Dellamorte Dellamore

Dellamorte Dellamore
Directed by: Michele Soavi
Italy/France/Germany, 1994
Horror/Romance/Drama, 105 min
Distributed by: Laser Paradise – Red Edition

Michele Soavi has always been an interesting director in my book, and one thing about him that is striking, is that each movie he made, the better they where! He started out as an actor in many a great genre movies working with the likes of Ciro Ippolito in Alien 2: On the Earth 1980, Lucio Fulci on City of the Living Dead 1980, Joe D’Amato in Caligula 2 1982, Ruggero Deodato in Atlantis Interceptors 1983 and Dario Argento in Phenomena 1985 – not to mention all the other Italian genre pieces he acted in without billing. It’s also the later two directors who would become somewhat of mentors for Soavi during the years to come.

Gradually he moved into working as assistant director and second unit on movies like D’Amato’s 2020 Texas Gladiators 1982, Argento’s Tenebre 1982, Lamberto Bava’s A Blade in the Dark 1983 and so forth. Eventually he became friends with Terry Gilliam and worked as second unit on both The Adventures of Baron Munchausen 1988, and The Brothers Grimm 2005. A collaboration and friendship that Soavi often refers to in his own movies where small winks at the movies he made with Gilliam are apparent.

Fairly obvious he was soon to take the step up to full-fledged director of his own. The music video The Valley, which features the song Bill Wyman wrote for Argento’s Phenomena. The video sees Jennifer Connelly walking around an old house as Bill plugs in his guitar to his amp and Argento directs the movie from behind the camera. It’s all honesty it's not too impressive, but a nice little documentation of the Phenomena production and behind the scenes footage.

Soavi followed this first video with the documentary The World of Dario Argento 1985, a study of his former colleague and mentor. Soavi’s first feature, Stage Fright (Deliria) 1987 is a violent generic Slasher film with all the Italian trimmings. Sex, death and gore come together in a terrific mix scripted by George Eastman, and was produced by Joe D’Amato through his Filmirage production company. The movie won the Fear Section Award at the 1987 Avoriaz Film Festival assuring that Soavi was a director to keep your eyes on.

From there on Soavi’s films became bigger and better in many ways, The Church (La chiesa) 1989 - a modern horror with Gothic influences, was written by several leading characters in the genre. Soavi, Lamberto Bava, Dardano Sachetti, and Argento all added to the script, even Nick Alexander wrote the English dialogue. Argento also produced the movie, and it saw his daughter Asia Argento in one of her first movie roles. The Sect (La setta) 1991– a modern, raw Italian take on the Rosemary’s Baby tale, was once again produced by Argento with the Cecchi Gori brothers, and scripted by Argento, Gianni Romoli and Soavi. The Sect is a great movie, although one would today perhaps have preferred Soavi to have stuck with the Pino Donnagio score completely and not used contemporary rock music by at the time popular bands. I find it a problem that several Italian horror films of the nineties suffer from those heavy metal, Goth and rock soundtracks, as they have aged quite a bit by today’s standards. Scores never go out of fashion.

Gianni Romoli was given a second shot at scripting a Michele Soavi flick with one of the best movies to come out of Italy at the time, the excellent Dellamorte Dellamore. Together with Tiziano Sclavi (more on him later), the two writers started to adapt Scvali’s novel of the same name for the big screen. Sclavi had previously written the dark comedy Nero 1992 directed by Giancarlo Soldi. Just like the original comic book, Dellamorte Dellamore keeps the laughter, even though dark and sinister, close at hand through out the movie. Even though the characters have different names and live in completely different location than the source comic, there’s no contradicting that Francesco Dellamorte is Dylan Dog. Change his name to whatever you want, he’s still Dylan Dog in my eyes.

Now to the movie. Dellamorte Dellamore is all about Francesco Dellamorte [Rupert Everett] a dark, cynical man who spends his time working as the caretaker at the Buffalora cemetery where his special task is to take care of the ” returners” who get up out of their graves after seven days and roam the cemetery.

He’s assisted by his dumb mute mate Gnaghi [François Hadji-Lazaro], who only ever say’s ”Gnah” as they keep the peace and the dead in their graves. Quite fed up with his task, but still pretty content, everything keeps on track and the everyday life of the two just simply shuffles on. But one day during a funeral, he spots the young wife of the recently deceased man being buried, and it’s a woman, simply referred to throughout the movie as She [Anna Falchi] who fills Dellamorte with emotions he has never felt before. These emotions have him loosing his way and becoming obsessed with the woman, plunging into dark territory indeed.

