{"id":13294,"date":"2016-03-17T16:06:40","date_gmt":"2016-03-17T20:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=13294"},"modified":"2016-12-30T02:54:48","modified_gmt":"2016-12-30T07:54:48","slug":"film-virgin-killer-enigma-rosso-1978","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=13294","title":{"rendered":"Film: Virgin Killer \/ Enigma rosso (1978)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"VirginKiller1978_Ital_poster_s\"Film<\/strong>:\u00a0Weak<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>: \u00a0n\/a<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>: n\/a<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0<\/strong> n\/a<\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong> n\/a<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0 n\/a<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Giallo \/\u00a0Poliziotteschi<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0A bullish detective tries to expose a orgie racket that uses young schoolgirls and disposes of members with loose lips.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0n\/a<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Planned as the third installment of writer-director Massimo Dallamano\u2019s schoolgirls-in-peril trilogy, things were put on pause when the director died in a car accident, but two years later a shooting script by committee (seven writers, including a German scribe) was put in production with TV director Alberto Negrin at the helm, and Fabio Testi returning to the series, albeit in a different role than the film which launched this protracted series, What Have You Done to Solange?<\/a><\/strong> (1972).<\/p>\n

Testi plays Inspector Di Salvo, a bully of a cop charged with solving the murder of a dead teen found floating at the bottom of a dam in plastic wrapping \u2013 an interesting precursor of the moment Laura Palmer\u2019s packaged cadaver is found at the beginning of Twin Peaks <\/strong>(1990-1991) \u2013 and like Solange<\/strong> and its sequel, What Have They\u00a0Done Do Your Daughters?<\/a><\/strong> (1974), the clues gradually reveal a despicable racket involving teenagers being exploited by a privileged social and political class.<\/p>\n

Instead of managing a prostitution ring, Virgin Killer<\/strong>\u2019s clients rely on a corrupt teen who wrangles pretty classmates and sends them to orgies, and anyone that opens their big mouth is quickly dispatched by an assassin who, as in the second film, rides a motorcycle.<\/p>\n

Most of the murders seem to happen because the filmmakers needed to distract bored audiences with garish shocks, and there\u2019s an absurd level of gratuitous full frontal nudity that manages to make Negrin\u2019s effort the sleaziest of the trilogy. It\u2019s also directed in a workmanlike manner, and one attempted murder \u2013 marbles cascading down steps \u2013 is ridiculous, given all the maiden had to do was stand still until the marbles stopped raining down.<\/em><\/p>\n

An orgy flashback to a girl being repeatedly impaled with a giant dildo is intercut with a teen undergoing a gynecological exam that swerves from horrifically painful to an erotic rapture, but it\u2019s all shot in a docu-drama style with harsh lighting that makes an already ugly montage even more grotesque.<\/p>\n

Di Salvo handles suspects young and old with a kind of arrogance and harshness that should\u2019ve gotten him removed from the case, but he\u2019s allowed to trudge on, almost getting burned alive while baiting the killer at a remote location, and forcing an admission from a suspect (Count Dracula<\/strong>\u2019s Jack Taylor) on a crazy rollercoaster ride which quickly makes him a threat to the racket and has him stabbed with a curling iron.<\/p>\n

Virgin Killer<\/strong>\u2019s weirdest subplot involves Di Salvo periodically consulting with the younger sister of the first dead girl. It\u2019s a variation on the giallo\u2019s trope in which the hero (either a cop or a friend \/ lover \/ relative of a victim) eventually pairs up with a love interest and forms an investigating team. The \u2018working\u2019 relationship between Di Salvo and little Virginia doesn\u2019t really go beyond tactical park bench meetings, but genre fans will immediately notice that actress Fausta Avelli\u00a0(The Cassandra Crossing<\/a><\/strong>) who plays the little sister bears a striking resemblance to Nicoletta Elmi, the pale redheaded actress seen in the genre classics Bay of Blood<\/strong> (1971), Who Saw Her Die? <\/strong>(1972), and Deep Red <\/strong>(1975). It\u2019s pretty obvious the producers wanted an Elmi to ensure their pastiche would look, sound, and be populated by familiar giallo elements, but as the actress was closer in age to Virginia\u2019s older sister, they opted for a younger clone (and a pretty good one).<\/p>\n

SPOILERS ALERT<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not unlike Elmi\u2019s appearance in the twist finale of Bay of Blood<\/strong>, Aguilar\u2019s Virginia has a twist final scene that kind of comes out of nowhere: she visits the bandaged teen who was nearly \u2018marbled\u2019 to death, and uses a box of chocolates to distract her so she can wrap the box\u2019s ribbon around her neck, but Di Salvo\u2019s arrival puts an end to the revenge killing, and on a park bench he makes it clear he won\u2019t say anything, giving the child a second chance, or in the magical world of the giallo, an early start to map out a more elaborate revenge scheme where everyone connected with her sister\u2019s death will feel her rage. Just as a murderous child grows into a hatchet-wielding monster in Deep Red<\/strong>, there\u2019s a sense Virginia has a 50\/50 chance of snapping again when she\u2019s older, stronger, and more clever.<\/p>\n

The last death in the film is pretty preposterous \u2013 Di Salvo\u2019s supervisor was in on the racket the whole time, and after a clear confession, steps over the dam railing and hurtles himself into the falls \u2013 but it\u2019s the kind of spastic shock filmmakers resort to when a script lacks depth or clean logic; they just pick a character who\u2019s been present all along, and make him \/ her reveal themselves in a Basil Exposition moment, and then fall into an abyss.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

END OF SPOILERS<\/p>\n

Virgin Killer<\/strong> isn\u2019t awful, but it\u2019s not very good, either, because it\u2019s a patchwork of material copied and glued from better prior films (Riz Ortolani\u2019s score follows a similar urban orchestral jazz design like Daughters<\/strong>), and is hampered by a variety of underdeveloped ideas.<\/p>\n

To temper Di Salvo\u2019s bullish attitude, he has a tender spot for cats (an interest that ultimately dooms a particular hired gun at the end of Michael Winner\u2019s espionage thriller Scorpio<\/a><\/strong>), and while he does have a girlfriend, a kleptomaniac named Christina (second-billed Christine Kaufmann), she exits the film a good half hour into its already brief 85 min. running time, making her character one big non sequitur. Kaufmann\u2019s part seems to have been created so the production\u2019s German backer \u2013 prolific producer Artur Brauner (The Garden of the Finzi-Continis<\/strong>, Vampyros Lesbos<\/strong>) \u2013 had a name to help sell the film domestically.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, it\u2019s surprising the producers managed to create a thematic trilogy, but the film did little to reinvigorate the giallo, making this effort a prime example of the genre\u2019s decline before the American slasher genre almost distilled the genre\u2019s elements to the bare and most essential minimal elements: a high bodycount, some token T&A, and a twist ending that in some cases, spawned an even narrower murder & mayhem franchise like Halloween<\/a><\/strong> and Friday the 13th<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2016 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

External References:<\/strong>
\nEditor’s Blog<\/a> — IMDB<\/a>\u00a0— Composer Filmography<\/a>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nVendor Search Links:<\/strong>
\nAmazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Planned as the third installment of writer-director Massimo Dallamano\u2019s schoolgirls-in-peril trilogy, things were put on pause when the director died in a car accident, but two years later a shooting script by committee (seven writers, including a German scribe) was put in production with TV director Alberto Negrin at the helm…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[4308,4306,3812,517,4307,4319,3703,4327,4305,4310,4309],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-3sq","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13294"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13294"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15057,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13294\/revisions\/15057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}