Review: Giallo a Venezia (The Vagina Holocaust)

A young couple, Fabio and Flavia (played by Gianni Dei and Leonora Fani, respectively), are found dead on the Venetian island of Giudecca. As Inspector DePaul (played with gusto by Jeff Blynn) interviews the late couple's friends, we come to learn the events leading up to their deaths. Meanwhile, a mysterious psychopath begins offing said friends in increasingly sadistic fashions.

Director, Mario Landi really hates vaginas. I'm not kidding. How else can you explain this scene?

I know what you're thinking, this is probably just a one-off sort of thing. Well, just a year later he directed Patrick Still Lives, which features the lovely spectacle of a woman (Mariangela Giordano, who also plays a role in Giallo a Venezia) being impaled through her vagina by a poker. Apparently Landi and his producer came up with this scene just to offend their leading lady. To be honest, I would have done the same thing.

Stupid bitch.

I've seen more than a few vagina stabbings in my day*, but Giallo a Venezia's really takes the cake. The sheer artlessness of it all, combined with the killer's brutality (he twists the knife around!) just really gets under my skin. As a matter of fact, I just used this movie as a basis for one of my papers in film class - this may be the only time in my college career that I'll ever get to to use the phrase "stabs the prostitute in the vagina" in an academic context. "Alright, alright," you say, "so does this movie have anything besides vaginal mutilation going for it?" Honestly the answer to that is somewhat tricky. These sleazy exploitation movies are something of an acquired taste, and I'm guessing any decent person won't want to sit through the pedestrian direction and writing just for a few minutes of graphic violence and Jeff Blynn's awesome porn 'stache.

Totally worth it.

For those of you who can appreciate offbeat seventies trash, however, there is a lot to appreciate here. My favorite scenes are the flashbacks to Flavia and Fabio. You see, Fabio has a problem: he finds normal sex boring, so he feels it must be "constantly renewed in order to be kept alive". This renewal involves degrading Flavia in the most incredibly awkward means. Hilariously uncomfortable scenes follow, wherein Fabio does his wife in public while maintaining eye contact with peeping toms.

My favorite scene comes after the first of these excursions. Flavia is naturally pissed at Fabio for his exhibitionism. Matters aren't helped by his staring at her while erotically twiddling his mussels (or whatever the hell they are) with chop sticks. So she goes to bed and he follows, feebly attempting to justify his problem. Distraught, she engages him in some make-up sex that probably rivals any of The Room's love scenes for sheer running time. This bores the hell out of him, prompting her to engage in some tearful masturbation. This, my friends, is merely the buildup to the scene I speak of. What follows is one of the most gloriously trashy things ever committed to celluloid.

Fabio pictured with weapon in hand.

I don't know what it is exactly. Is it the ludicrous way in which he throws his scrawny body into every whiplash? The intensity of his performance? Perhaps the catlike manner in which he pounces on her? Personally I think it's Berto Pisano's music (appropriated from the Italian giallo Interrabang). I have not heard such an inappropriate juxtaposition since...well...the entire soundtrack of The Last House on the Left. I don't know whose idea it was to use this cue, but I...I think I'm in love with them.

One day I swear you'll love me back.

As you can see, there is much to enjoy about this obscure masterpiece of sleaze. Even better for you, I've only touched on a few of this movie's many memorable scenes! Unfortunately it has yet to be released on official DVD. The company MYA supposedly has it on their list of potential releases, but until that day you'll probably have to resort to more dubious means to secure a copy. And you know what? For a movie of this sort that kind of feels right.

FINAL VERDICT: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED [FOR MASOCHISTS]

*See The New York Ripper and The Mother of Tears for two more famous examples. Also check out The Killer is Still Among Us for a pretty nasty vagina scalping. Or, you know...don't.