As in all great love stories – because you can read Dellamorte Dellamore as a dark comedic horror love story if you chose, which isn’t’ too far away from the main themes of all those comic books that it’s based on – there has to be an obstacle for the main protagonist to overcome in his quest, and without revealing too much “She” becomes a major obstacle for Dellamorte. She’s just buried her husband and doesn’t want to get involved with him, but carnal lust makes that a difficult decision and eventually after a great homage to Arnold Böcklin's key painting The Isle of the Dead - which was one of the paintings that kick-started the Romantic period of art history – She can resist no more. As they give in to their desires her husband returns from the dead, and taking a big bad bite out of her arm which will soon lead to her death, Dellamorte is faced with the first of many dilemmas he has to tackle throughout the movie, after all it is his job to kill the returners.

The twists and turns taunt Dellamorte and he finds himself standing face to face with She in several incarnations, and the strong emotions he holds towards She make him do some terrifying, hilarious and surreal actions. Theses actions and the complex love affairs eventually drives him over the edge and makes for a great twist ending. An ending that readers of the comic book source will cherish as it makes perfect sense in the Dylan Dog universe.

One theme that is recurrent through out the movie is the relationship between Death and Life entwined. Lost lovers return – both from the grave, and in new incarnations, new lovers die – both at the hand of the dead and by the hand of the living, and Dellamorte is caught up in-between them both, which is also illustrated through his frequent meeting and dialogue with death, and the most obvious being his name Dellamorte - even though it's his mother who is called Dellamore Dellamorte the name is translated to "of love (life), of death".

The red haired death puppet is just one of those regular Soavi winks towards Terry Gilliam – The death figure is the same animatronics as in Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen – on which Soavi worked as second unit on – there’s even a Baron Munchausen keying in a shot seen in The Sect if you want further examples of the referrals.

There’s a fantastic circular movement that wraps around the movie; during the opening credits there’s a snow globe that shows Dellamorte and Gnaghi standing on a wrecked bridge, as the movie comes to an end we are once again shown the snow globe, but pay attention and you will notice that the figures are on opposite sides to where they where standing in the first shot. It’s fair to imagine that the two will have further adventures together which will once again see the two of them change places and roles with each other. And this is also a theme that is recurrent in the Dylan Dog comic books.

Dellamorte Dellamore is in many ways Soavi’s finest hour, as everything that he’s picked up along the way, be it as an actor, assistant director, second unit or from the guidance of the magnificent mentors that have acted as producers on his movies to till this one, is brought to it’s peak. Wonderfully told, an engaging story, great effects and some stunning imagery that certainly must have had Dario Argento, Aristide Masseccesi and Terry Gilliam satisfied that there protégé obviously had been paying attention through out the years.

The movie walks a fine line between horror and dark comedy, and that’s not too surprising as the movie is based on Tiziano Sclavi's novel Dellamorte Dellamore, which also has a lot of humour in the darkness. Sclavi wrote this novel several years before he refined the character into the dark hero character found in the splendid Dylan Dog comic books, for whom Everett actually served as the main inspiration for.

But Everett, in the movie shape, pulls it off like clockwork and is everything that the illustrated original is, and as the movie ponders into the final quarter it takes on an even bleaker tone, that makes it stand out among the contemporary flicks that where being made at the time. The dark cynicism of the comic book shines trough and I’m glad that it does because this could have been such a bad movie if one had made the decision to develop the characters into something else than those of the fantastic comic book. There’s currently a new Dylan Dog movie in the making, Kevin Munroe’s Dead of Night which I’m certainly looking forward to, but at the same time I’m very sceptical towards as I don’t really feel that they will manage to keep that authentic Dylan Dog aura to the characters. There’s not to many US produced dark comedies that let the protagonist stay as complex as Soavi’s Dellamorte actually is, and I fear that they will make him more Twilight likeable than the complicated character he is supposed to be.

After Dellamorte Dellamore, Soavi ventured into directing TV movies and sort of vanished of the radar for a few years, but reminded his audience that he was still a key figure with the excellent thriller The Goodbye Kiss (Arrivederci amore, ciao) 2006, and the WW2 drama Blood of the Loosers (Il sangue dei vinti) 2008, which reunited him with Screenwriter Dardano Sachetti. But I feel that Dellamorte Dellamore is the crown jewel of his career, and I was lucky to see the movie on the big screen during the Stockholm Film Festival in the nineties – it’s still one of my favourite films and festival experiences – and revisiting the movie all these years later I still found it a very entertaining little movie that has stood up against the tests of time with bravura.

