Enigma rosso

Naughty schoolgirls, perverted killers and unorthodox police officers… What more could you possibly hope to see in a late 70's Italian Giallo, apart from perhaps some large portions of graphic nudity and gritty bloodshed? Well, "Rings of Fear" has ALL of this (and more…), but still it certainly doesn't rank among the best efforts in this wondrous sub genre of horror. Even though no less than SIX persons are credited as scriptwriters, this film undoubtedly is the weakest installment in Massimo Dallamano's trilogy revolving on "Schoolgirls in Peril". The unofficial franchise began magnificently, with "What Have You Done To Solange?" – arguably one of the best Gialli ever made – but already lowered in quality a bit with "What Have They Done To Our Daughters", which felt more like a crime film with loads of car chases and gangster networks. "Rings of Fear", however, features the least amount of surprises and shocks and painfully suffers from the one demerit Gialli should never suffer from: predictability! Dallamano and his army of co-writers attempt to mislead us with red herrings and mysteriously behaving side characters, but even if you're only just slightly familiar with the standard Giallo trademarks, you can see right through every plot twist and easily unravel the identity of the culprit(s) yourself. It nevertheless remains a worthwhile horror gem for Italian horror fanatics to purchase, though, if it were only to behold the awkward and thoroughly unorthodox investigation methods Insp. Gianni Di Salvo (Fabio Testi) uses to unmask his sleazy killer. Di Salvo is charged with the case of an attractive 16-year-old schoolgirl who was raped and sadistically cut open with a large sharp weapon. The victim's witty younger sister informs him that Angela, along with three of her boarding school girlfriends, formed a secret alliance known as "The Inseparables" and frequently escaped from their dorm to serve as lustful & sexy entertainment for rich businessmen. Di Salvo knows where to look for the killer, but due to some of the suspects' prominent reputations the commissioner holds him back. "Rings of Fear" is an overall amusing Giallo because the story contains so many odd & unusual sub plots. For example, the inspector's girlfriend is a notorious shoplifter and his own interrogation techniques are rather ingenious, to say the least. He invades the boarding school in the middle of the night to question the scarcely dressed teachers and even drags his main suspect onto a wild roller coaster to force him to testify. The gorgeous (barely legal?) teenage girls provide this film with a more than fair amount of full-frontal nudity and lusciousness; while the light-hearted dialogs and Testi's utterly cool performance contribute in making "Rings of Fear" easy and undemanding viewing. The exciting score is courtesy of Riz Ortolani ("Cannibal Holocaust") and Alberto Negrin's direction is overall competent. Recommended viewing for trained Italian sleaze-fanatics, but newcomers to the Giallo-industry should probably postpone their viewing of "Rings of Fear" until they've seen some of the works of Dario Argento and Sergio Martino, or Massimo Dallamano's initial masterpiece "What Have You Done To Solange?".

Even though he only shares a writing credit with five other people, Red Rings of Fear is credited as being the third instalment of Massimo Dallamano's unofficial 'Schoolgirls in Peril' series; the masterpiece What Have They Done to Solange and the disappointing What They Done to Our Daughters being the other two. I went into this film with low expectations after seeing the second part of the 'trilogy', and unfortunately Red Rings of Fear only lived up to those expectations as while it has its moments, the film is certainly no masterpiece. For one reason or another, Dallamano himself hasn't directed this film, and the honour of the director's chair has fallen to the lesser known Alberto Negrin. The film retains the sleazy atmosphere that the first two delighted in, and once again focuses on schoolgirls. Red Rings of Fear starts with the discovery of a young girl's corpse. After being put on the case, Inspector Gianni Di Salvo soon learns that the girl was a part of a school clique known as 'The Inseparables', and a plot revolving around rich men paying them for sex soon unfolds.

The film stars Fabio Testi, who also took the lead role in the far better 'What Have they Done to Solange'. I've seen Testi in a handful of Italian films, and he always impresses me. His chiselled good looks benefit this film as it's easy to see him at the centre of a sleazy plot, and his performance bodes well with the rest of the film. He receives decent backup from a trio of teenage actresses, as well as child star Fauta Avelli, who has worked with the likes of Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento in the past. Any film focusing on teenage girls, murder and loss of innocence is bound to be sleazy; and director Alberto Negrin does well in capturing gritty locations and upping the sleaze quota. However, the plotting isn't very well done and often becomes hard to follow - and the film also focuses too much on police procedure and not enough on the style. There are a few decent murder scenes in the film, but none of them are particularly well executed and it often feels as though the director wants to get them over with as quickly as possible, which is a shame. The resolution to the murders is good, although the killer has become obvious by that point; and I really hated how the film ends entirely. On the whole; Red Rings of Fear is slightly better than What Have they Done to Our Daughters, but nowhere near as good as Solange. I'd like to rate this higher, but it has too many problems.

Co-written by Massimo Dallamano, this is the third film in the thematic 'schoolgirls in peril' trilogy. The first two films – What Have You Done to Solange and What Have They Done to Your Daughters – were directed by Dallamano himself and are among the upper bracket of the giallo sub-genre as a whole. Trauma, on the other hand, was only co-written by Dallamano, its director was the much less known Alberto Negrin. It would only be fair to say that it's clearly the least essential entry of the three. However, as is the way with most gialli, it's still pretty involving and entertaining.

The story follows a detective who is investigating the rape and murder of a young girl. On the back of this other murders start. This is one of those gialli that is quite heavy on the police procedural side of things, with less emphasis on the various shady characters on the periphery of the story. It more or less gets away with this as Fabio Testi - who plays the cop - is a good presence. The movie overall lacks the sense of style and tight plotting of the first two films but it ramps up the sleaze factor with extended shower scenes and a sex-party that incorporates the use of a somewhat prominent dildo. Of course, the very fact that the young ladies in this are members of a girl school merely adds to the overall shadiness! The murder-mystery is certainly good enough, although admittedly by-the-numbers for this sort of movie. Perhaps surprisingly, the violence has been played down somewhat. Murder scenes are often very important in gialli but in this instance they aren't memorable at all and certainly not graphic in any way. It's more focused on the mystery and this is eventually wrapped up in a slightly unpredictable way it has to be said and for that it does receive plus points. Additionally, Riz Ortolani's soundtrack is once again very good and adds a lot to accentuate the suspense.

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 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).***