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Pieces (***)
Boston, Massachusetts is an unlikely setting for a Spanish giallo cum slasher, and anyone familiar with Madrid will knowingly chortle at several of the locations; just as amusing are the dubbed voices for the actors, along with the insane narrative, and yet it's not only the sheer badness of this sleazy cult classic but its infectious energy that make it so much fun to watch: 'bastard! bastard! bastard!!'

Delirium: Photo Of Gioia (***)
an enjoyable and underrated latter-day giallo by Lamberto Bava, full of essential ingredients: insanely beautiful women, piles of sleaze and gore, red herrings, and thankfully not too much police drudgery; the movie is unusual in its use of a first-person killer perspective, you experience the crimes from inside his/her head

Death Walks At Midnight (**)
after a promising opening, Luciano Ercoli's lesser movie gets bogged down in the dreary details of police detective work and inexplicable narrative and character development; that said, it's eminently stylish with a superb score

A Blade In The Dark (***)
highly watchable Lamberto Bava weirdness - huge dollops of Hitchcock, boatloads of red herrings, fantastic electronic soundtrack, and a creepy plot device that presages Svankmajer's Down To The Cellar by a good decade

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Kill Baby Kill, 1968 (****)
Mario Bava's classic prototype for all little-girl ghost films ever since is both aesthetically beautiful and memorably creepy enough to transcend the severe limitations of the genre, not to mention some rather gaping holes in its plot

Island Of Death, 1975 (*****)
epic perversity from Greece about a murderously sociopathic couple holidaying on the island of Mykonos; shameless genre-lovers will revel in this mindboggingly relentless odyssey of sleaze and shocks; also, check out the creepy mix of analog synths and acoustic sounds on the marvellous soundtrack

Burning Lips, 1976 (***)
it's testament to Leonora Fani's astounding talents that a film like this, which - with European porn theatre audiences in mind - seems to have been edited with a rusty hatchet, is actually more than watchable; her unrivalled on-screen kissing skills need to be seen to be believed

Lipstick, 1976 (*****)
the extraordinary Polnareff soundtrack and moving performances from the Hemingway sisters elevate this shocking drama to the heavens; make sure to get the full uncut version of this 70s classic

Winter Heat, 1976 (****)
all the girls in porno grindhouse Winter Heat get to genuinely enjoy Gillis at his very best mixing up his deadly repertoire of improvised verbal bullying, sleazy negative compliments, and even some surprisingly affectionate lovemaking

Suspiria, 1977 (**)
despite a couple of lush set-pieces and undeniably fabulous locations, this movie fails in several ways that matter: actors that are completely out of their depth, a dreary script, and some really poor pacing - for me, and I know many will disagree, Argento rates poorly alongside other Italian giallo directors

Midnight Heat, 1983 (**)
Jamie Gillis was untouchable in many ways, but unfortunately straight acting wasn't one of them, much as he and others would have liked it to be; Roger Watkins' (Last House On Dead End Street) brave attempt to make an arthouse porno falls flat

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Girly, 1970 (*****)
forgotten UK classic in the shape of a highly twisted black comedy based on Maisie Mosco's stage play Happy Family, a sleazy Pinteresque orgy of moral relativism - if you, like me, are a fan of The Baby then you urgently need to see this

Short Night Of The Glass Dolls, 1971 (*****)
intelligent and disturbing mystery drama set in Communist Prague: the atmospheric exteriors and interiors of the city are a marvellous backdrop for the search for an American journalist's missing Czech girlfriend, one which leads to a breathtakingly horrific finale

Let's Scare Jessica To Death, 1971 (***)
off-kilter and effectively creepy US film notable for Zohra Lampert's haunting performance as Jessica, a young woman recovering from her recent spell in a mental institution

Night Train Murders, 1975 (*****)
incredibly powerful remake of The Virgin Spring set on an Italy-bound train from Munich; director Aldo Lado delivers a far more satisfying, artful, coherent, plausible, darker, faster-paced experience than Wes Craven's inferior Last House On The Left

Bestialità, 1976 (****)
shocking cocktail of swingers and zoophilia and philosophy and Leonora Fani on a remote Mediterranean holiday island