Image:

Widescreen 1.85:1

Audio:

Dolby Digital Surround English Dialogue or German Dub available. German subtitles optional

Extras:

Trailers for Laser Paradise Discs and a Horror Trailer show for horror related titles that they released on DVD.

The Raiders of Atlantis

The Raiders of Atlantis
Aka: Atlantis Interceptors
Original Title: I predatori di Atlantide
Directed by: Ruggero Deodato
Italy/Philippines, 1983
Action/Adventure, 93min

Weren’t the seventies and eighties just bloody great? Weren’t the B-movies of this time period so much better than they are now? These days cheap DV, crap dialogue and shitty acting all feel so damned rough, raw and most often lack the passion for making an imprint. Back in the eighties (and before then too of course) B-movies and even worse were at least shot on film. There was a larger machinery behind the process, which demanded more than just calling up your mates and shooting. B-movies where still all about telling the best story for the least bucks, and they did make some really great movies. But the best part of it all was that these cheap low budget flicks pretty quick ended up on video (some on the big screen if we where lucky) for the thirsty home entertainment crowds outside of the native countries, which constantly fuelled our cravings for cheap kicks; Hong Kong kung-fu movies, European and American horror, Giallo and exploitation movies, Italian Spaghetti Westerns and Bud Spencer - Terence Hill action comedies that we could watch with our mates in front of the gargantuan video tape recorder. And watch them we did, over and over again.

Following the Australian low budget surprise hit movie Mad Max 1979, directed by George Miller, Italian movie producers, screenwriters and directors went post apocalypse mad. Movies like Sergio Martino’s 2019: After the Fall of New York 1983, Joe D’Amato’s Texas Gladiators 2020 1982, and Endgame 1983, Enzo G. Castellari’s trillogy The Bronx Warriors 1982, The New Barbarians 1982, Escape from The Bronx 1983, Lamberto Bava’s Blastfighter 1984 and Lucio Fulci’s The New Gladiators 1984, to name a few, hit hard and milked the path of the impending doom, biker gangs in barren wasteland to the max, and in it creating the splendid Italian Post Apocalypse genre.

Ruggero Deodato also directed his take on this amusing little subgenre, and even through screenwriters Tito Carpi [one of the writers on Deodato’s Last Cannibal World (together with Deodato regular Gianfranco Clerici), Enzo G. Castellari’s The New Barbarians 1982 and Escape From the Bronx 1983] and Vincenzo Mannino [who wrote Deodato’s The House on the Edge of the Park 1980, Phantom of Death 1988), Castellari’s The Last Shark 1981, Lucio Fulci’s The New York Ripper 1982 and Murder Rock – Dancing Death 1984 together with Gianfranco Clerici too] took the task of setting yet another adventure in the bleak future, they did try something that differs it from the other urban city end of the world movies, they brought in one of mankind’s most cherished and fascinating myths, the legend of Atlantis.

Time for a quick fix if you haven’t seen this delight since the age of video: Shot in 1983, the movies is set in a near future - 1991, Miami, Florida - or rather a distant past watching it these days Mike [Christopher Connelly] is a old school action guy who comes across as a mix between Don Johnson in Miami Vice and Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones films, as he jump starts the movie with his compadre Washington [Tony King], as they rush through a rapid kidnap scenario. The dudes are paid and take off for a weekend of cruising the seas outside Miami. A helicopter blasts by them and tauntingly circles them before taking off for the horizon. We cut to an oilrig like location where Professor Peter Saunders [George Hilton] greets Doctor Cathy Rollins [Gloia Scola], and pretty quickly delivers the exposition needed. ON the bottom of the sea, a Russian atomic submarine lies abandoned, and the plan is to raise the sub, but during the preparation, they have found some strange ancient tablets that can only be encrypted by Dr. Rollins. Well a movie without conflicts is a boring movie, so as soon as they start their successful levitation of the Sub, the shit hit’s the fan and an electrical storm blacks out the entire coast. Up from the bottom of the ocean a glass encased island forces it’s way to the skies, creating such tidal waves that the oilrig topples over and crashes into the ocean. Luckily Mike and Washington are in the area and manage to save but a few survivors – James [Michele Soavi], Professor Saunders, Bill Cook [Ivan Rassimov] Frank [Giancarlo Pratoi] and Dr. Rollins and together they set of for shore, not the island which would have been the obvious choice, but for the safety of land.

