A Disappointing Continuation

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Blistering performances.

"Your new friend is fast becoming a pain in the arse!"This is one of the most hilariously ridiculous Giallo I've seen so far, and therefore it's great! It's also the only giallo set in Dublin, so you can see regular Italian actors drinking Guiness and saying "There's been a feckin murder, ya great eedjit".The film starts off with a woman getting acid thrown in her face and her throat slit rather graphically. We then cut to the Swiss Embassy in Ireland, where her body is discovered in the boot of the ambassador's car. As the killer wore sunglasses during the killing, we also get dramatic soundtracks cues every time a character in this film has a pair of sunglasses!Luigi Pistilli is the ex-cop hired by regular cops to track down the killer, and even though he's as Roman as you can get, his bushy eyebrows and curly hair do kind of work with his Irish dubbed voice. He gets straight down to investigating by hooking up with the Ambassador's daughter, played by wonky eyed Dagmar Lassander. Her dad is a complete jerk, her mother a drug addict, and her brother played by Werner Pocath in an insane bald get-up that has nothing to do with the plot but looks mental anyway!Someone seems to be killing off people associated with the Swiss embassy, and next up is a cabaret singer with ties to the ambassador. There also seems to be a gay thing going on with some other guy and the ambassador's butler that involves blackmail, as well as the chauffeur being involved in another, separate blackmail plot. Looks like many people are up for an acid facial/throat slashing!The daftness of this film is great. Every character at some point starts acting like they want to murder someone, from Luigi putting his hands around Dagmar's throat as if he's going to throw her off a cliff before just kissing her, to Luigi's gran getting pounced on by a gloved killer, only to reveal that it's her granddaughter reminding her to wear her glasses so she can hear better (I'm not making that up).The chauffeur has an alibi as he was at the "Swasitika Laundry" (not making it up), and Luigi is even a suspect for a few minutes because his gran finds a bloody razor in a cupboard. That's the same scene that involves his cat being stabbed to death and stuffed in the fridge. Then there's the bobsleigh crash that is so crap I was howling with laughter...We need films like this. Every time someone gets slashed in the throat a gallon of blood comes out. There's boobs everywhere and the Irish accents just add to the surrealism. This is a must watch to be honest if you're into crap films...

Hi, Actually some of this film was made in Waterford, including the 'bridge in the fog' and river scenes. I was an eighteen year old working as an assistant in a chemist shop on the quays in Waterford when some of the crew came in and asked my boss Michael F. O'Connor to make up a concoction that would fizzle like acid when thrown on the victim. This he duly did, after some experimentation! They spent at least three days in Waterford. This was a very exciting event for me as I was a huge movie buff, and I still am of course! I have the DVD release and also the soundtrack composed by Stelvio Cipriani. Great memories. I would be glad to hear from you if you ever read this message. Niall.

The Swiss ambassador to Dublin, Ambassador Sobiesky (Anton Diffring) is shocked to find a dead naked body of a girl in the trunk of his car, her face distorted from the acid the killer uses, despite this the identity of the girl is forthcoming and the police find that she was a dutch national, which was where the Ambassador had his previous post. the local police suspicious of this their only clue, have to tread carefully because of his diplomatic immunity and send a Detective John Norton (Luigi Pistilli) known as "the brute" in undercover to find out the truth. Norton is a man haunted by his past, because he let a man in custody steal his gun, the result of which was a bloody suicide, his reputation in tatters, this is an opportunity for some glory…maybe? He soon befriends the daughter Helen (Dagmar |Lassander) of the ambassador in order to find out the truth. Strangely set in my home town, it brought back many memories of my childhood, some scenes even shot 2 minutes from my childhood home, despite this obvious plus side the film is just a tad boring and lacking in thrills, it does have some gory moments that are rather fake looking, the cast is fine and Pistilli excepted they are never really allowed to shine and I must say I found it rather off putting to see the usually intense Pistilli talking with a a stagey Oirish brogue. There are also a few suspicious minor characters that are never explained. Despite this there are some positives, Norton's mother a keen detective/mystery fiction fan who is keen to provide her son with her notion of who the killer is, provides some light relief as in some ways her ideas are more successful than her sons. Stelvio Cipriani's nice score seems very familiar, again I believe this may have been reworked in later work of his, in either Death walks on high heels or perhaps What have they done to your daughters?. There is also a rather downbeat ending, a sting in the tail so to speak but its rushed a little by Freda and if you're not paying attention you might even miss it.

After a brutal and attention-grabbing opening murder, this movie settles into a predictable rut. Riccardo Freda seems content to borrow the conventions of the giallo genre--such as giving the killer a recognizable trait like a limp, and then having half the characters in the film limp in various scenes--but manages to suck the life out of them, leaving a rather slow-moving film. Freda is considered a top-notch Italian director but it's hard to see why, especially since his protege had outclassed him and positively defined the genre the year before. Still, it's done with enough care to have (apparently) taught Brian DePalma a thing or two when it came to "Dressed to Kill," and the finale has a jaw-dropping viciousness to it that has to be seen to be believed, involving a nude 16 year-old, an old woman and a completely berserk black-gloved killer. It's just a shame that the scenes between the violent ones aren't more involving and interesting.