Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Stevieboy666 The stunningly beautiful Barbara Bouchet plays Greta, who gets a job working as a secretary at the large house of writer Farley Granger with the motive of solving the disappearance of her friend/lover Sally, who had previously been employed there. In my opinion this is borderline horror/giallo. There is no gloved maniac killing people off and the few deaths, when they do happen, aren't especially gruesome. In terms of horror we get a couple of raging thunderstorms, a very good night time disposal of a corpse and a rather bizarre incident of psychic powers. But that's about it. However, what this movie does have is lots of female nudity, including a couple of lesbian sex scenes. Like many Italian movies of this time it is beautifully filmed, the reflections of Venice in the water being particularly stunning. There's a fair amount of suspense, especially when Greta explores the house. Plus it has a great 70's euro groovy, jazzy, psychedelic score. This one won't tax the brain and like I said, may disappoint some giallo or horror fans, but it's visually it is highly enjoyable. No masterpiece but well worth seeing.

Bezenby Holy Sheeit! Although plot wise this giallo is the old-school type where a bunch of folk in a huge mansion double cross and play mind games with each other before everything comes to a head (like The Third Eye or Libido), this one also gives everything a contemporary seventies vibe with wall-to-wall nudity from start to finish – and those getting naked are Barbara Bouchet and Rosalba Neri! Barbara Bouchet is the newly appointed secretary employed to transcribe a novel that smug writer Farley Granger is writing, and this involves shacking up at his huge mansion where he lives with his equally smug wife Rosalba Neri and their butler Umberto Raho. Seems that the police have been sniffing around for a while as Farley's last secretary Sally has gone missing, and Barbara doesn't seem too surprised to overhear this. She is surprised by finding a hulking brute standing outside of her window and is given a chill pill by Rosalba, which leads to an eye- popping scene where a half-conscious Barbara writhes about naked while Rosalba also strips off and gets busy with her – all in slow motion and immaculately filmed. But don't knock one out yet fellas, there's much, much more where that came from!The next day Barbara doesn't recall that Sapphic encounter but is clued into things right away when, during one of Rosalba's sexy parties, she puts on an adult version of Red Riding Hood ("That hood will be red from all that riding!" – someone exclaims!) and Barbara recognises the actress as her pal Sally! A brief and subtle flashback showing the two of them naked under a waterfall may or may not hint that they might have been more than friends, but I'm not sure. There is actually some sort of mystery in amongst the boobs and arses. Barbara thinks someone has killed Sally, and coincidentally the audio tapes that Farley gives her to transcribe seem to detail the plot of the film she's in, and around this time she begins to suspect that she may be next. Who can she trust? Rosalba, who at one point jumps out of a swimming pool to have a quick puff on a cigarette? Umberto, whose motives are unclear? How about the big brute guy, who guts a live eel in front of Barbara for some reason? Could have done without that bit, which is something I seem to be saying more frequently. It's not very violent and as you'd expect things kick off at the end a bit. There are twists right up until the last thirty seconds. The thing with Barbara Bouchet and Rosalba Neri is that the two of them can actually act too – especially Rosalba, who can switch from sweet to evil to sexy at the drop of her knickers. Barbara Bouchet's Boobs will return in Lucio Fulci's Don't Torture A Duckling!