At the same time that this strange aquatic phenomenon has been taking place out at sea, mysterious gangs have been roaming the streets, creating chaos and raising havoc amongst the population. Murder is their game, and the Atlantis Interceptors are their name. These gang members, led by Crystal Skull [Bruce Baron] and ancestors of Atlantis, are killing off the people of our world in their quest for the knowledge that will make the Atlantians the truthful rulers of the world once again… and after a few violent battles, the finally find the one they are looking for. Yeah, you may have guessed it, Dr. Rollins is the woman with the knowledge, and the Atlantians snatch her right from under Mike’s nose. Needless to say this is at approximately midpoint, dramatically speaking, movie wise we’re two thirds through. Mike persuades the rest of the gang that they have to go to Atlantis – the island that rose earlier – and take back Cathy. Hence starts the jungle adventure part of the movie, and also gives Deodato yet another opportunity to shoot in the Philippine jungle, which see’s most of the cast meeting their deaths in various battles against the Atlantis Interceptors. As all good things come to an end, so does even The Raiders of Atlantis, and after the the final bout between Crystal Skull and Mike, which you probably already can guess the outcome of, there's a spectacular and enigmatic meeting with Cathy, now hailed and worshiped as a god by the Atlantians as she’s cracked the code to their power. In the somewhat confusing climax, the survivors’ race towards freedom as Atlantis once again closes its glass casing and returns to the bottom of the ocean. Phew - what a rush. They don't make 'em like this anymore.

There are a few wonderful tricks in this movie, tricks that make it an enjoyable flick. The first being the way the sell Christopher Connelly’s character Mike. Just like those hard formulated James Bond movies, and the Indiana Jones flicks, The Raiders of Atlantis starts up with the culmination of the previous mission which shows Mike and his sidekick Washington breaking into a house, kidnapping some dude, punching and shooting their way back out. They deliver the kidnapped victim to the mobster who gave them the task, get paid and take off for new adventures. Just before they get to the rendezvous place, the mobsters’ henchmen deliver the following dialogue: “They made it!” – “They always do!”

This little action opening shows us that Mike and Wash’ are men of action, they don’t talk bollocks they get the job done. No task is too hard for the duo, and we also understand that they have been around the block a few times before. This is further indicated as they get closer to the rig later, and meet up with their fellow adventurers. They already know who Cross [Rassimov] is, and as they alter share a beer, and fly the helicopter they reference previous adventures. The reoccurring gag where Mike calls Washington “Wash”, instead of his new name as a reborn Muslim, Mohammed, also adds to the layers as their friendship obviously goes so far back that Washington has always, and will always be Wash.

And that’s pretty much what you take with you into the movie, as it sets up Mike and Walsh as the shit kicking action heroes that they are, and they do kick some shit in this wonderful, sometimes cheesy, but excellent action flick which manages to do the job and keep me entertained for the ninety-two minute duration of the film.

The stunt team – Rock Stuntman Team – frequently used in Italian movies, pull off some great bits here. Apart from the usual falling off bikes and high cliffs in the jungle of Atlantis (much like they fell off horses and rooftops in the Spaghetti Westerns), they also perform some amazing aerial stunts as they throw themselves out of a moving helicopter onto a moving buss containing our group of protagonists. Impressive stuff to say the least, and definitely one of the highpoints of the movie.

Needless to say the re-naming of the movie: The Raiders of Atlantis, is once again a cunning trick of the marketing department and the producers, and is only there in an attempt to cash in on the success of Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark 1981, and the original title – I predatori di Atlantide translates as The Predators of Atlantis, is a more understandable title, as no one really raids Atlantis, but rather the Atlantians are the predators. And in some bizarre way the screenwriters have even managed to pack in a warning to mankind in the movie. After Atlantis has risen again, the Atlantians start killing mankind as they feel we have misused it. Gang leader Crystal Skull makes it quite clear when he declares his mission with the line of dialogue - ”You have violated our world, and therefore you must be punished. All of you will be executed!”

Directing under his pseudonym Roger Franklin, Deodato’s splendid The Raiders of Atlantis was edited by Vincent Thomas, or rather Vincenzo Tomassi – Fulci’s main man in the edit suite, there’s some pretty grand special effects by Gino De Rossi (decapitations, classic Deodato booby trap in the jungle, deadly darts and an arrow through the head), the mighty Nick Alexander supervised he English dialogue version (and provided the Dub for Rassimov’s Bill Cook) and there’s a real chunky score by Maurizio and Guido De Angelis under the cryptic name Oliver Onions. Great combinations that make it a highly enjoyable movie, and keep an eye out for Deodato in a cameo appearance on the oil rig during the first half.

