When Christiana, a student whose dissertation centres around an unsolved murder from twelve years ago, uncovers evidence which links a fresh slaying to the case she's studying, she sets out to uncover the murderer once and for all. This doesn't involve a police collaboration, like you might expect; rather, it involves her following a series of hunches, culminating in a séance, in an attempt to crack the case. (The séance possibly giving a pointer as to why the police didn't see fit to collaborate with her.) As her investigation becomes increasingly unscientific and unacademic, the killer continues to slay (in a non-modern sense) young, horny couples who are foolish enough to prioritise a bit of nookie over not being slaughtered. And all the while Christiana does her best to ignore the mounting evidence which suggests that Alex, her new beau, might be the guilty party...
The opening sequence of this film plays like it was heavily inspired by David Fincher's Zodiac, though this is unlikely, given the fact that it was made 20 years prior (and I won't impugn Fincher's creativity by suggesting that the opposite might be true). The murder weapon is a gun, which is unusual for gialli, which tended to favour the aesthetic (ie bloody and phallic) possibilities offered by the humble knife. But here we just have an anonymous figure stalking an amorous couple in a car in Florence. Yes, that's right - the old Monster of Florence rears his ugly head again.
This film, as with the contemporaneous Night Ripper (AKA Monster of Florence) was loosely based on the then- (and now-) unsolved series of murders which had baffled Florentine police over the previous twelve years. Both films (and slight SPOILER here, although it's fairly predictable if you're familiar with the true story behind the film) eschew the standard suspect reveal, presumably an acknowledgement that as the real-life case was unsolved and ongoing, attributing the crimes to a fictional killer might be seen to be crass.* (End SPOILER)
Whereas Night Ripper was a sombre character study of a loner reporter, this film is a sombre character study of a slightly-less-loner student. I'm not sure if it's the shadow cast by the then-ongoing case, or whether Florence in the 80s was a singularly depressing place (unlikely, as there's a lot of art and architecture and shit there), but the two Monster of Florence films share the same drab atmosphere. Maybe it's just that mid-80s Italian film crews and film stock were somewhat lacking in technical proficiency, although Lamberto Bava and Dario Argento proved capable of making colourful, well-designed films at this time. Whatever the reason, the filmmakers who were inspired by the Monster of Florence seemed to be attempting to one-up each other by making the greyest giallo in the gang. And there was genuinely a bit of one-upmanship involved, this film being rushed through production to beat its rival into cinemas.
Because the narrative is restricted being (loosely) tied to 'real' events, and the aforementioned unsolved nature of the case, the mystery angle is limited. Well, it's limited in that we don't get much of a mystery plot to speak of, but there's an attempt at creating a 'is he or isn't he'** vibe around Christiana's boyfriend Alex. The relationship between those two develops at breakneck pace (thankfully no necks are actually broken), and they arrive at the 'every little thing that you do f*cking irritates me' stage of the relationship with remarkable haste. To be fair, there's mounting evidence that Alex is a serial killer, so it's natural to be a bit annoyed at that. Plus he has an irritating habit of selective silence, pounding on locked doors in the middle of the night whilst ignoring Christiana asking if it's him, and he also keeps a lot of his plans and actions extremely close to his metaphorical chest. The attempts to push him to the fore as a suspect never really convince though, as the film pushes way, way too hard. The occasional nod to Hitchcock do remind us of similar scenarios in his films (Suspicion, Shadow of a Doubt) but that's a bit of an own goal, as ultimately we're just being encouraged to think about far superrior works which we could be watching instead of this one.
Ultimately, it's not a terrible film, just not a very inspiring one. The score is interesting, and there are some nifty scene transitions, especially towards the start. The acting is fine, and the direction workmanlike, although Camilo Teti as a director is singularly unable to engage with, or accurately depict, the geographical spaces in which the action takes place. This makes it difficult for him to generate tension in the stalk-and-slash scenes, though he may have been hamstrung by budgetary and location limitations. The subject matter does weigh heavily though, at least until the end when we take an abrupt left turn into séances and graphic, graphic violence visited upon the naked body of a dead woman. The film thus manages to at turns be both respectfully detached and tackily exploitative, but coming (at least partially) from the collective pens of Ernesto Gastaldi and Giuliano Carnimeo, it's ultimately something of a disappointment.
