Director: Giuseppe Vari
Year: 1972
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: Terza ipotesi su un caso di perfetta strategia criminale
Genre: Giallo
Plot:
After being involved in an accident, a man who inadvertently photographed the incident realizes the whole thing was a crime scene to cover up the murder of a prosecutor, once he sells the pictures to the press and runs afoul of the inspector on the case and the killer.
Review:
On the whole, this works far better as a crime/thriller than an overt genre entry. The main setup here, involving the main couple trying to get by with their side hustle pornography business, photographing themselves while out on vacation, which lets them stumble upon the murder scene and get wind of the killer who performed the crime, provides this with the kind of fun setup that lets this become far more gruesome over time. As the investigation into the incident is handled well enough with the different internal officers looking into the case for the inspector providing him with enough clues to everything as he looks into the murder of the prosecutor at the start of the whole affair, with this letting the criminal spree carry on as well including the killer stalking the couple that turns the film into a more overt genre outing involving the plot to target and knock off the couple for what they did to highlight his crimes. This leaves everything with the kind of sleazy, dirty air to it that also provides the kind of help that drives this one into the genre atmosphere.
While that works rather nicely for the film’s benefit, there are some issues here that bring this down. Most of these issues are based on the film’s embracing of more crime/thriller elements than overt genre fare. The pacing here works incredibly well in terms of setting up the extraneous elements of the story with the different plot points involving the couple going around with their photography business or the inspector trying to solve the prosecutor’s killing, which all provide a solid throughline and a logical enough mystery, but hardly any of it comes together into elements that the genre would warrant. Almost all of the killings are placed in the final half, which leaves this quite dull for those looking for tons of stalking and killing. On top of that, for a film with this kind of sleazy atmosphere and the whole subplot about selling sexy photos along the way, there’s also the general lack of that kind of content, which might make this one come off a bit more bland and dry than it should be. These might make this a bit lower than it should even though this isn't that bad on its own.
Overview: **/5
A solid if flawed crime/thriller mixed with giallo, this one is decent enough for what it is, while still being somewhat slightly let down by the need to focus on one genre over the other to the detriment of those factors. Those with an interest in this one or who don’t mind these elements will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed extreme caution.
This review is part of our ongoing series of reviews for Italian Horror Month, every November on the site:
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