Director: Roberto Mauri
Year: 1965
Country: Italy/US
Alternate Titles: Le notti della violenza; Callgirls 66
Genre: Giallo
Plot:
During a series of vicious attacks, the city's police commissioner finds that the different descriptions of the culprit have led him down the wrong path with the killer using disguises to carry out his spree and forcing him to race to stop the killings and save the next victims.
Review:
This one turned out to be quite a distressing and flawed effort. The main problem on display here is the fact that this one just doesn't generate anywhere near the required genre thrills to be that interesting. Since the main guise of the film should be the series of attacks on the different street workers in the area, that this one spends so much time instead on extraneous efforts is such a detriment that it brings out several problems as a result. The lack of time on the stalking, in general, is a big problem since it never allows us to get to know the killer or the victims either so it just seems quite bland during these few scattered scenes throughout here.
Likewise, since this one becomes a procedural effort much more so than actually focusing on the stalking and slashing that it never becomes all that enjoyable as a result since these scenes are just criminally boring with the needless going over of facts repeatedly or going on with the friends of the victims in their lives as the spree continues around them which manages to make for a truly bland and utterly uninteresting time since precious little of it sets up the actual mystery around the killer. It has no time for such pointless and unnecessary interludes as the killer being shown stalking a group holding a party near a crime scene and not taking out anyone during that sequence, and the inclusion of the drug ring as a whole just makes no sense to be featured which just comes out of nowhere and has nothing at all to do with the rest of the story involving the killer striking his victims.
The other big flaw here is the generally lifeless air about the main stalking scenes just makes this all the more paltry. What should be rather frenetic and exciting scenes end up being just dull in combination with the horrid lighting that makes everything so dark it's hard to tell what's going on beyond a flurry of arms being thrown about to the sounds of a beating that should've been seen on screen. Since so many of the attacks fail to kill the victim and let the killer escape just really undermines what's going on as the potential for some excitement to occur here in the attacks might've made this one a little more exciting. These here really bring this one down although it does have a few minor points of interest. The main thing here is the fact that the concept of the strikes where the maniac stalks couples and attacks them makes this one seemingly enjoyable enough to work with a normal storyline, and there's some potential in some of the attacks here which gives this a minor boost. The only other effort that works here is the finale which has some action and a rather nice setup about it that really do for this one. Otherwise, there's not much that works here.
Overview: *.5/5
A rather poor and troubled early giallo entry, it has a lot of issues that hold it back and leave only a few positives which cause this to slip down into the obscure ranks it currently resides. This is only for the most devout and hardcore Eurohorror or Gialli fans while most others should stick to more well-known entries in these categories rather than this one.
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