the ladies, you get to see a guy having a chug in close up. It's as ridiculous as it sounds.

I just watched Giallo A Venezia First off, it's not a giallo, it's a crime story. It opens with 2 bodies and a bunch of cops and goes from there with the investigation, and it's quite a while before anyone is actually killed. And when it does happen it's not a mystery, as we see the killers face. The story has some twists and turns to it though.

A good part of the film is flash-backs of the the 2 victims doing kinky sex things. Yeah, there's a decent amount of sex in this, probably on par with a typical Jess Franco film, some of it was okay, some a little boring. There's also some pretty gruesome gore stuff late in the film. Otherwise the plot is fairly simple, on par with say a typical 70's cop show.

To recap, I wouldn't say this was all that good... a lot of sex (some simulated, some female masturbation, some kinky stuff), a couple of decent gore killings, and not a giallo.

If you want a giallo with a lot of sex the best I've seen so far would be Slaughter Hotel, or maybe Washing Machine (though that one is kind of a borderline giallo).