L'assassino ha riservato nove poltrone

Despite suffering from many flaws and shortcomings, "The Killer Reserved Nine Seats" is still warmly recommended to fans of the Italian giallo (and we know their number increases every day!). The absolute greatest and most inventive titles of this wonderful Italian horror sub genre pretty much all received fancy DVD-editions by now, so there must be some very good reasons why this film is still obscure and hard to find. And yes, it doesn't take the slightly experienced giallo-fanatic very long to figure out that Giuseppe Bennati's effort is far inferior to – let's say – the work of Sergio Martino or Dario Argento. Gialli are almost fundamentally blessed with a fantastic musical score, yet the opening tune in "The Killer Reserved Nine Seats" is ugly as sin and suggests an entirely wrong ambiance. The music isn't the biggest shortcoming, but it's definitely what bothered me the most as I expect a giallo-score to haunt my dreams for several more nights. On the night of his birthday, millionaire Patrick Davenant invites eight of his acquaintances to an abandoned theater that he owns but never visits. The atmosphere in the group is hostile, yet they stay close to Patrick as they all depend on his fortune. After a bit of wandering around the old theater, the first girl is brutally murdered with a dagger and the rest of the group discovers that the place carries an ancient curse. Is there really some kind of evil supernatural force luring from within the walls? Or is one of these nine people an old-fashioned flesh & blood killer? Let's just say the answer to this question is not hard to predict, but it'll still take many corpses before the characters know for sure...

Let's start with discussing the BEST elements about this film! "The Killer Reserved Nine Seats" is a decent and straightforward murder-mystery with a reasonably fair amount of plot-twists and intrigue. Not nearly as convoluted as most gialli, but compelling enough to keep you alert and hoping for a surprising denouement. Undoubtedly the greatest aspect about this film is the claustrophobic theater setting, which provides the story with an uncanny almost Gothic atmosphere. This same original setting offers the opportunity to make the murders ingenious and somewhat special. The deaths of the lesbian lovers, whose mutilated bodies are exhibited like some kind of stage tableau, are the finest examples to state this. There are several insurmountable problems with the script, however. There's way too much talking about irrelevant stuff and the characters do incredibly stupid things, like leaving the group to investigate the dark and secret corridors of the theater all on their own. Not smart. The supernatural sub plot is overall stupid and definitely not very efficient as a red herring, but I suppose it was a worthwhile attempt. The acting performances are surprisingly adequate and – very important – there's a fine share of genuine Euro-sleaze. Every actress takes her clothes off at least once and they all have ravishing bodies. That HAS to count for something, right?

This is a surprisingly entertaining Italian giallo that resembles a lot of later American slasher movies more than it does the earlier or contemporary Italian thrillers. As in slasher films like "Stage Fright" (both versions), "Popcorn", and "Clown at Midnight" this film is basically about nine people who attend a showing at a mysteriously deserted theater and find themselves trapped inside and picked off one-by-one by a mysterious masked killer, who may be motivated by revenge. Really though the plot here is pretty inconsequential. This movie is much closer to the stylish gialli than amateurish slasher movies in quality, and instead of having a cast of adolescent American nitwits, the cast is made up of sumptuous European beauties who spend much of the movie in various states of undress--oh yeah, and the male lead from "South Pacific".

The most recognizable actress might be the Swedish Janet Agren who later appeared in Fulci's "City of the Living Dead", but she (and her obvious body double) are only in the movie briefly. The lead actresses are Paola Senatore (who later appeared in Italian porn movies) and Lucretia Love (who might as well have). Neither are great actresses but they easily fulfill the requirements of their roles here. (Senatore and Agren would appear together again later in Umberto Lenzi's cannibalism opus "Eaten Alive" where hilariously the blonde Aryan Swede and the swarthy Italian were supposed to be sisters). You may wonder what Rosanno "South Pacific" Brazzi is doing in a movie like this, but this is actually a step up from his previous appearance in "Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks" (and personally I'd rather watch either of these again than "South Pacific").

You might wait for this to be legitimately released on DVD, but unlike a lot of obscure gialli there are good-looking copies of it floating around out there.

