The Case of the Bloody Iris (1972)

Such a frustrating disappointment

Lack of good storyline.

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

They say to never look a gift horse in the mouth. Sometimes a gift isn't all it's cracked up to be.Andrea (George Hilton) offers an upscale apartment to models Jennifer (Edwige Fenech) and Marilyn (Paola Quattrini). The only problem is that a stripper Mizar (Carla Brait) was just drowned in the bathtub, and someone is in the apartment with evil intentions on Jennifer's first night there. In addition another girl in the building was murdered in the elevator the day before. Is this where you really want to live? This film has a huge assortment of odd characters: a lesbian that lives with her professor father who plays the violin all night, an old lady that reads horror comics, Jennifer's ex who is head of some sex cult, and even a police lieutenant (Giampiero Albertini) who collects stamps and swipes them from crime scenes. No shortage of suspects.But, discovering the killer and the motive will prove elusive. That's OK, as the music, and the humor, and seeing Fenech will certainly keep you occupied until the reveal.

Sweet and beautiful young model Jennifer Lansbury (a winning performance by the strikingly gorgeous Edwige Fenech) moves into a swanky apartment where a previous fetching female tenant was brutally murdered. Pretty soon Jennifer is being stalked by the mysterious killer. Propable suspects include predatory lesbian neighbor Sheila Heindricks (lovely Annabella Incontrera), Jennifer's possessive ex-husband (creepy Ben Carra), a weird old lady with a deformed son, and even suave, handsome architect Andrea Barto (a solid turn by George Hilton), who suffers from a severe blood phobia. Director Giuliano Carnimeo and screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi concoct an engrossing thriller that unfolds at a steady pace, delivers a pleasing plenitude of tantalizing red herrings, tasty female nudity, and a few bravura brutal and shocking murder set pieces (the single most startling murder occurs on a crowded street in broad daylight!), and tops things off with a deliciously sly sense of playful humor (for example, the ineffectual cops on the case are more interested in rare expansive stamps than they are in catching the killer!). Fenech and Hilton are both excellent in the leads; they receive fine support from Paola Quattrini as Jennifer's ditsy airhead pal Marilyn Ricci, Giampiero Albertini as the feckless Commissioner Enci, Franco Agostini as Enci's equally inept assistant Redi, Oreste Lionello as effeminate homosexual photographer Arthur, George Rigaud as the friendly Professor Isaacs, and Carla Brait as brash, formidable nightclub stripper Mizar Harrington (Mizar's fierce fight with a cocky macho jerk is an absolute hoot!). Stelvio Massi's fluid and dynamic cinematography boasts a lot of great crazy tilted camera angles. Bruno Nicolai's funky, yet elegant score likewise does the trick. Director Carnimeo's smooth style and infectious verve keep the proceedings lively and entertaining throughout. Well worth watching for giallo fans.

Lousy Italian giallo. It starts off with a bang when a woman is stabbed to death within the first 5 minutes! In the same building another woman is later drowned in her tub. Two models--Jennifer (Edwige Fenech) and Marilyn (Paolo Quattrini)--get the apartment of the murdered woman dirt cheap. But it seems the killer is after THEM also.It may sound interesting but it isn't. For starters the dubbing in this is pretty poor. Lousy music score too. After the first two murders the film quickly becomes boring with at least five sequences of people walking slowly around dark apartments or basements. I was actually fast forwarding through most of that by the end. The storyline gets confusing and there's tons of continuity errors left and right (I was particularly annoyed when one character is stabbed in broad daylight on a crowded street--and no one notices!). There's also homophobia here--a very vicious gay stereotype of a photographer is shown and the one lesbian character is portrayed as predatory. There's the expected gratuitous female nudity and a REAL stupid ending which just threw revelations at you that were more than a little hard to swallow. The acting is real lousy (but the dubbing may be the problem for this). Fenech is a beautiful woman but no actress. George Hilton as her boyfriend was even worse. Look at his "acting" when his fear of blood pops up. To make matters worse the killings aren't even that bloody! Flatly directed too. Boring and stupid Italian giallo. It treats the audience like a bunch of idiots. Avoid.

"The Case of the Bloody Iris" (1971) stars giallo's "Golden Couple," Edwige Fenech and George Hilton, who had recently appeared together in the Sergio Martino masterpiece "The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh" (1970) and would soon costar in Martino's giallo/Black Mass hybrid "All the Colors of the Dark" (1972). The two make a handsome couple, to put it mildly; indeed, they almost make Grace Kelly and Cary Grant in 1955's "To Catch a Thief" look dowdy! The story here concerns a whacko who's been killing the female residents of the luxury high-rise building where fashion models Edwige and her roommate have just moved. This giallo nutzo shows some imagination, however, and doesn't just depend on a straight-edged blade to do his work; he also drowns his victims in a bathtub and scalds them with hot steam! Many suspects are offered to the viewer: an old lady who loves horror stories, her burnt-faced son, the lesbian next door, her violin-playing dad, Hilton himself (the architect of the high-rise), Edwige's stalker ex-hubby, et al. I amazed myself this time by nailing the culprit halfway through, and I usually stink at these guessing games. Anyway, director Giuliano Carnimeo has shot his film in a fairly straightforward manner, with little of Martino's flashy "stylistics," and composer Bruno Nicolai's theme music is as hummable as can be. All in all, a fun giallo, if nothing great, that is hindered here by some pretty poor dubbing (subtitles would've been so much more preferable!). But Edwige...OMG! I've seen her in five films lately, and still can't quite believe how extraordinarily beautiful she is. My fellow men, you owe it to yourselves to see this spectacular Eurobabe at least once in your lifetime. Then you'll understand why I laughed out loud when one of the characters in this film tells her that she's not his type!