GL84 Arriving at a secluded island house, a woman's guise of becoming a secretary to a charmingly reclusive writer in order to find her missing lover brings her into contact with his series of sadistic sex games and tries to put a stop to it before she falls victim to them.This here is easily one of the greatest trashy Gialli's ever made. Among the great parts here is the fact that this one absolutely revels in the aura of perversion and decadence without making it feel like a degrading effort to be so free-wheeling with it's sleazy trappings. From the beginning where it showcases the sex party with all the friends hanging around groping each other that brings her into the proceedings only to then have the nude party-goers watch a pornographic version of a popular fairy-tale that features all sorts of drug-use amongst the viewers while the sexual shenanigans play out on-screen, to the flashback scenes of the lesbians frolicking in the waterfall or the numerous changing scenes where they are watched with another person in the room with them all give this a somewhat sleazy and perverse feel. Still, none more than anything else here that spells this out than the utterly erotic and sensual lesbian encounter that works on numerous levels, with the slow-motion photography of the sequence showing off their slinky, writhing bodies in great detail but also getting a chance to have the two performers themselves for one such sequence makes for a truly compelling situation just on that factor alone and makes the scene even more worthwhile than it would otherwise be. There's even more eye-candy featured here with the rather copious scenes at the end where they feature the revelation of the victim's fate through the use of a sex-game-gone-wrong which is then replayed again as the true finale which is quite nice overall and manages to fully complete the trashy atmosphere and aesthetic featured here. Another strong feature here is the film's few admittedly fun and engaging action scenes, which are quite nicely put here to remind this one of the rather fun giallo trappings that are present here with the rather thrilling chase out in the swamp-lands where they believe the two are shooting at them and manage to stumble into quicksand without realizing due to trying to avoid the shooters. It's a great scene, as well as the fun stalking accomplished at the house when she believes the killers are trailing her in the basement and is forced to hide which is a rather enjoyable scene. Overall these here are enough to hold this one up over it's few minor flaws. The main issue here is the fact that there's nothing said about why the police would authorize the kind of investigation attempted here, being that there's far more realistic efforts that could've been attempted, so there's little offered as for why try this one. As well, the plot does stumble here somewhat without the typical body- count on display, as there's only a few minor action scenes here and a low kill-score so there's some stumbling blocks here in that regard. Otherwise, this one here is one of the more enjoyable efforts in the style.Rated R: Continuous Nudity, numerous sexual encounters including lesbian frolicking, several rape attempts, Violence, Language, drug use and scenes of animal hunting aftermath.

MARIO GAUCI This is one of the better-known giallo titles, if mainly for the presence of two of the more luscious "Euro-Cult" starlets – blonde Barbara Bouchet (whom I saw, still looking good, quite a few times at the Italian B-movie retrospective held during the 2004 Venice Film Festival!) and brunette Rosalba Neri – in perhaps their role of greatest significance; it goes without saying, then, that the film's piece de resistance is their celebrated slow-motion love scene (which actually occurs very early into the proceedings)! With a generic if definitely attention-grabbing moniker that has no direct bearing on the plot, the movie has been given many an alternate title – such as MURDER MANSION and HOT BED OF SEX, depending on which aspect the respective distributors chose to spotlight (for the record, the Italian original translates to IN THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE); incidentally, the English-dubbed and regrettably panned-and-scanned VHS-sourced copy (as a result proving soft and occasionally battered) I watched boasted no credits apart from the names of the picture itself, Bouchet and leading man Farley Granger! By the way, the film marked the second of three giallos the American star appeared in back-to-back (I watched the others, which I quite liked, only a few days ago) but, though I felt he delivered surprisingly committed performances in all of them, once again this one afforded him the meatiest characterization. Having said that, it makes for a good transition between SOMETHING CREEPING IN THE DARK (1971) and SO SWEET, SO DEAD (1972) – featuring elements from each, specifically the old dark house setting and a high sleaze factor respectively! The premise is simple enough, with heroine Bouchet insinuating herself into the Venetian household of renowned novelist Granger and his much younger wife Neri, in order (unbeknownst to them) to probe into the disappearance of their secretary – her colleague/flatmate/lover!; it transpires that the outwardly respectable wealthy couple leads a libertine existence, given to stag parties fuelled by drug-taking and the exhibition of snuff movies: starting to involve a dim-witted brute in their exploits, one day things turn sour and it is the secretary who gets the short end of the stick (no pun intended)! The local Police are aware of Bouchet's undercover 'mission' but, soon enough, she realizes that her employer is too – since the plot of his new novel begins to parallel the events that had taken place in the house and, more importantly, indicate what her own fate will be (a blackmailing servant is similarly gotten out of the way)! To further muddle the waters, Granger pretends to fall for Bouchet (thus getting a piece of the action himself for once!) – in fact, two of the film's highlights involve the depictions (via flashback confessions) of the former secretary's death and the disposing of the body; another – this time around a recollection by Bouchet – is a skinny-dipping episode (which goes a bit beyond that) involving her and the murdered girl, and yet one memorable sequence is the climax (planned to be a reprise of the secretary's unlucky demise, the tables are smoothly turned on the perpetrators: Bouchet had met the couple's unwitting associate during a chance but cringe-inducing encounter where he, a fisherman, had nonchalantly flayed a live eel in front of her and she even treated his injured finger!). As was often the case with the "Euro-Cult" style, one of the lasting ingredients here is Teo Usuelli's score which is versatile enough to suit the film's many changes of mood.