Nove ospiti per un delitto

Apr 2021

Another fine giallo from 1977, so a late entry and unsurprisingly for the year it was made it features a bit more nudity than some.

This is a really good giallo, as the title suggests, it involves 9 people in a secluded place and its a whodunnit.

I love it, great location the island they used.

10 out of 10.

Admittedly this "Nine Guests for a Crime" isn't a great film per sé, but I personally loved it a lot and I'm incredibly biased because director Ferdinando Baldi put many of my favorite genres, themes and narrative styles together in a blender and then served a delicious cocktail of sleaze and violence! "While vacationing on a remote Mediterranean Island, nine guests from bourgeois family are stalked and killed one by one by a mysterious killer"… Well, from the one- sentence plot description, it's quite abundantly clear that the film is another umpteenth interpretation of Agatha Christie's legendary story "And then there were none/Ten Little Indians". But I swear that Miss Marple, as well as every other sophisticated and eloquent protagonist that Mrs. Christie ever invented, would instantly die from a heart attack if she saw what a typical Italian makeover of the story looks like! It's a whodunit thriller / giallo full of sleazy characters that shamelessly commit foul adultery, openly hate each other with a passion and desire to exterminate each other even though they are relatives! The pre-credits opening sequences show how a group of men hunt down a white-suited sailor because he was in the middle of making love to a cute girl on the beach. They shoot him at least seven times and his hand still emerges from the sandy grave they buried him in, so that gives you an idea of what good gunmen they are. All this takes place on a tropical Mediterranean island, and several years later the luxurious yacht of an obnoxious family moors here for their annual vacation. The couples are bickering about money and the loathsome personality of the patriarch, the selfish brothers have wild sex affairs with their lurid sisters-in-law and the old father's much younger hot wife does hanky-panky with one of the sons while his wife is allegedly sleeping in the very same room! In fact, these people are screwing around so much that I found it difficult to know how the couples are actually formed! The already unhealthy atmosphere gets ruined even more when they are offed one by one; butchered by a clearly frustrated killer in a black diving outfit. You guessed it; plentiful of gratuitous nudity, provided by a variety of Italian beauties, and a series of grisly murders that are occasionally inventive and occasionally mundane. The mystery aspect here is negligible, as the culprit's identity and the entire family feud sub plot are easy to predict from early on, but this film obviously has other trumps. Due to the similarities in plot, setting and Agatha Christie source material, "Nine guests for a Crime" is very reminiscent to Mario Bava's "5 Dolls for an August Moon". Bava's film is superior and has a far better denouement, but this is definitely one of the better efforts in Baldi's uneven career.

'Nine Guests for a Crime' is a fun Giallo murder mystery thriller with an interesting narrative structure that takes full advantage of the whodunit aspect of the story. The movie is briskly paced with some genuinely tense moments. The island location is visually stunning with gorgeous scenery which gives this an eerie atmosphere and sets the tone perfectly for the murderous mayhem.

The plot - A group of family members sail a yacht to a deserted Mediterranean island for a holiday at the island's villa, only to be killed off one by one by a mysterious killer which may or may not be linked to a past murder that happened there many years ago.

The movie is a very standard 70's trashy thriller that boasts a strong cast with plenty of entertaining moments, but what lets this down is the poorly executed death scenes that needed better gore effect & therefore very lacking and while the film is nice to look at, the tense moments are poorly staged, despite a decent set-up with the opening flashback really setting the tone, but the direction largely feels like someone going through the motions instead of doing something that could have really elevated this flick.

Overall 'Nine Guests for a Crime' is entertaining enough Giallo fodder, but doesn't quite rise to the classic levels of the genre and could have done with a bit more energy.

Mixed bag of a giallo

Pros: The acting is well done - especially in the second half as the danger increases and the characters are under pressure.

It's a beautiful island location.

Even though the twist was predictable, it was well done. It's a pretty classic twist if you've seen a number of giallos.

Cons: The first half is very slow and filled with gratuitous melodrama and gratuitous nudity. Many of the cast members look similar and without establishing distinct visual clues to who is who - it's easy to confuse who is who. I wish the script and make-up/wardrobe spent more time making these characters more distinct.

I did not like the soundtrack.

A family consisting of a patriarch, his much younger wife, his troubled sister, his sons, and their wives go on a vacation to a remote Mediterranean island where years earlier the father and sons had murdered the lower-class lover of their sister/aunt. At first there are a lot of sexual shenanigans--one of the brothers succumbs to the temptation of his impotent brother's hot-to-trot wife, the father's young wife is carrying on with his other son right in the room where the man's own wife slumbers. Eventually though the guests begin to be picked off one-by-one in rather grisly fashion, and the movie gets a lot more interesting. As others have said, this movie greatly resembles the Agatha Christie murder-mystery "Ten Little Indians", even more so than some of the other Italian gialli that also mined that famous book for inspiration like "Five Dolls for an August Moon" and "The Weekend Murders". (In fact, if you're very familiar with the book, you might be able to guess the identity of the murderer in this one).

The male cast here is indeed quite impressive including Arthur Kennedy (as the father) and John Richardson, Massimo Foschi, and Venatino Venetini as the sons. As for the female cast, well, they do take off their clothes a lot. Actually, the most recognizable might be Sofia Dionisio (aka Fabiani Flavi), the sister of Silvia Dionisio and one-time sister-in-law of director Ruggiero "Cannibal Holocaust" Deodato.

The director of THIS movie, Fernando Baldi, was talented if rather erratic. He's most well-known for spaghetti Westerns like "Texas Addio" and "Blindman", but he also did some risible crap like "Terror Express". This movie is definitely better than the latter, but perhaps not quite as good as the former. It's not a classic giallo,but it is a respectable effort.