THE CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS (1972) Celluloid Dreams Blu-ray Screenshots
THE CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS (1972)
The gruesome murders of two young women send a shockwave of fear through a high-rise apartment building, that the premise for the Italian giallo thriller The Case of the Bloody Iris aka What Are Those Strange Drops of Blood Doing on Jennifer's Body?. The flick starts off with young prostitute (Evi Farinelli) arriving at a highrise apartment and boarding an elevator where she is stabbed to death by a black-clad, masked, gloved-killer. Her body is soon discovered by three residents of the building, a black stripper named Mizar (Carla Brait, Escape from the Bronx), Professor Isaacs (Jorge Riguard, Eyeball) and spinster Mrs. Moss (Maria Tedeschi, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage). Cops Commissioner Enci (Giampiero Albertini, The Tough Ones) and Assistant Commissioner Renzi (Franco Agostini, Raise Your Hands, Dead Man, You're Under Arrest) arrive on the scene to investigate but find very little to go on. The next day the stripper is attacked inside her apartment by the same masked killer who drowns her in the bathtub, now it seems that someone is targeting the women of the building, but to what end and for what reason?
We then catch up with the architect who designed the apartment buildings, Mr. Andrea Antinori (George Hilton, The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh) as he attends a photo shoot with photographer friend, the seemingly prerequisite giallo trope of the effeminate homosexual man, Arthur (Oreste Lionello, Four Flies on Grey Velvet), who is helping him create a promotional campaign to promote the building. It's there that he encounters models Jennifer Lansbury (Edwige Fenech, Strip Nude for Your Killer) and Marilyn Ricci (Paola Quattrini, City Under Siege), who are shooting a titillating painted-on clothing advert. Andrea is quite attracted to Jennifer, and hoping to get her and Marilyn to star in his new advertising campaign invites them to stay at the high-rise where there's a new vacancy, thanks to unfortunate murder of Mizar.
After moving into the apartment pad Jennifer encounters the masked killer in her bedroom while she is sleeping, the masked-killer attempts to strangle her but is scared off by her screams, however, her roomate Marilyn just assumes was just a bad dream stemming from living in the murder apartment. Red-herrings abound at the high-rise, we get plenty of could-be culprits by way of the spinster Mrs. Moss who we curiously discover enjoys reading macabre horror tale rags, and a secretive lesbian neighbor Sheila (Annabella Incontrera, Black Belly of the Tarantula), who is the daughter of the Professor, it is revealed that she was a lover of the second victim, or could it be the deformed peeping-tom son of one of the residents who keep him hidden away in a closet, and of course there's also Jennifer obsessive ex Adam (Ben Carra, Tales of Erotica), who is the leader of a sex-cult that she use to belong to, it seems that anyone could be the depraved killer, and the cops are pretty much clueless. It's only when poor Marilyn is later stabbed to death outside of the building and bloodily falls into the lap of Andrea that he becomes the prime suspect, and it certainly doesn't help his case that he flees the scene, though an earlier shot of him nearly fainting at the sight of blood would seemingly eliminate him from any list of potential suspects.
As the thriller rolls on the list if suspects is thinned down as more bodies begin piling up, a couple of potential suspects among them, with poor Sheila scalded to death by blast of steam from a basement boiler, and wouldn't you know it, Andrea just happens to be on the scene at another death, further incriminating himself.
I've always thought this this was quite a fantastic giallo thriller, chock full of stylish murder set-pieces, interesting characters, beautiful women, wild plot twists, and a delicious psycho-sexual motivation for the killer that just makes for a top-notch Italian whodunit. On top of that we have a very cool score from Bruno Nicolai (All the Colors of the Dark), attractive lensing by Stelvio Massi (the director of Convoy Busters), and a tasty script by Italian screenwriting legend Ernesto Gastaldi (Almost Human), and assured direction by Giuliano Carnimeo (The Exterminators of the Year 3000) who is better known for his spaghetti westerns than gialli.