Director: Dario Piana
Year: 1988
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: Sotto il vestito niente II; They Only Come Out at Night
Genre: Giallo
Plot:
After a tragic accident, an inspector begins looking into the shady goings-on at a high-end modeling agency where she worked, eventually uncovering a strange conspiracy regarding a dead model at the center of the accident that a savage killer is trying to bring to light.
Review:
This was a pretty dreary and dull entry without much going for it. Among the more likable elements with this one centers around the whole investigation angle for who the killer is and why they’re going on the rampage. That we get as much information as we do with the central ambush scene and what happened to the main model, the series of differentiating accounts that come about the more the investigation takes place, as the conflicting accounts mean that something else may have taken place at the site. The more we get clues about what happened, the different aspects that come together allow for a very intriguing discovery that leads to some fun reveals whenever it gets unveiled.
That is all helped along by the films’ sleaze and generally fun genre setpieces. Given that this is all presented with the mindset of approaching this one with generating plenty of softcore grouping in terms of getting plenty of hookups or sexual shenanigans, showing the models indulging in sexually-charged photoshoots, or getting undressed for these features, it has a nice bent towards that area. As well, with the series of strong stalking scenes focused on taking out the victims for what happened, this leaves this with a series of admittedly-chilling setpieces stalking victims around photoshoot locales, their lavish houses, or other such places that are handled slightly better than expected, making for its positive features.
There are a lot of problems with this one. Most of these are focused on the absolutely dreary and sluggish tempo that never comes close to making the material interesting. The majority of the film is spent on the exploits of the agency as they go about undertaking shoots for different clients or going about their lives, trying to keep the incident a secret that caused her death, as there’s very little going on here that keeps the interest level going. Instead, there’s an emphasis on these photoshoots, which are shot more in the realm of music videos for the low-rent pop songs playing in the background, as the elaborate, choreographed performances and special effects required to pull everything off take center stage in the storyline.
As these are designed more to demonstrate their high-end clientele than anything else, hardly anything here is all that enjoyable, and it all comes together to drain the energy from the film at the start. That continues on into the other big issue here, where it’s just not full of interesting enough people to make the whole thing worthwhile to follow. The majority of the film centered on the women makes them outright unlikable, with a slew of endless catfights, clique-like comments, or just being plain catty to each other, so that there’s just nothing all that worth following with any of them. These all make for a dull and barely interesting genre effort.
Overview: **/5
A disappointing overall late-era giallo, there are some worthwhile elements within here that are overwhelmed and taken down quite heavily by the series of flaws within here. Those with an interest in this style or who aren’t bothered by the flaws will have the most to like here, while most others out there turned off by these factors should heed caution.
This review is part of our ongoing series of reviews for Italian Horror Month, every November on the site:
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