TORSO (1973) Blu-ray review

Torso (1973) d. Sergio Martino (Italy) (93 min)

The female populace of an international Italian university is slowly being picked off by a ski-masked killer, beginning with two of the three subjects of a nude photo shoot, Flo (Patrizia Adiutori) and Carol (Cristina Airoldi). When fragments of a red-and-black scarf are found under the fingernails of one of the victims, their classmate Daniela (Tina Aumont) recalls that she recently saw someone wearing just such a scarf… but who was it? Was it Franz (John Richardson) the art professor? Stefano (Roberto Bisacco), the love-starved co-ed? The handsome local doctor Roberto (Luc Merenda), the creepy scarf vendor Gianni (Ernesto Colli), and the half-witted delivery boy (Enrico DiMarco) are equally likely candidates, as is Daniela’s overly friendly uncle Nino (Carlo Alighiero), who offers up his secluded villa as a place for his niece and her three friends to get away for the weekend after the killer calls and tells the frightened student that she’d better keep her mouth shut. Sure enough, as soon as the quartet settles in, the battle of wits begins, with the wily sex murderer seeking to have all loose women, er, ends silenced forever.

YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY (1972) Blu-ray review

Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972) d. Sergio Martino (Italy) (97 min)

Once-successful author Oliviero (Luigi Pistilli), already crippled by writer’s block (and an excess of alcohol and drugs), hits a new low when his more-successful mother passes away. He celebrates her wake by holding a colossally inappropriate orgy of sexuality and abuse, the latter directed toward Irina (Anita Strindberg), his long-suffering emotional and physical punching bag of a wife. Their less-than-idyllic existence is further complicated by the fact that several of Oliviero’s mistresses keep getting bumped off by a killer wielding a curved saber, and further still by the presence of his trampy niece Floriana (Edwige Fenech) who comes to stay and play (doctor, head games, et al) with them both. The result is a marvelous guessing game of who’s the victim, who’s the villain, and who will take their clothes off next.

ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK (1972) Blu-ray review

All the Colors of the Dark (1972) d. Sergio Martino (Italy) (95 min)

The gorgeous Edwige Fenech (Strip Nude for Your Killer) stars alongside George Hilton (The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh) as a couple recovering not only from a car accident, but also from her resulting miscarriage. She’s also been having some rather strange dreams in which Ivan Rassimov (Eaten Alive) attacks her with a knife. When pills and psychiatrists fail to resolve the nightmares, she is persuaded to go all New Age by lovely blonde Marina Malfatti (The Night Evelyn Came out of the Grave), only to discover she’s been lured into a coven of lascivious Satanists.

ALL THE COLORS OF GIALLO (2018) Blu-ray review

All the Colors of Giallo (2018) d. Federico Caddeo (USA) (89 min)

Direct from Severin Films comes this loving examination of the evolution of Giallo, Italian for ‘yellow,’ the color of the lurid pulp novels that inspired one of the most intense, extreme and influential genres in cinema. Brimming with exclusive interviews with directors Mario Bava, Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Sergio Martino, Antonio Margheriti, and Umberto Lenzi, screenwriters Ernesto Gastaldi, Dardano Sarchetti, and Luciano Ercoli, and actors George Hilton, Daria Nicolodi, Barbara Bouchet, Edwige Fenech, and Nieves Navarro (aka Susan Scott), alongside all-new featurettes that take us even deeper into the genre’s origins, including that of the German “krimi,” the suspense films that predated and inspired their Italian successors.