Image:

Fullfram 4:3

Audio:

Stereo. English Dialogue, Swedish Subtitles

Extras:

Well it’s taken from an old Swedish rental tape, but theirs is actually a trailer for Fabrizio De Angelis’ Thunder 1983 after the movie.

Here's the great trailer, and if you pay attention, you'll even catch Deodato in there.

Nothing Underneath

Nothing Underneath

[Modell morden]
Original Title: Sotto il vestito niente
Directed by: Carlo Vanzina
Italy 1985
Giallo, 90min
Distributed by: Njutafilms.

Story:
Fashion, models, drugs and murder in Milan is what brings Wyoming Ranger Bob Crane to Italy as he searches for his missing twin sister Jessica. Through telepathic visions Bob saw Jessica being murdered and with the help of aging Commissioner Dannesi he starts his own investigation into his sisters’ whereabouts. Quickly making friends with Barbara, another model living at the same hotel as he is, he finds himself in the middle of a series of murders where the friends of his sister are being killed off one by one. Everything points in the direction of the sleazy jeweler Giorgio Pelloni whose main interests are snorting cocaine, looking at photographs of himself and shagging fashion models, sometimes more than one at a time. After presenting a water tight alibi, a dark secret is revealed, and the investigation has to search for new suspects. That’s when Bob receives a strange telegram from his missing sister…

Me:
Like many of the great sub genres there comes a time when they painfully prove top have past their best before date. The Italian Giallo is no exception, and Carlo Vanzina’s Nothing Underneath, shot in 1985, is mostly a showcase of a dying genre’s last gasps. The story, un-originally enough, is set in Milan, where young photo models are being murdered one by one. As mentioned, it’s a quite used theme and definitely previously explored within the Giallo sphere, from Maria Bava’s Blood and Black Lace [Sei donne per l'assassino], 1964, to Andrea Bianchi’s Strip Nude for your Killer [Nude per l’assasino] 1975. (Although the Giallo as a genre lived on well into the early nineties presenting a few decent pieces along the way.) The gloved killer stalking fashion models getting in and out of their clothing feels quite tedious when it’s still being used some twenty years later. On top of this there’s a few quite misplaced shots’ that do more to disturb the movie than help it along. For an instance there’s a completely uncalled for crotch shot which looks more like an insert than anything else right in the start of the build towards the second killing. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against sporadic nudity as it definitely is part of the Giallo atmosphere, but this shot is just so out of place, and actually had me making a mental note that the later Gialli certainly don’t have the “kinky charm” that the early ones had. But, naked women, suave men, gloved assassins and onscreen violence are all part of the tricks of the trade so it shouldn’t distract me; rather the opposite but the unmotivated beaver shot just annoyed me. Even the sleaziest entries into the genre didn’t go that far without a very motivated reason. There’s a much classier shot a few minutes later where Carrie [Catherine Noyes] walks out on Giorgio [Cyrus Elias] after refusing to have sex with him. She runs from the suite and on her way she walks over a subway grid, and shot from beneath the grid the wind lifts her skirt in a The Seven Year Itch/Marilyn Monroe homage that is far more refined. And that’s the level it should be kept at. More of a teasing of the senses instead of a gagging close up.

Anyhow enough ranting about that because this film does have a few very interesting things going for it after all. The main plot focuses on Bob Crane [Tom Schanley] a ranger from Wyoming who travels to Milan to investigate what has happened to his twin sister Jessica [Nicola Perring] after experiencing a vision where he sees her being murdered. This twin paranormal connection is used in several occasions and works great as a bridge between moving us to the next set up and presenting new twists in the plot. Like the climax where Bob “feels” the presence of his sister and makes his way towards her location. It would have been impossible to have him find that flat with out this great device, and it works like a charm. Again it's nothing new to the Giallo sphere as premonitions of death have been used in the genre before like in Lucio Fulci's Murder to the Tune of Seven Black Notes to name one. The legendary Donald Pleasance (speaking with the most ridiculous fake Italian dialect) is Commissioner Daniesi who at first neglects Bob’s inquiry, but later reveals that he is going to retire in two weeks time and want s to close this case before he quits the force. Pleasance is always a joy to watch and even though he looks really old and tired he impresses like hell as they chase a suspect through the Milan Central station. But after starring in Seven movies during 1985 it’s easy to understand if he was getting tired. There are a few surprises that work really well as they are built up to through genre conventions. Towards the end of the film when most of the “red herrings” are killed off and there are only two options left to who the killer can be, the missing Jessica is reintroduced, and things take an unexpected twist just before the climactic finale where the true killer chases Bob around the apartment with a power drill. Also one of the minor details that I love about the Gialli is that the title is frequently reflected in the narrative of the movie. It almost becomes a second puzzle to solve as you watch the movie, where it the title reference hidden this time. In this case the original title Sotto il vestito niente translates more or less to “nothing underneath the clothes” which is a reference to why Giorgio likes fashion models so much.