Rabid Dogs (*****)
the genius that is Mario Bava, with this superb charismatic quasi-Brechtian abduction drama (and almost no budget to work with), puts the clumsy cartoonish gangster hero-worship pretensions of Scorsese and Tarantino, amongst others, to shame - a true classic

La Orca, 1976 (*****)
compelling and shocking kidnap drama: the evolving relationship that develops between captors and their captive Alice - affected as it is by her sexuality, social class, and the remote context - is brilliantly portrayed

Oedipus Orca, 1977 (***)
intriguing sequel to La Orca which explores the aftermath of Alice's kidnapping whilst filling us in on much of her family's darker secrets

Maladolescenza, 1977 (**)
highly dishonest exploration of pre/adolescent sexuality, albeit surprisingly explicit

Pensione Paura, 1977 (*****)
Leonora Fani is extraordinary as the young put-upon daughter who's left alone after her mother's death to look after a hotel full of deeply unpleasant guests; Francesco Barilli's Pensione Paura is an astounding work: a classic by any standard, let alone amongst gialli - it also features the most breathtakingly urgent and passionate kiss I have ever witnessed on celluloid

Nenè, 1977 (****)
the incredibly talented Leonora Fani stars in Samperi's superior coming-of-age sexual drama set in post-WW2 Italy while the CIA steals the election from the Italian Communist Party

To Be Twenty, 1978 (*****)
yet another incredible Italian masterpiece from the 70s, this time in the form of a sexy satirical comedy which explodes with arguably the darkest, most downbeat ending you will ever see

Vacation Massacre, 1980 (**)
this otherwise promising italosleaze is fatally undermined by the hopelessly miscast Dallesandro's laughable ineptitude, and not only at acting - he barely demonstrates the kissing skills of a nervous 11-year old, let alone a dangerous sex-starved escaped criminal

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Giallo A Venezia (*****)
this amazingly explicit giallo is also one of the very best: its drawn-out depictions of sexual perversion and shocking violence have an authentic resonance that's extremely rare in cinema; Leonora Fani is sensational as the young wife induced by her architect husband into acts of increasingly kinky sex

What Are Those Strange Drops Of Blood Doing On Jennifer's Body? (***)
even by giallic standards, the plot is absolute nonsense (not to mention the film's promising but irrelevant title), yet it's hard not to like for its imaginative camera angles, for its marvellous set pieces, and for the always captivating presence of Edwige Fenech

The Fifth Cord (**)
style wins out over substance in this decidedly pedestrian giallo; Bazzoni's admittedly sumptuous photography doesn't, unfortunately, compensate for the dreary uninspiring plot

The Killer Is Still Among Us (*****)
powerful, creepy, and deeply affecting movie based on the still-unsolved Monster Of Florence case: the murder sequences have a shocking authenticity, often with no accompanying soundtrack, and the narrative, experienced through the backstory of a female criminology student, allows for a heavily nuanced cognitive appreciation of the general paranoia the case elicited

The Pyjama Girl Case (*****)
ignore the haters, this is a masterpiece: stunning original giallo which, stylistically, is decades ahead of its time predating the clearly derivative styles later employed by Rob Zombie, Tarantino, and others; a geriatric Ray Milland slurs his way through his lines whilst Dalila Di Lazzaro provides classy female glamour to the sleazy proceedings set in beautiful Sydney - as if that wasn't enough we get a phenomenal soundtrack from disco queen Amanda Lear and composer Riz Ortolani (including the staggering Moroder-on-acid electronic maelstrom Il Corpo Di Linda)

The New York Ripper (****)
Fulci's cash-in of Friedkin's Cruising similarly explores the sleazy underbelly of New York in an unashamedly gruesome (and highly enjoyable) style all mixed in with your typical giallic red herrings and plot twists - the maniac's Donald Duck impersonations are notably creepy

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Another wholesome helping of decidedly unlegitimate italosleaze goodness.