Giuseppe Bennati's The Killer Reserved Nine Seats is a curious relic from the golden era of Italian genre cinema, a gothic-flavored giallo that unfolds like an Agatha Christie whodunit soaked in the brooding excesses of Euro-horror. It's a film with a richly atmospheric setting and flashes of visual style, but its potential is undercut by flat pacing, uneven performances, and a script that fumbles its own intrigue. Still, for those who appreciate vintage horror curios with operatic flair, there's enough here to keep the lights dimmed and the curiosity piqued.

Set almost entirely inside a decaying, ornate theater that seems to have a mind of its own, the film creates an intoxicating sense of place. The production design is easily the highlight: crumbling velvet seats, looming statues, and dim corridors evoke a haunted stage lost to time. The camera prowls through these spaces with deliberate unease, often capturing characters as isolated figures against the echo of grandeur and decay. It's this visual commitment to setting that gives the film its most memorable quality, even when the storytelling falters.

Chris Avram anchors the ensemble as the aristocratic Patrick, who invites a group of affluent acquaintances to the shuttered theater he owns for what is ostensibly a private gathering. Avram brings a cold detachment to the role, though his delivery feels stilted at times. Rosanna Schiaffino lends her regal presence to the cast, radiating both suspicion and vulnerability, while Eva Czemerys injects a sensual volatility that suits the genre's baroque tendencies. None of the performances truly elevate the material, but they inhabit the space well enough to serve the film's theatrical premise.

As the group begins to be picked off one by one, the film attempts to build a mystery laced with supernatural overtones, family secrets, and past sins clawing their way to the surface. Unfortunately, the rhythm stutters under repetitive sequences and underdeveloped character dynamics. The script tries to be twisty, but its reveals are clumsily handled and often undermine the suspense rather than deepen it. The kills, while sometimes creatively staged, lack the visceral impact or inventiveness seen in more iconic entries of the giallo canon.

Director Bennati, more known for his television work, handles the visual palette with flair but struggles to maintain narrative cohesion or mounting tension. The result is a film that is more interesting to look at than to follow. The mood lingers, but the plot never truly grips.

Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians serves as the basis for giallo The Killer Reserved Nine Seats, which sees a group of bickering friends, relatives and acquaintances, all of whom have complex relationships and serious character flaws, assemble at a deserted theatre where they find themselves locked in and killed off one-by-one by a masked assailant. Is the murderer flesh and blood or a malevolent spirit driven by a centuries old curse?

If the film had stuck to a simple murder-by-numbers plot, it could have been a very effective thriller— after all, the same basic set-up served Michele Soavi well for his excellent '80s slasher Stagefright (1987)—but the supernatural element makes The Killer Reserved Nine Seats way too bewildering for its own good, with a frustrating finale that fails to make matters clear. Thank heavens, then, for those mainstays of the giallo, violence and nudity…

With such a collection of disagreeable characters, there are plenty of well deserved deaths, although they are less graphic than I had expected: some reviews have remarked on the nastiness of the murders, but barring the nailing of one woman's arm to a wooden beam (an effect that uses a hilarious plastic-looking fake hand), the violence seemed rather tame to me (I definitely didn't see any crotch stabbing), leading me to wonder whether the version I watched was shorn of some gore.

Thankfully, all of the nudity seemed intact, with virtually all of the female characters getting nekkid at some point, either willingly, or by having their clothes torn off by the killer before being brutally dispatched. This certainly helps to make the film more entertaining, especially the scene in which one woman takes time out amidst all the murder to dance topless to some funky music.

Interesting, although not completely well-made, example of the Italian supernatural thriller, "L'assassino ha riservato nove poltrone" is a movie that suffers from a lot of shortcomings, but still it moves and after all convinces the spectator. It has to its credit the well-built atmosphere of discomfort and psychological perversion, the good art direction and the costumes. The script suffers from a lot of holes and clear improbabilities, but still it can hold the spectator's breath with a plot that is quite original, although the spooky theater under a curse is a fairly recurrent element in the tradition of Italian horror (I remember Renato Polselli's "Il mostro dell'Opera", Michele Soavi's "Deliria", as well as the well known "Opera" and "Il fantasma dell'Opera", directed by Dario Argento). Apart from this, there's a good dose of pleasant and sexy female nudes and the usual lesbian background to whom no Italian thriller can renounce. Taking everything into consideration, I can say this is a quite good movie, charmingly rough in the development of the plot, in the direction and in the acting (all the actors are habitué of the popular genres of Italian cinema), but it's also an interesting and amusing movie you can enjoy.