Pesadelo em Veneza

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).

This is sleazy. I've seen the English subtitled Luminous print of this film, and it is safe to report that as a giallo it fails miserably on every level. Not only is there a weak plot and zero suspense, but there is also laughably no attempt to conceal the identity of the killer who is in fact revealed in the first ten minutes or so of the film. Clearly Landi was aware of his shortcomings as a giallo director and so therefore decided to make up for it with lashings of jaw-droppingly misogynistic sexual violence, which he again showed a passion for in his later film "Patrick Lives Again".

A couple of scenes really stick out for absolute, grimy nastiness. Firstly, the vaginal stabbing of the prostitute. This scene has more parallels to old hardcore porn loops than it does the giallo genre, with poorly lit and explicit prolonged close-ups, shot on grainy stock. Secondly, the scene where Mariangela Giordano gets her leg sawed up. Even though the effects are poor, the absolute sadism and overall atmosphere makes you feel pretty sordid for watching it. It kinda reminded me of the similar (but more nasty) scene in The Last House On Dead End Street...

But is this enough to make this film good? NO. This is a failure as a giallo, and is only worth anything because of the outrageous violence.

My god, this film is a piece of work. Rough as a bag of spanners. One of the ugliest and sleaziest giallos you could ever hope to see. Plot wise there is very little to say, the impact in this film comes from its audacious insistence on making everything look as unpleasant as possible.

But let me give you a quick plat re-cap. Two dead bodies are found at the edge of a canal in Venice. The police start asking friends of the late couple for clues, but as soon as they start their investigations, more dead bodies start piling up. What is the connection, and out of all the unsavoury characters that appear on the screen, does any of them have a clear alibi (or conscience)?

Enough of that then, what is really so bad about Giallo A Venezia? Well it's just that the sleaze factor is so high it's off the scale. The dead couple are at the centre of the plot, and the film consists of many flashbacks in which we see how the husband took pleasure in humiliating and sexually abusing his timid wife. The poor actress who plays Flavia (the wife) suffers the indignity of being stripped naked and roughed up in nearly every scene she appears...I hope she got paid well. Worse still, her husband Fabio is not blessed looks-wise, and add this to the fact that the sex scenes between the pair of them are completely devoid of chemistry makes watching them a real chore – and they go on for AGES!! You'll see a lot of Flavia naked which might have looked nicer if things were better filmed but the whole thing is done so sloppily that a lot of the time it's just not that exciting. Especially when Fabio is slobbering all over her (he's a really terrible kisser!) and trying to roll all over the place without showing his private bits, whereas of course there's no modesty allowed for his wife who is shown very graphically naked in several scenes.

The reason why I have had to devote a full paragraph to describing the sex scenes is because that's really all that happens for 75% of the films running time! Other than that, we have to sit through the police force carrying out their investigations which is kinda boring, even with the running gag of the main inspector eating hard boiled eggs in every scene (why? who knows... It must be an Italian thing), and some half hearted attempts by director Mario Landi to spin a web of mystery around the proceedings.

So that just leaves ...the murders. And just as he manages to make all the sex scenes ugly, unpleasant and graphic, Landi cuts no corners with the violence either. So prepare yourself for some very grim scenes of violence. Although the scenes are not dwelled on in loving detail like they are in a Lucio Fulci gore flick, they all seem to have a very nasty flavour to them. Scissor stabbings to the crotch and a human torch are two that spring to mind. Oh wait, did I say the gore is not dwelled on? Sorry I forgot the film's gore "highlight' in which victim has their leg sawed off while tied to the kitchen table. I have seen a lot of graphic gore but I found this intensely unpleasant. I think it's because it's just all sort of...thrown at you. No artistry to speak of, just events.

This film has absolutely no class whatsoever. And if you get a kick out of sleaze, it's almost possible to appreciate it on that level alone, but anyone with any taste in good cinema is likely to be left shaking their head in disbelief. Very hard to find - at time of writing there is no DVD or VHS release in print, so you're stuck with finding bootlegs if you want to track this down, and even then I believe it was originally released in Italian only – so make sure you get a subtitled copy if you must seek this out! A bleak, bizarre and depressing piece of grime, it's very hard to be positive about this movie. Even calling it a giallo is an insult to that genre, as the "whodunnit" value is very weak. Its just 90 minutes of bad simulated sex and some equally badly simulated murders, but if the phrase "in your face" was ever deserved, it is here.

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.

...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.