What Have They Done To Solange? (*****)
sensational movie with a terrific international cast; the tone -whilst not without welcome moments of giallo sleaze- is relentlessly dark, containing shocking plot developments that nowadays nobody would dare touch, and all leading to an extremely satisfying finale

Death Walks On High Heels (****)
a gloriously creepy, if at times convoluted, giallo set in a remote unnamed English coastal village with a superbly bizarre cast of support characters and extras

Tenebrae (****)
Dario Argento has lots of amazing wonderfully wild cinematic ideas; his direction however, like the quality of the women he casts (comparatively speaking), is pretty rough around the edges - that said, Tenebrae is arguably his best and notable for its memorable climax, Goblin's fantastic soundtrack - oh, and a very scary dog

Forbidden Photos Of A Lady Above Suspicion (*****)
what it lacks in gore, Forbidden Photos more than makes up for in sexual intrigue, its feisty script and glossy cinematography, and above all, Dagmar Lassander's array of cripplingly beautiful outfits and sezzy looks

Who Saw Her Die? (***)
this thematically dark giallo set in the magisterial ambience of Venice (like Roeg's later and derivative Don't Look Now) is simply astounding leading up to the second shocking murder; unfortunately, the direction then becomes somewhat incoherent, Lado perhaps trying too hard to stick to the genre's formulae

Your Vice Is A Locked Room And Only I Have The Key (*****)
you've got it all here: stellar cast featuring a perfect role for Edwige Fenech and an outrageous performance by Luigi Pistilli, finally a male actor up to the task in hand; some top-class sleaze; a twisty satisfying plot; some gorgeous cinematography; an astounding baroque Bruno Nicolai soundtrack.... and a black cat

All The Colors Of The Dark (***)
it's testament to the beguiling charisma of Edwige Fenech that she manages to single-handedly carry what would be an otherwise mediocre giallo, here, as she is caught up with some Satanic crusties in London and an unlikeable husband

The Strange Vice Of Mrs. Wardh (****)
even Conchita Airoldi is upstaged by the magnetic painful beauty of Edwige Fenech - classic giallo, set in Vienna and a still-Francoist Sitges, which explores unusually brave themes regarding female sexuality; Nora Orlandi, a Morricone cohort, provides a memorable, at times experimental, soundtrack to the proceedings

Strip Nude For Your Killer (***)
for what 'Nude per l'assassino' lacks in terms of plot cohesion, character development, and plausibility, we are amply compensated by the quality of sleaze on display

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A good giallo, before it can be considered great, must fulfil certain specific criteria:
- stunning locations unfamiliar to the viewer
- beautiful charismatic girls of all types and backgrounds that revel in the celebration of their tarterie, to wit, the showing-off of their bodies in sensationally alluring outfits
- a brilliant eclectic soundtrack by a single composer
- an unknown sex maniac killer sporting stylish black leather gloves

Torso (****)
the red-headed beauty that is Tina Aumont, plus the extraordinary proto-slasher chase scene in the woods (remorselessly imitated ever since), would alone make worth seeing what is otherwise a patchy yet tremendously fun and sexy giallo

Six Women For The Murderer (*****)
Sei Donne, in its entirety, is a vibrantly beautiful sexy feast for your greedy eyes; Bava's 1964 classic was a huge influence on the giallo genre

A Lizard In A Woman's Skin (****)
weird and highly satisfying giallo by Fulci set in 60s swinging London, it captures the sordidness of the hippie acid scene better than most films of the era

A Bay Of Blood (****)
fascinating to see the origins of the slasher-by-numbers genre, in particular the Friday 13th franchise - the ever-inventive Mario Bava was, once more, way ahead of his time

Don't Torture A Duckling (*****)
Fulci's masterpiece, way better than all his later zombie shit; there are some extraordinarily memorable and twisted scenes, some wonderful mystery and polemic, a fine cast including the incomparable Barbara Bouchet, a killer Ortolani soundtrack, and all set in astounding locations in southern Italy; what more could you possibly want?

The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (**)
from a promising outset this starts to drag badly, the actors lack charisma, Morricone's score is substandard, and the cinematography is nothing special compared to the best of the gialli; Dario Argento is, once again, way overrated

The Red Queen Kills 7 Times (****)
brilliant stylish (and oft-overlooked) giallo by Emilio Miraglia set in beautiful Wurzburg, Bavaria - with a classic Bruno Nicolai soundtrack to match