Strip Nude for Your Killer (1975)

Best movie of this year hands down!

the audience applauded

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

When a movie starts with a fashion model dying during a back alley abortion and it being covered up as a drowning, all before the opening credits, you know that you're in for something demented. When you realize that the film was written and directed by Andrea Bianchi, who brought us Burial Ground, then you're either going to run screaming or sit down and pay attention.The doctor who performed the operation is killed by a mmotorcyclesuit wearing maniac, but nobody at the Albatross Modeling Agency cares. All Carlo, the head photographer, cares about is using his modeling connections to pick up women. That's how he meets Lucia (Femi Benussi, Hatchet for the Honeymoon), who he takes from the steam room to the modeling agency.Magda (Edwich Fenech!) is jealous, so she surprises Carlo with some black lace and they begin an affair. We then see a photo of the main agency members, like Mario, Magda, Carlo, Stefano, Dorris, Maurizio and his wife and the owner of the studio Gisella. There's one other person in the photo - Evelyn, who we saw die in the beginning.Mario heads home and the killer shows up. When their helmet is removed, Mario knows the killer. But it's too late. He's dead now. The killer takes the photo so that they have a checklist of who to kill.So then there's Mauirizio, who is cheating on his wife with a prostitute. He takes her on a crazy ride through the streets and then takes her back to his place, when he begs and threatens her life before she suddenly wants to have sex with him - because you know, that's how things worked in the 1970's - before he lasts all of a minute and starts embracing his blow up doll. Honestly, what the? Of course, he's killed right afterward. Good riddance.Carlo later witnesses Gisella being murdered and even photographs the attack, but he's hurt in a hit and run accident. While he's recovering, Magda develops the film but the killer ruins the negatives.After killing Doris and Stefano, the murder tries to kill Carlo and Magda, but the killer is knocked down the stairs. So who is it? New model Patrizia - Evelyn's sister - who blames him for her sister's death. However, she dies before she can tell the police of his involvement.Seriously, the title of this film pretty much says it all. It's the most nudity I've ever seen in a movie. And it's pretty much one of the most lurid I've seen, too. I have no idea if Bianchi intended this as a comedy, but it certainly feels like one.It's almost amazing that a movie with this much nudity and mayhem moves at such a glacial pace. It felt like the first hour of the film was the entire running time! Even worse, this movie is pretty much wall to wall misogyny. I know, I know, that's the majority of giallo, but here it feels so overwhelming and so alien when seen with today's eyes.

I give credit to Andrea Bianchi (at first I thought it was a female director, the one lone one among the pack of the Giallo, but digging deeper Andrea is apparently a male name), for trying to put a couple of crazy twists: the killer looks like a cross between a dominatrix and a hardcore biker out of Mad Max, covered in total black leather with a big black helmet, there is a moment or two that do startle with the killer's presence. Indeed, the killer is for the most part much smarter than almost all of the cast, which can be fun to watch once or twice... But the problem with Bianchi's direction is that past the excess nudity, which isn't a bad thing for a sleazy Italian horror flick, there's no suspense to his craft. While the cinematography is accomplished the actual direction as far as suspense goes is pretty weak. Suffice to say, Bianchi is no Argento. It's not a total loss, but it's also weakened by the really bad dubbing (Godzilla sometimes fares better), and some really ridiculous characters, like the fat guy that tries to have his way with the older blonde owner of the fashion studio, that aren't very funny.It's got some hip 70s music, and a few memorable bits (mostly early on, with stuff that doesn't have to do even with the killer), but really this movie doesn't live up to the awesome potential of its title. The trailer on the Blue Underground DVD, on the other hand, is really amazing.

The sleazy giallo picture here known as "Strip Nude for Your Killer" (1975) is misleadingly titled (no victim of the crazed killer is ever forced to strip; they're usually 3/4 naked to begin with!) but still manages to convey the film's two main selling points--sex and violence, dished out in fairly equal measure. The movie might more accurately have been called "Who's Been Killing the Entire Staff at Milan's Albatross Modeling Agency?" All we know for sure is that it's a leather-clad figure with a biker's helmet, a Darth Vader-like respiration problem, and a fondness for knife slaying. For the ladies in the audience, the picture features Nino Castelnuovo, so fondly remembered from 1964's "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg," still looking hunky here and sporting a perfectly round butt; and for the men, another exquisite appearance from the Queen of Giallo, Edwige Fenech, short-haired here but still quite dee-lish. "Strip Nude" has been directed in a nonstylish, nonflashy manner by Andrea Bianchi. Its plot does hang together, despite the seemingly unavoidable red herrings, though the killer's motivation ultimately proves to be unconvincing (don't even try guessing who the killer is!). There are any number of genuinely suspenseful scenes, though, and the soundtrack, by one Berto Pisano, effectively mixes Euro lounge jazz with a funky theme that suggests the Temps' "Papa Was a Rolling Stone." Of the half dozen or so Edwige Fenech giallos that I've seen recently, this one is by far the bloodiest and sleaziest (just wait till you see the 300+-lb. guy with his blow-up doll!), but still nothing compared to what filmmakers get away with today. The folks at Blue Underground should be thanked for a fine-looking DVD of a true Italian rarity; still, I'd be thanking them more had they supplied some subtitles rather than the lousy dubbing. And oh...was it just my imagination, or was that indeed an anal sex joke that Nino pulls on Edwige at the film's tail end?

A mysterious killer, dressed in black leather and a motorcycle helmet, is offing the staff and models at an agency/studio; risking their lives, Magda and Carlo (Edwige Fenech and Nino Castelnuovo), a couple of photographers, attempt to discover the murderer's identity before they too become victims.Andrea Bianchi, director of cheesy fun 80s zombie movie Burial Ground, makes sure that this enjoyable giallo lives up to its wonderfully lurid moniker by packing it with tons of nudity, sleazy action, and violent deaths. From start to finish, hardly a minute goes by without either a bloody stabbing or some gratuitous T&A from one of its delectable female stars, which is great news for fans of the genre, particularly if they enjoy their movies on the 'trashier' side.Sexy lead lady Fenech obligingly strips nude for the audience on several occasions, but it is Femi Benussi, as aspiring model Lucia, who really steals the show: with her stunning looks and a winning set of curves, it is a real shame that she falls prey to the leather-clad psycho so early.The story may not be anything particularly special, but the marvellously un-PC content (slutty women are treated like dirt by chauvinist men), endless hot Euro-chicks, and a magnificent funky soundtrack make this one a guilty pleasure.