DELITTO CARNALE

Delitto Carnale

Well this was fucking dreadful.


I don't know if I'd even call it a movie. There was this nasty habit in the European genre community of taking films and re-cutting them to contain hardcore pornography in an attempt to shore up two marketplaces at once. DELITTO CARNALE was one of those films. It exists in a hardcore version and that is obviously the film it was intended to be. For the first time ever, I feel like I watched a film in which pornography was edited out and replaced with talking heads and unnecessary disco dancing. All of the female cast members were known more for their naughty bits than for anything else, including second billed Moana Pozzi, who was enjoying a nice porn career at the time. If I had to wager a guess, I'd say that 50 of the films 92 minutes were devoted to shots of breasts, labias and butt cheeks. Of the remaining 42 minutes, only about 8 were devoted to anything resembling a murder mystery. The rest was just useless filler and nonsense.


Delitto Carnale

I don't know if I even understand the story. From what I gathered during my slack-jawed time with this film, there are three nieces, Leia, Louisa and Elena, who gather at a posh hotel owned by their rich, recently deceased uncle. Each one brings along a companion (or two), including Pozzi, here playing Elena's lesbian arm candy. Over the course of several days (I think; time doesn't seem to actually move in this film), all the "moarners" do is strip, drink, laugh, dance and fuck each other's brains out, usually with different partners every time. Absolutely nothing happens until 51 minutes into the film when Leia turns up dead. As she was the one who was more than likely going to inherit her uncle's fortune, everyone is on edge. The police are called, but instead of actually doing any kind of interrogations, searches, etc., they decide to just lock them all up in the hotel and put the building under observation.


I feel like I should just go ahead and spoil the whole damned mess for you but I won't. Not because of any kind of respect for the filmmaker's and their not so clever attempt at a twist ending. No, it's because I'm sure two or three of you will go out looking for this film (I did mention breasts, labias and butt cheeks after all) and to spoil the ending would rob of the film of the only (and I do mean only) bit of plot this thing has going for it. There is no suspense, no intrigue, no real characters, no drama, no nothing. This is literally a narrative vacuum.


Delitto Carnale

It's also inexplicably dumb. You watch enough gialli and horror films and you expect to see some ridiculous things, but this film contains some truly bizarre and stupid moments. Elena talking to a stable of horses comes to mind, especially when she fondly remembers riding one without any underwear on. Or when one of the men, Gino, just starts smacking the high holy hell out of his wife Louisa for no reason whatsoever right before she has a hallucination of the dead uncle. That immediately transitions to a scene where the two start whispering romantic babble to each other and make love. The highlight of that scene (naturally) is the nearly unbroken 3 minute sequence of Louisa's ass (in a close profile shot) just bouncing up and down in the frame. Then there's the sequence where Elena is locked in a room and has the biggest meltdown you've ever seen someone have over being locked in a room. Nothing chasing her, nothing really out of the ordinary except for a dead rat, but she goes completely histrionic. Then we cut and she's outside. How the hell did that happen? Who knows? I sure don't and I watched that sequence twice.


Delitto Carnale

The film's greatest asset (besides all the fine eye candy) is Marc Porel. Porel unfortunately died shortly after the film was completed at the age of 34. While his career started strong, it ended terribly. Porel was a drug addict and I wouldn't be surprised if his appearance in films like this and SISTER OF URSULA were nothing more than cash grabs to cover the cost of his addiction (Porel died of a drug overdose in 1983). He was a rather magnetic screen presence and I wish Cesare Canevari had actually given the man something to do in this film other than skulk around and lick boobies. Of course this was the man known for directing such cinematic masterpieces as THE GESTAPO'S LAST ORGY, THE NUDE PRINCESS and A MAN FOR EMMANUELLE so I guess I shouldn't have expected Canevari to film anything other than men licking boobies.


Long story short, this barely qualifies as a giallo. It's a softcore film through and through and I would actually suggest trying to track down the hardcore version of it if you were really dying to see it just for the skin quotient. It removes the majority of the giallo plot (all 8 minutes of it) and features the typical unappealing genitalia usually found in stock pornography inserts. But that's what the film really wants to be. Nothing more than whack off material.


Not recommended.


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