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5.1% of the viewers favorited this title, 1.1% disliked it
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BFI's 100 European...
100 movies · At #88
nick121235
There is just something about the magic of giallo.
Sergio Martino once again manages to bring a good thriller to the italian screen. This is an early example of giallo films and probably his best after Strange Vice.
Tacky and badly edited, but full of visual excess and both sexual and gory exploitation, this is a classic example of the italian sensual thrillers that any true slasher fan has come to know and love.
In most films the jumpy, confusing plot would be a detractor, but in movies like these it only adds to the overall, somehow classy, campiness.
I would say that Torso is a very definitive giallo, probably a good one to show to someone unfamiliar with the genre as a starting point for what it's all about, having just the right balance of everything without too much artiness as can sometimes be hard to stomach in Argento's peices for the newcomer.
One of my favourite scenes is the one set in the swamp. It's refreshingly original and although there are some lighting issues it's fairly visually appealing.
That being said, this film can feel a bit long, it does suffer from some pacing issues and the idea is stretched to create a full length film when it really needed a little more.
Siskoid
While Torso's actual Italian title promises sexual assault triggers aplenty, it doesn't deliver on that - which would make it unbearable. It's a line from the movie, but the events don't directly bear it out. It feels like because the university students who become the victims of a masked slasher (predating many such figures in horror cinema) are sexually liberated, the cops are mistaking signs of sexual activity for assault by the killer. And yet there's a psychosexual component to all this, since promiscuity seems to "warrant" killing, an anxiety about the sexual revolution - what dangers are we opening ourselves to? Except that's not really where the film goes. As in the other Martino film I've seen, the ladies get naked at the drop of a hat. Suzy Kendall doesn't (final girl material) and is an engaging presence. There's an extended sequence of suspense near the end that's absolutely terrific. But this is definitely a case of an ending letting the whole enterprise down. The info-dump that's supposed to explain everything is a mess, never connecting with the art history themes at the top of the film, and combining a traditional mystery solution with psychosis in a very clunky way. Shame.
mcmakattack
What a great surprise, best giallo I've seen in a while. The themes work well and support the story to make it scarier. The sequence with the key had me at the edge of my seat