Gli assassini sono nostri ospiti

A trio of jewel thieves including Eliana(Margaret Lee)takes refuge at the home of a surgeon Guido Malerva after one in their group is mortally wounded in a robbery.When the doctor's wife Mara(Livia Cerini)comes home she is subjected to rape and abuse.I would not consider Vincenzo Rigo's "The Killers Are Our Guests" a full-blown giallo,but the film certainly has some giallo elements.The film is actually quite similar to Enzo Castellari's "Cold Eyes of Fear",but it's more exciting and violent.Great performances by Livia Cerini,Margaret Lee,Luigi Pistilli and Anthony Streffen plus some highly welcomed sleaze and beautiful music score by Roberto Rizzo.A must-see for fans of gialli and Euro-crime movies.8 heists out of 10.

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 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.

The one thing that lured me into seeing this movie is the irresistibly Giallo-sounding title. However, despite my fellow reviewers - most of them I practically always agree with - still claiming there are some definite trademarks, I honestly can't find any Giallo elements here. Only the title, and the title is pretty inaccurate, because the "killers" are actually bank robbers (who incidentally killed someone) and they are not "guests" but home invaders. Hence, I would categorize the film as a home-invasion thriller with obvious Poliziotesschi influences.

That being said, "The Killers are our Guests" is certainly worth seeking out if you're a fan of Italian cult/exploitation cinema from the 70s! It has a good atmosphere, familiar faces in the cast, a terrific soundtrack, plenty of gratuitous sleaze, a bit of violence, and an end-twist that I should have seen coming (but didn't). The plot of bank robbers seeking refugee and medical help in the private home of a doctor sounds simple and clichéd, but the atypical characters and their erratic behavior keeps the film compelling. The cast is nice, with spaghetti-western regular Anthony Steffen, ravishing beauty Margaret Lee, and naturally menacing-looking Giuseppe Castellano. Veteran actor Luigi Pistilli also stars, as the police commissioner, but he didn't really seem motivated to star. Still, though, in this film he has some of the most impressive sideburns I have ever seen.