Sleazy Sunday: STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER (1975)

Posted by Stephen Lambrechts (follow me @Slambrechts) Hard to believe, but we're rapidly approaching the 1 year anniversary of Neon Maniacs. The site was launched on Christmas Day last year, with a handful of grindhouse news articles and a review of the sleazy (yet artistic) horror film, MANIAC. In that time, the site has grown beyond our wildest dreams into a fully-fledged genre movie destination. One thing that has been somewhat lacking however, is much of the promised coverage of sleazy exploiation films, as per the site's original mission statement. In an effort to change that, we're launching a new column: Sleazy Sunday - a column where we can explore, dissect and recommend some of our favourite sleazy genre flicks. By modern, subjective standards these films are deeply offensive, sexist and wrong headed. We're not endorsing the gender politics, we're just digging into the sleaze and political incorrectness. So without further ado...

STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER (1975)

Designed as an attempt to capture both the giallo and the trenchcoat crowds, STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER is the kind of film that doesn't get made anymore; trashy, morally reprehensible, chauvanistic, filled with gratuitous sex and nudity and comprised almost entirely of unlikable characters, but still highly watchable despite all of its flaws. People with a moral compass in the 21st century are advised to watch the film in bed, to avoid fainting injuries. Set in a fashion house in Milan, the film opens with a point-of-view bush-shot. The bush belongs to a fashion model who is getting an illegal abortion. The woman dies during the procedure, setting off a string of murders starting with the doctor who performed it, and then moving on to all of the woman's fashionista co-workers. Right from the get-go, director Andrea Bianchi wants you to know that this film has left taste at home for the night. Our leads are Carlo (Nino Castelnuovo, of THE ENGLISH PATIENT and the gloriously titled, STRIP FIRST, ASK QUESTIONS LATER) and Magda (giallo queen Edwige Fenech, of THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDTH and more recently, HOSTEL: PART II). The pair are photographers at the fashion house, she being slightly more professional about it than he. Carlo's method of discovering new talent involves following around girls he doesn't know, obviously taking pictures of their asses and calling out various vulgarities, all while wearing only a Speedo. Seems to work for him though, because within minutes he's screwing the exceptionally curvy aspiriing model Lucia (Femi Benussi, of Mario Bava's HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON and Pasolini's THE HAWKS AND THE SPARROWS). Madga, on the other hand, is more of a traditional lead, despite the fact that she must be constantly saved by the loathesome Carlo. She's stunningly pretty, looking a bit like Audrey Hepburn, only with the added bonus of her willingness to strip naked at the drop of a hat (see the picture above). Thankfully for Magda, every giallo needs an investigative aspect, and she takes care of that angle in a throwaway plot involving familiar-looking snowflake earings that goes nowhere. Actually, that's pretty much the entire investigation right there. When the killer is eventually revealed, youd think it would've been easier to match that identity up to the dead aborition girl. In true explotation film nature, pretty much every guy in the movie is a rapey/chokey asshole, and every woman is a sexualised object. At one point, Carlo starts strangling his lover Madga for even the mere suggestion that Carlo might be on the police's list of suspects. It's alright, though; she gets over it quickly. He also introduces Lucia's character to the fashion house with the line"take a good look at it, go on. She's first class merchandise." Did I mention that Carlo is the male lead of the film? In another scene, fashion house-owner and slimy fat guy Maurizio (Franco Diogene, of THE STENDHAL SYNDROME) gets upset when one of his models doesn't want to screw him to further her career. He pathetically tries to offer her wads of cash to sleep with him, and still she refuses. The nerve of this woman! Finally, he's able to convince her by screaming "I'll murder you if you don't sleep with me!" while holding her down and waving around a glass sculpture. Some guys just have all the smooth lines. Within moments though, with his hairy, rotund body on top of hers, he begins to cry and say he's never been with a woman before (despite being old and married to the fashion house's co-owner, Amanda (Giuliana Cecchini). She comforts him and says "a lot of guys have this problem." Aww, poor guy. She promptly leaves and soon enough, Maurizio is walking around the house in his tighty-whities, morosely inflating a blow-up doll. Unfortunately for him, walking around your house in little-to-no clothing is an invitation to be hacked to death by a killer clad in black motorcycle leathers, gloves and helmet. See ladies, you can't complain about the lack of male eye candy. You get to see a grotesque, fat, rapey dude with a blow-up doll get murdered in the nude. Us guys have to settle with half a dozen naked models as victims, the best of which being Femi Benussi's five minute slow stroll around a house while waiting to be cut down. Which brings me to the film's kill scenes. Unfortunately, the film drops the ball a bit with its murder set pieces. They usually involve some quick stabbing motions made in a person's general direction, followed by the victim falling over covered with excessive amounts of a red paint-looking substance. The film gets a little gorier towards the end, where we see the after-effects of a man with his dick cut off and a woman with her tit cut off. It's not particularly convincing, but at least there was some attempt at the inclusion of grue. As a giallo, the film isn't particularly good, but as a showcase for gratuitous nudity and sexy harrassment, STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER is unrivalled. Director Andrea Bianchi didn't write the film, but after adding so much objectionable material to it, was given a co-writer credit, if only to 'share the responsibility' of having created something so twisted. Those in the mood for some exploitation movie goodness will get their fill here, and then some.