Highly Overrated But Still Good

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

This one fools you into thinking you're watching a Eurocrime film as it begins with a jewel heist that goes wrong. The hoods get the goods, but in the process one cashier and one robber are shot. After a chase through the streets, three of the robbers manage to make it away, with the one being mercy shot where their car crashes.Cop Luigi Pistilli is put on the case, and it must be noted here that by each passing film I see him in he grows more dishevelled and hairy, like he's caught in the slowest lycanthropic transformation ever. There's also an extra member of the gang, seemingly the man in charge, also trying to track down his fellow robber-types. The trio of robbers make it to the house of Doctor Anthony Steffen, a man in such a bad place with his wife Mara (the pretty Livia Cerini) that she starts berating him in front of the robbers for not standing up to them! Steffen is forced to operate on the wounded robber while both the male and female robbers start giving Mara the glad eye. Things get worse for Steffen as Mara is led on by the lady robber in a lesbian scene that had me saying "Don't kiss her! She's just eaten a mouthful of walnuts!" It is funny however when Guiseppe Castellano starts eyeballing them, the waves Steffen over so he can have a look too.You see this is more of a home invasion film than a Eurocrime one, the takes some distinctly giallo type twists near the end (that's the late sixties style giallo, not the slashy slashy type). Steffen maybe doesn't come across as the most emotive actor ever, but still does the trick as the put upon husband whose wife goes at it with two robbers, and one guy who just dropped by to ask her to go the pub. Luigi Pistilli isn't given too much to do, mind you, but the 'pigeons landing in reverse' bit was funny.

The Killers Are Our Guests opens with a daring daylight jewelry store robbery. One of the robbers is shot during the escape. The band of robbers is forced to seek medical attention for their partner and end up at the isolated villa of a doctor and his wife. Forced to comply, the doctor does his best to patch up the wounded robber. The baddies hold the pair hostage until they're able to hit the road. It's a nightmare of a night as the doctor and wife are threatened with their lives, the wife is raped, and, in the end, most everyone is killed.Overall, I found The Killers Are Our Guests an above average piece of entertainment. I'm not sure how I'd classify the film, but I'm going to go with poliziotteschi or Euro-crime. The film features plenty of atmosphere as the robbers harass and threaten the couple. The movie never goes as far as something like Last House on the Left, but it has a similar cramped, ominous feel to it. I really started to feel for the doctor's wife. Either through choice or force, she has sex four times during the night. And when it's not by choice, it's not very pleasant. While the police seem ineffective throughout, the way the police ultimately catch their prey is nicely handled and provides an unexpected twist. The acting is solid. Genre regulars Anthony Steffan, Luigi Pistilli, and Margaret Lee are as good as I've come to expect. It's always nice to discover a "new" movie with Margaret Lee. The rest of the cast is more than adequate. If it weren't for some fairly long stretches in the second act where the film almost grinds to a halt, I could have easily rated The Killers Are Our Guests higher.

The Killers Are Our Guests is one of the harder to come by Giallo's, and that isn't surprising as the film doesn't really adhere to the common Giallo plot and themes. The basic plot is more along the lines of an exploitation film, as it features at the centre, people being held captive by criminals in their own home. In fact, I would really hesitate to call this film a Giallo at all; there is not really anything about the film (aside from the title and the fact that it's Italian and was made in the mid seventies) to identify it as a bona fide Giallo. As mentioned, the plot focuses on a couple being trapped inside their own house by a criminal gang. The gang have robbed a bank, but one of them got himself shot, so they decide to hole up at the house of Dr. Guido Malerva so the injured member can get medical attention. However, not everything goes to plan once the gang get to the doctor's house, as things start to fall apart when another gang member, named Eddie, turns up at the doctor's house.As you've probably guessed, this film doesn't do much for me as a Giallo, but as an exploitation film it's not bad. The interaction between the various lead characters is the film's backbone, and it's fairly interesting - if a little slow. The centrepiece of the action is a lesbian scene, which was by far and away the best moment of the film for me. I think the reason why this scene is in the film is down to the fact that this sort of thing was popular in seventies Italian films (and that's a lot of the reason why seventies Italian films are popular with me!), but even so it works quite well in the context of the movie. The acting is decent enough, with Italian actor Antonio De Teffè leading an experienced line up that includes Margaret Lee (Slaughter Hotel), Luigi Pistilli (Bay of Blood) and Gianni Dei (Giallo a Venezia). Overall, I wont say this obscure film is one of the best films to come out of Italy in the seventies (actually nowhere near), but it's a decent ride and one that I'm sure will be appreciated by anyone inclined to track it down.

In the city of Milan, a criminal group rob a jewellery shop named JOYERIA'S JEWELLERY. And, in spite of an adequate success in the robbery itself, some unexpected accidents happen to the members, and three of them (including the injured member named Franco) are obliged to find and go to the house of Dr. Guido Malerva. But, mainly after the late arrival of another member named Eddie, some troublesome people begin to visit the house... I think this is rather a unique Giallo film, even though its visibly-indoor-but-at-the-same-time-invisibly-outdoor sequences seem to be the same kind of those of Enzo G. Castellari's COLD EYES OF FEAR. Indeed, unlike the rather static COLD EYES OF FEAR, this one has something much more twistedly dynamic; after the arrivals of the criminal group, not only its original members but also Dr. Malerva and his blonde wife, Mara, unwillingly become the members of an extended and inevitably tensional indoor group. And the interpersonal relationships in this indoor group seem to continuously develop based upon a psychological fact that there are both conscious and unconscious emotional forces underlying behaviour in a group. Here, interestingly enough, Mara somehow almost one-sidedly falls in love with Oriana, the only one female member of the criminal group, and the lesbian love-scene between these two, which effectively expresses the instantaneously reflecting power of their desire, is not only the most impressive one this film has (and it should be added it is expressed in some binary way which consists of the directly female-homosexual and the indirectedly bisexual), but also the apparently prime mover of the latter half of the story, where almost every main character seems to personalise the highly influential lesbianism. And almost symmetrical attractiveness of the cool-and-almost-icy beautifulness of Margaret Lee, who plays Oriana, and the rather-warm-and-friendly charmingness of Livia Cerini, who plays Mara, creates a highly aesthetic rather than simply carnal lesbianism. Furthermore, there is a calculatedly invisible rather than simply potential couple in the indoor group. In short, the whole story of this film is full of the suspenseful developability, and is enriched by Roberto Rizzo's not theatrical but appropriate music. Here, for the sake of fairness, I have to add this 1974 film is not a gory one. It has shootings, injures, deaths and consequently some blood, but the film as a whole has no noteworthy gore. In conclusion, it can be said this is a high-qualitative story-developability-oriented film, and is recommendable even for the serious Giallo-lovers, but not for the gore-lovers.