Director: Demofilo Fidani
Year: 1972
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: A.A.A. Massaggiatrice bella presenza offresi...
Genre: Giallo
Plot:
Determined to move out of her suffocating family, a young woman agrees to follow her friends’ advice to put an ad for a prostitution service, but when a series of murders strikes her clients forces her to decide whether to continue the lucrative business or follow her family’s sentiments.
Review:
There’s more to like than expected with this Giallo offering. Among the better aspects on display here is the surprisingly fun and enjoyable setup that provides the film with an intriguing central premise. Though the idea of a woman willingly entering the world of escorting and prostitution on her own accord to get away from domineering, conservative parents is a bit far-fetched, that this generates a strong-minded and resourceful woman with her own set of goals and desires that won’t be pushed or bossed around is commendable. Always being able to stand up for herself and her self-worth against the browbeating of her conspirator makes for an interesting and enjoyable figure to be around while the central premise is played out.
As well, there are also some likable qualities with the rather interesting attack scenes throughout here. Since the film plays with the idea of the killer striking her clients just after he meets with them rather early on, there’s some fun early setups involving the cloaked killer suddenly appearing out of nowhere to strike and slit the victims’ throats. A brief yet still suspenseful cat-and-mouse stalking scene in a darkened apartment and a secondary chase by the police to catch the killer offer up somewhat enjoyable scenes here with the few action scenes coming into play that give the film some solid bits of excitement. Combined with the fun nudity in the various couplings, these are enough to like here that holds this one up.
This one does have some issues that bring this one down. The main drawback here is the film’s detrimental investigation sequences which are highly underwhelming and problematic. There’s so little to how the investigation that’s conducted here would logically point out the killer through the methods employed here as they’re barely functioning police work and there’s so few of these scenes to begin with that this part of the film feels lacking. As well, the lack of suitable red herrings means that the killer is quite obvious and early to guess as well as being so simple to guess the motive based on these factors that a lot of the film feels like heading towards an inevitable outcome that takes a lot of fun out of this one. These factors do hold this one back the most.
Overview: ***/5
A generally fun and likable middle-tier giallo effort, this one comes off better than expected with a lot to like here even though it does have some fundamental flaws present that are what keep it as that middle-range effort. Give it a shot if you’re a hardcore fan of the genre or style presented here while most others out there should use more traditional genre fare first before going for this one.
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