*Though apparently, if we're to infer from this film, a bit of tree-rape and some graphic fanny- and boobie-slicing is not crass
**He totally is kweens, amirite***
***This footnote makes me, as I post this review two years later, greatly question the state of mind I was in at the time of writing
IF YOU are a youngster who wants to engage in a spot of necking whilst a serial killer stalks your city, wait until your parents are gone out for the night and neck safely at home (this is actually the thrust of the on-screen message which preceeds the end credits)
The opening sequence of this film plays like it was heavily inspired by David Fincher's Zodiac, though this is unlikely, given the fact that it was made 20 years prior (and I won't impugn Fincher's creativity by suggesting that the opposite might be true). The murder weapon is a gun, which is unusual for gialli, which tended to favour the aesthetic (ie bloody and phallic) possibilities offered by the humble knife. But here we just have an anonymous figure stalking an amorous couple in a car in Florence. Yes, that's right - the old Monster of Florence rears his ugly head again.
This film, as with the contemporaneous Night Ripper (AKA Monster of Florence) was loosely based on the then- (and now-) unsolved series of murders which had baffled Florentine police over the previous twelve years. Both films (and slight SPOILER here, although it's fairly predictable if you're familiar with the true story behind the film) eschew the standard suspect reveal, presumably an acknowledgement that as the real-life case was unsolved and ongoing, attributing the crimes to a fictional killer might be seen to be crass.* (End SPOILER)
Whereas Night Ripper was a sombre character study of a loner reporter, this film is a sombre character study of a slightly-less-loner student. I'm not sure if it's the shadow cast by the then-ongoing case, or whether Florence in the 80s was a singularly depressing place (unlikely, as there's a lot of art and architecture and shit there), but the two Monster of Florence films share the same drab atmosphere. Maybe it's just that mid-80s Italian film crews and film stock were somewhat lacking in technical proficiency, although Lamberto Bava and Dario Argento proved capable of making colourful, well-designed films at this time. Whatever the reason, the filmmakers who were inspired by the Monster of Florence seemed to be attempting to one-up each other by making the greyest giallo in the gang. And there was genuinely a bit of one-upmanship involved, this film being rushed through production to beat its rival into cinemas.
Because the narrative is restricted being (loosely) tied to 'real' events, and the aforementioned unsolved nature of the case, the mystery angle is limited. Well, it's limited in that we don't get much of a mystery plot to speak of, but there's an attempt at creating a 'is he or isn't he'** vibe around Christiana's boyfriend Alex. The relationship between those two develops at breakneck pace (thankfully no necks are actually broken), and they arrive at the 'every little thing that you do f*cking irritates me' stage of the relationship with remarkable haste. To be fair, there's mounting evidence that Alex is a serial killer, so it's natural to be a bit annoyed at that. Plus he has an irritating habit of selective silence, pounding on locked doors in the middle of the night whilst ignoring Christiana asking if it's him, and he also keeps a lot of his plans and actions extremely close to his metaphorical chest. The attempts to push him to the fore as a suspect never really convince though, as the film pushes way, way too hard. The occasional nod to Hitchcock do remind us of similar scenarios in his films (Suspicion, Shadow of a Doubt) but that's a bit of an own goal, as ultimately we're just being encouraged to think about far superrior works which we could be watching instead of this one.
Ultimately, it's not a terrible film, just not a very inspiring one. The score is interesting, and there are some nifty scene transitions, especially towards the start. The acting is fine, and the direction workmanlike, although Camilo Teti as a director is singularly unable to engage with, or accurately depict, the geographical spaces in which the action takes place. This makes it difficult for him to generate tension in the stalk-and-slash scenes, though he may have been hamstrung by budgetary and location limitations. The subject matter does weigh heavily though, at least until the end when we take an abrupt left turn into séances and graphic, graphic violence visited upon the naked body of a dead woman. The film thus manages to at turns be both respectfully detached and tackily exploitative, but coming (at least partially) from the collective pens of Ernesto Gastaldi and Giuliano Carnimeo, it's ultimately something of a disappointment.
*Though apparently, if we're to infer from this film, a bit of tree-rape and some graphic fanny- and boobie-slicing is not crass
**He totally is kweens, amirite***
***This footnote makes me, as I post this review two years later, greatly question the state of mind I was in at the time of writing
IF YOU are a youngster who wants to engage in a spot of necking whilst a serial killer stalks your city, wait until your parents are gone out for the night and neck safely at home (this is actually the thrust of the on-screen message which preceeds the end credits)
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