A bunch of hipsters jump into cars and head off to a party, but these folks are so happening and groovy that they've just gotta stop those cars twice during the credits sequence to have a dance! This being a mid-sixties Italian film, the party is taking place at a huge creepy mansion. For a change.
There's about a dozen of these folks and as the film is dubbed everybody pretty much gibbers on at the same time. They all turn up at the mansion and then the guys and girls split up to discuss who they're gonna bone later that night. Except the creepy housekeeper, who had an affair with one of the guys but he's telling her to keep quiet about it as it'll ruin his chances with one of the more up market dames.
Not much later this lady shows up and she's one of these beatnik hedonist types who starts playing parlour games, but that's after she puts a new record on – it's called Sexy Party and everyone gets to do a dance. It's hilarious but I'm not sure that was the original intention, and any slasher film that has a musical break gets extra points from me!
Not that there's any slashing being done by that point. Nor indeed any time soon after that, as our beatnik lady messes with people's heads, including one guy having to bet 'his' girl in a game of dice (some other guy wins ten minutes with her – this film would go down a treat with feminists!) Then after that the beatnik's companion (Drew Barrymore's dad?) does a psychic trick and tells them they better leave before they all get killed.
By this point 99% of the population of Earth would have switched this film off, but I was enthralled by the insane dubbing, including lines like "He's got long hair but he's not an artist" and "It's freezing here – someone burn a tree", and the terrible over the top acting, and Kitty's jump suit get up. Also by this point one of the characters notices that Drew Barrymore's dad's prophecies are coming true, one of which seems to involve all the female characters changing clothes for what felt like about fifty minutes.
Finally, someone gets murdered, and for a while it looks like the plot is beginning to drag on a bit (even the characters complain of being bored) but then things start zig-zagging all over the place. This one has a very high camp value (the character Edie is so ditzy she wouldn't be out of place in later Gialli like The Case of The Bloody Iris and Strip Nude for Your Killer) and there's plenty of twists to take it out of the standard giallo formula.
Low body count though, but that's to be expected at this stage I guess.
