#18-19: One classic giallo I might have seen one too many time, and one giallo-my-ass I had never seen before.
Strip Nude for Your Killer (
Nude per l'assassino, Bianchi, 1975) – This film could have been a masterpiece of irony and film reflexivity. The moment where you see the camera and the crew in a reflection, elsewhere a pivotal moment in a film by Jodorowsky, or an interesting reflexive joke by Mel Brooks, should have confirm that the film was pointing to itself (something reinforced by the cameras, spots, makeup artists, photographers, and the women as models already present in the narrative – classic reflexive strategies that could have worked marvels here). Taking from there, the main character being a despicable misogynistic ladies man would have made a little sense, and his exaggeratedly disgusting attitude towards every female characters (even his new girlfriend) would have been relevant. Same thing for the impotent rapist who can only be a man to his inflatable sex doll, or the emasculation of that other woman beater. In that hypothetical film, sexual politics should have been front and center, and the de-gendering of the killer would have been food for thought. Sadly, Bianchi is just a terrible, terrible director, and
Strip Nude for Your Killer is nothing of that. It's all in there, but any intelligent interpretation of that mess would entirely belong to the spectator/reader. At face value, without the extra efforts, this really is one of the dumbest gialli, even though it does have a few classic genre moments. I'm not even sure if it's a so-bad-it's-good 1/10 or if I should rate it for being a potential thesis candidate for gender studies.
Damned in Venice (
Nero veneziano, Liberatore, 1978) – I've had (a pretty bad copy of) this one for years, but had never watched it. It's often listed as an
occult giallo, or
supernatural giallo, but it really shouldn't be considered as part of the genre. Clearly a lesser offspring of
Don't Look Now,
Rosemary's Baby and
The Omen, the film still manages to do its own thing, with decent atmosphere, decent acting (compared to the real gialli anyway), and the few horror elements are original enough (and kind of ballsy too) – I even think it can handle a few different readings. Its use of Donaggio's music (same composer as
Don't Look Now too) is more miss than hit, with a lot of silly excessive emphasis, but also with a few (rare, even) great moments. I'm pretty sure most would find the film boring (and some of it – the hallucinations mostly – poorly executed and cheesy), and maybe it's just because I needed a break from the gialli, but I thought it was quite good despite its limited means (and results).
4.5/10
