Enigma rosso

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.

Alberto Negrin's "Enigma Rosso" (aka. "Rings Of Fear"/"Virgin Killer") of 1978 is a sleazy and entertaining, but overall not too memorable Giallo effort that was co-written by the great Massimo Dallamano. And the film does indeed bear Dallamano's handwriting as the theme is quite similar to Dallamano's directorial works, "Cosa Avete Fatto A Solange" and "La Polizia Chiede Aiuto", only that this film can not nearly reach the brilliance of the aforementioned films. "Cosa Avete Fatto A Solange" (aka. "What Have You Done To Solange") of 1972 is a masterpiece that easily ranks among the greatest Gialli ever made, and while "La Polizia Chiede Aiuto" (aka. What Have They Done To Our Daughters" of 1974 is not quite as brilliant a film it is nonetheless a great mixture of Giallo and Poliziottesco that no fan of Italian genre cinema could afford to miss. "Enigma Rosso" also follows the 'crazy ripper targets naughty schoolgirls' premise, but with a lot less style and imagination this time. Nonehteless, "Enigma Rosso" is an entertaining film which is recommendable to Giallo-buffs exclusively for its sleaziness.

When the mutilated body of a teenage schoolgirl is found, homicide detective Gianni Di Salvo (Fabio Testi) begins to investigate in the girl's posh boarding school, and finds out there are lots of sleazy things going on... Fabio Testi is well cast as the rough and tough, but overall kind-hearted copper. Testi always delivers solid performances (his doubtlessly greatest film being "Cosa Avete Fatto A Solange") and he fits very well in his role here. Apart from Testi, the cast also includes Christine Kaufmann ("The Last Days Of Pompeii") and Jack Taylor, who is probably best known among my fellow Exploitation buffs as a regular in the films of Jess Franco. Some of the female cast members are very beautiful, and they all tend to get naked on every possible occasion. This, and a range of perversions make the film recommendable to all the lovers of the sleazier Gialli out there. The murders are not as nasty as I thought, they'd be, but not too tame either. There is also a 'funny' (and somewhat silly) subplot about the inspector and his sexy girlfriend (played by beautiful Christine Kaufmann) who happens to be a kleptomaniac. The score by Riz Ortolani is more than decent, but not one of his best, and neither highly memorable for Giallo standards. The photography is very good. Overall, "Enigma Rosso" is recommendable enough to my fellow Giallo-fans, but it is by no means a must-see. The film definitely entertains, but I strongly recommend to see "La Polizia Chiede Aiuto" and especially "Cosa Avete Fatto A Solange" before this one. One more aspect that deserves to be mentioned about this one: "Enigma Rosso" includes the arguably coolest jeans advertisement poster ever seen on film.

Far from terrible, but also far from terribly exciting, this Giallo should have had much more bite as its predecessors in the "school girl trilogy", Massimo Dallamo's "Cosa Avente Solange" and "La Polizia chiede aiuto". Blame must go to Alberto Negrin's tame direction and Testi's slow-moving "investigation" that severely dulls the sparse suspense. The are fair scenes where Negrin displays some flair in the film, but it is not difficult to spot the Argento influence, particularly "Cat O' Nine Tails." Apparently Negrin mostly helmed television before "Rosso" which might explain his limited palette. Dallamo's painterly hand is severely missed, but a few intriguing ideas such as the slutty trio of girls "the Insperables" and a hilariously improbable killer make "Enigma Rosso" worth watching at least once if you can find it.

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!

I purchased the German DVD released by Eyecatcher Movies. The picture quality is decent (in terms of sharpness, grain, color, etc.) but it is cropped (moreso on 4x3 TVs).

It was released in Germany in 2008 by Eyecatcher Movies and/or New Entertainment as "Orgie des Todes / Enigma Rosso." The disc has German, English and Spanish audio (DD 2.0 - mono/stereo?) and German subtitles. It may be uncut, as the box lists 84 minutes. I don't know many details about PAL/NTSC conversion, but know that PAL running times are slightly longer when played in NTSC.

The case SAYS that it is 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen. It is not. It is cropped to 1.85:1 or maybe even 1.66:1. You get better compositions and picture info than the mid-80s Wizard Video release, but when you can't read all of the opening titles, you know it is still cropped. But it sure beats a full-screen transfer of a 2.35:1 film, which is all that I had seen until I got this disc.

*My ratings score (5) was for the DVD transfer/quality rather than the film, which I like more than a "5."

*** I was watching it (when I wrote this) on a "regular" TV. The aspect ratio appears closer to 2.35:1 on a widescreen TV, but there IS some cropping which can be seen in the opening credits (words extending beyond screen).***