Director: Lamberto Bava
Year: 1987
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: Le foto di Gioia
Genre: Giallo
Plot:
Having retired from the business, a former model deciding to concentrate more on her new men's magazine finds that her models are being targeted by a deranged killer, and as she becomes convinced she's the next target, she tries to find the killer before she and the rest of her friends are killed as well.
Review:
There was a lot of good stuff for this one. One of its better elements is that, like all good giallos, there are moments where it's weird for no sake other than being so. Nowhere is this tactic more obvious than the early kills, which are just plain odd and incredibly weird. One attack features a model appearing as normal, but when it turns to the killer's POV the head disappears into a singular gigantic eyeball in its place while the entire background changes to a red-filter until the final blow, where the red-filter comes off and then it disappears into the girls’ regular face. A later one, where the same red-filtered murder-vision occurs only this victim begins to change into a gigantic bee-mask. It fits in with the kill method, but the fact that it makes for a completely bizarre and weird image on its own is another great plus, which makes them so great.
That this weirdness doesn’t detract from the traditional giallo elements is really nice. From the first two kills being just absolutely-standard giallo kills that have the killer stalking victims after a photoshoot or a fantastically over-the-top attack with a trapped victim in a house full of bees which has to be seen to be believed, this one has some really great moments to come from the horror side. The killer's tactic with the photographs and the dead bodies is another strange tactic and one that definitely works a lot more due to it's rather unique and original concept. There are also some really nice elements here from the last half here with the chase through the department store which has a lot of different elements presented throughout the lengthy battle, with everything from jumps, stalking and more crammed into it, make it one of the best aspects of the film.
The last plus about this one is the film's sleaze and nudity here which comes about due to the film’s subject matter. The photoshoots are quite unusual and work for getting several great pluses into the film. The first one is pretty much an extended excuse to get a ton of nudity into the proceedings, while the second one is simply incredible, featuring the fact that it goes off into horror film territory with the mummies and the fog. The rest of are just as much fun, which is quite nice as the lead who provides just about all of the nudity is qualified to do so, and also needs the sleaze to come from the incest theme at the very end, which is definitely unexpected and makes the scenes all the dirtier. Plus, when combined with the other bits of nudity, including several other sex scenes, a couple undressing scenes or just moments where they walk around nude or topless, and these here are all that's right with the film.
There wasn't much wrong with this one. One of its problems is that there's hardly any blood or gore on-screen in here, which is a pretty big factor. Rather than actually featuring something worthwhile, it devolves into aftermath that isn't graphic at all or are killed in completely non-violent ways, effectively neutering whatever chance it had to be bloody. Add into that the incredibly low body count which is less than half-a-dozen and there's not really a lot that can be done to give a lot anyway. The only other area it fails here is the pretty slow middle segment, where hardly anything happens. It develops a romance angle that goes nowhere, it spends hardly any time on the killings or investigation or features barely any scares at all, making it just drag on. These here are the film's only real flaws.
Overview: ****/5
Even though it's not that violent, there's still enough to enjoy elsewhere from this one that it still lands quite easily on the enjoyable side especially for genre fans who will appreciate the virtues more. Give this one a shot if you're into giallos, a fan of the creative side or the cast or are into European horror, while those who aren't should heed caution.
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