The Killers Are Our Guests (1974)

I wanted to but couldn't!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

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.

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.

After a bungled diamond heist a trio of killers take refuge at the home of a country doctor (Anthony Steffens) and force him at gunpoint to attend to their mortally wounded colleague. They abuse the doctor and take sexual advantage of his wife. But everything is not as it seems. The title, the visual style, and some delightfully absurd hairpin plot twists near the end mark this film as Italian giallo, but, as other reviewers have said, it is only partially so. This also would qualify as a early "terror film", typified by later movies like "The Night Train Murders", "Last House on the Beach" and "House by the Edge of the Park" where lower-class miscreants terrify and abuse a seemingly comfortable bourgeois family until the tables are turned. This is is not nearly as nasty as most later "terror films" but like in those films, the hypocrisies of the seemingly respectable bourgeois couple are quickly revealed. The wife (Livia Cerilli), for instance, quickly develops a bad case sexual Stockholm syndrome and has sex with the sole female gang-member (Margaret Lee), the most unattractive of the male gang-members, and even a neighbor who drops by for a visit. The husband meanwhile has his own agenda.The relative restraint as far as the violence and humiliation go, and the superior visual style do tend to mark this as more of a giallo than a terror film. It most resembles two other giallo/terror hybrids "The Cold Eyes of Fear" and "Hitchike". It's as good as the former, but not nearly as good as the latter. Spaghetti Western vet Anthony Steffens once again lets his unusual facial features do most of his acting for him. Margaret Lee gives a very good performance, but it is largely wasted on her thinly-drawn character. Cerini mainly provides the requisite T and A since Lee keeps her clothes on for a change.I'd recommend this for giallo completists (since I guess I am one). It's not a pure giallo and it's certainly no classic of the either the giallo or the terror film, but it is fairly interesting and pretty entertaining.

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.