KILLER MUST STRIKE AGAIN, THE

aka L'assassino è costretto a uccidere ancora (I), Il Ragno (production title)
1975
Italy/France
Giuseppe Tortorella & Umberto Linzi for Albione Cin.ca, Git International Film (Milan), Paris Cannes Productions (Paris)
Director: Lewis Coates [Luigi Cozzi]
Story & screenplay: L. [Luigi] Cozzi, Daniele Del Giudice
Music: Nando De Luca (Saar)
Cinematography: Riccardo Pallottini {Technicolor}
Editor: Alberto Moro
Set design: n/a
Cameraman: Piergiorgio Pozzi
Filmed:
Release information: Registered 05.11.74. Italy (12.08.75, 87 mins)
Cast: George Hilton (Giorgio Mainardi), Michel Antoine (the assassin), Cristina Galbo (Laura), Femi Benussi, Alessio Orano (Luca), Teresa Velasquez (Norma Mainardi), Eduardo Fajardo (the police commissioner), Dario Griachi, Luigi Antonio Guerra, Carla Mancini

THE DVD

This film is available as a lovely DVD from Amazon.com

BACKGROUND

Luigi Cozzi is an infuriating director. I mean, just look at his work. The Star Wars rip-off Starcrash, for instance, in which Christopher Plummer plays an evil alien (and contributes a strong contender for the most inebriated performance in motion pictures ever). Or what about Contamination, with its extraterrestrial avocados that make people explode. Or The Black Cat (although this should be warned against). Or The Paganini Horror . Or Hercules. Then, just when you think that the highest honour this pantheon of shit could be accorded is that it's unintentionally hilarious, along comes The Killer Must Strike Again, one of the most compulsive, grim and effective of all giallos.

STORY

Admittedly, it does waver from the form slightly in that it's not so much a whodunit as a howdiditgowrong. George Hilton plays debt-ridden businessmen Minardi, who is siphoning money from his wife's well-proportioned bank account. When she finds out, she threatens him with divorce, so he goes off in a sulk, eventually ending up by a deserted canal where he tries to phone his mistress. While there, he happens to see a really creepy guy (who remains nameless throughout the entire film) disposing of a corpse. Ever the opportunist, he hires him to sort out the increasingly unobliging missus.

Soon a plan is hatched by which Minardi will be at a party while his newfound friend is doing the dirty deed. The whole thing is designed to look as though the unfortunate lady is the victim of kidnappers who then get carried away and kill their charge. As is usual with flawless schemes, however, it all goes seriously wrong. The murder is carried out; the body put in the boot of the car for disposal and the creepy guy returns to the scene of the crime to wipe down any fingerprints he may have left.

Unfortunately, no allowance has been made for the pair of hippy-dippy cretins who decide that a vehicle with the keys left in the ignition is too much of a temptation. They take off for a joyride to the beach where the wannabe Romeo attempts to get his chick into the sack with the immortal comment 'Aren't you bored with being a virgin?' Unknown to them, of course, they have an extra passenger for luggage and old creepy is rapidly catching up.

CRITIQUE

This is a really superb and relentlessly nasty little film. Technically, the obvious budgetary constraints are overcome with a healthy spattering of imagination and some superb camerawork. The plot is tighter than a fat hardened artery and is suitably different from the norm to ensure full attention. There are some seriously grim moments, especially a squirm-worthy rape scene that in no way glorifies in its depiction.

Best of all, though, is the cast. Hilton contributes one of his best performances as an out and out bastard (and displays those greying temples that must have developed in the previous year). Femi Benussi has a cameo as a blonde floozy who seems to have ambled in from a saucy Swedish comedy - accompanied by plinkety-plonety sexcom music, no less. Christina Galbo and Alessio Orano are good enough to keep the plot going when it could easily have floundered to a halt. A final word has to be made of Michel Antoine, one of the most watchably sinister actors I have seen. If only he could have appeared in more films…