If you’ve ever wanted to watch the slasher genre go through puberty in real time, Torso is your movie. Sergio Martino’s gloriously nasty little giallo doesn’t just flirt with the slasher template—it basically writes the first serious draft. You get the masked killer, the horny students, the isolated house full of doomed young women, the … Read More “Torso, 1973 – scarves, sex, and screaming” »
If you’ve ever wondered what The Love Boat would look like if you replaced the cruise ship with a ski lodge and tossed in a serial killer with a modest TV budget, She’s Dressed to Kill has your answer. Sadly. This 1979 NBC Movie of the Week is technically a “slasher,” but really it’s more … Read More “She’s Dressed to Kill, 1979 – runway show from hell” »
Redneck noir on a shoestring There are classy hitman thrillers, there are gritty exploitation flicks, and then there’s Psycho from Texas—a movie that looks you dead in the eye, wipes its boots on your carpet, and proceeds to chase an oil baron through the woods for half the runtime. It’s regional horror in its purest … Read More “Psycho from Texas, 1975 – beer, bullets, and bad decisions” »
A slasher that mostly stabs itself The Love Butcher is the kind of movie that wants to be shocking, daring, and psychologically complex—but mostly ends up looking like it tripped over its own premise and landed face-first in a rake. Twice. It’s a 1975 slasher about a crippled gardener with a dead-brother complex who moonlights … Read More “The Love Butcher, 1975 – clumsy, cruel, and half-baked” »
Hollywood has made a lot of movies about itself, but Hollywood Boulevard might be the only one that fully admits, “Yes, we’re awful—and also broke.” Shot in ten days for the price of a mid-range used car, this satirical exploitation Frankenstein is part comedy, part slasher, part scrapbook of other people’s stock footage, and somehow … Read More “Hollywood Boulevard, 1976 – cheap thrills on no budget” »
New Year’s Eve, New Murders You know you’re in a proper giallo when the movie opens with a New Year’s party full of beautiful, unhappy people and you immediately think, “Ah, yes, at least one of you is doomed.” The Fifth Cord wastes no time. Drunks, simmering resentments, unrequited love, a crippled wife, an old … Read More “The Fifth Cord, 1971 – booze, bodies, and brilliance” »
There are classy gialli, there are trashy gialli, and then there’s Eyeball, which cheerfully parks itself somewhere in the middle with a grin, a red raincoat, and a pocket full of plucked optic nerves. Umberto Lenzi’s Barcelona-set slaughterfest is many things—sleazy, silly, wildly implausible—but it is almost never boring. It’s the slasher equivalent of a … Read More “Eyeball, 1975 – sunshine, tourism, and eyeballs” »
“Crazy Fat Ethel” and the Joke’s on Us Criminally Insane is one of those movies that thinks being mean-spirited automatically makes it edgy. It doesn’t. It just makes it a slog. Sold under the alternate title Crazy Fat Ethel, this 61-minute “horror” film manages to feel twice as long, which is honestly its most impressive … Read More “Criminally Insane, 1975 – boredom, grease, and corpses” »
There are gialli that seduce you with dream logic, some that clobber you with over-the-top sleaze, and then there’s The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail, which cheerfully asks: “What if Columbo drank too much Campari and vacationed in Athens?” Directed by Sergio Martino at the height of his powers, this is a jet-set murder mystery … Read More “The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail, 1971 – sun-drenched murders for money” »
Theater of pain… and boredom There are bad movies, there are offensive movies, and then there’s Blood Sucking Freaks, which somehow manages to be both and still mind-numbingly dull. It’s an exploitation splatter flick about a human trafficking ring posing as an experimental theater troupe in New York, staging “Grand Guignol” shows that are secretly … Read More “Blood Sucking Freaks, 1976 – torture porn masquerading as comedy” »