I feel that I have to mention something about Renée Toft Simonesen here seen as she is the leading lady of this movie. She plays Barbara, Bob’s “love interest” in the movie, who not until the very end of the movie proves to have known Jessica much more intimately than she has been claiming throughout the movie. Danish “girl next door” Simonsen was one of the most successful models during the 80’s. She was the cover girl on German Vogue in March, April and September and was also featured on the cover of Roxy Music’s compilation album Atlantic Years in 1983. She only acted in two movies, one being this one and then in a second movie with Carlo Vanzina, the comedy Via Montenapoleone in 1987. Then she started to pull herself away from the fashion industry, and after turning down a role as Bond girl in 1988 she retired from the business to start studying psychology. Today she has authored two books and works as a psychologist. Now doesn’t that make you want to sit down with her and listen to her analysis of the Barbara character from a professional stance? I know I would!

In the late eighties there was a significant change in the soundtracks of most Italian genre movies, where the great collaborations with the likes of Ennio Morricone, Riz Ortolani, Stelvio Cipriani, Bruno Nicolai and Goblin where set aside for a more modern approach. For some undeclared reason, modern pop and rock oozed it’s way into the soundtracks of several great Italian genre pieces, which just like this one, damages them now some twenty years later as what was once considered contemporary music hasn’t aged as gracefully as the jazzy scores by Ennio Morricone has, or the ferocious progressive rock of bands like Goblin have. Remember Lamberto Bava’s Demoni movies? Remember Argento’s Terror at the Opera. Remember Michele Soavi’s The Sect [La Setta]? When they first where released the new wave and hard rock music was spot on, but today those movies are almost unwatchable as the soundtracks are so outdated by their musical choices. Even with its score by Pino Donnagio, Nothing Underneath suffers from the late eighties pop music used in the fashion shows, the shoots, the parties and just annoys the crap out of me. If only they had stuck with the Donnagio score it might have had a chance to stay timeless.

But still, Nothing Underneath is after all a decent Giallo, even though it shows the flaws of being in the later period of the genre and mostly just rehashing old ideas. But there are a few interesting twists that make up for the familiarity and in my opinion rather mild approach to the onscreen violence. Compared to earlier Gialli and contemporary Italian horror of the late eighties there could have been a lot more visual carnage on screen, but here the most visual it gets, is a pair of scissors pushed into a back. And even though the spin on the almost obligatory “bath tub murder” is kept off screen only to be used by the killer to wash the blood of the scissors, there are several scenes where they could have gone so much further making a bigger imprint. The power drill fight at the end is very lame, it could have gotten much more violent and gorier with a few effects, and the girl who committed suicide could have been much more visual. One exploding head effect could have worked wonders for the movie and really have made a mark. Screenwriter Franco Ferrini shows the beginning of a great career taking off with this movie. Where he previously had been part of a larger writing staff on the likes of Michele Massimo Tarantini’s Crimebusters, and Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, he moved up to being co-writer with Lamberto Bava on Demons, Dario Argento on Phenomena, Two Evil Eyes, Trauma, Stendhal Syndrome, Sleepless, The Card Player and Do You Like Hitchcock?, and not to forget Eros Pugielli’s Eyes of Crystal from 2004 the closest thing to a Giallo to hit the screens in a long time.

All in all, Sotto il vestito niente is entertaining, it has a few surprises you won’t see coming and most of all an interesting study of mid eighties music, style and fashion, not to say one of the better movies of a dying genre.

Image:
Cinemascope 2:35:1 / Anamorphic

Audio:
English Dolby Digital 5.1 or English Dolby Digital 2.0 with optional subtitles in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian or Finnish.

Extras:
Theatrical Trailer, other Gialli Trailers from Njuta Films/Another World Entertainment, trailer show for other Njuta Films/Another World Entertainment titles, a slideshow of publicity stills and director filmography.