The Killer Must Kill Again (1975)
DVD9 | ISO+MDS | NTSC 16:9 | Cover + DVD Scan | 01:30:22 | 6,35 Gb
Audio: #1 English AC3 2.0 @ 448 Kbps; #2 Italian AC3 1.0 @ 448 Kbps | Subs: English
Genre: Thriller | Mondo Macabro
DVD9 | ISO+MDS | NTSC 16:9 | Cover + DVD Scan | 01:30:22 | 6,35 Gb
Audio: #1 English AC3 2.0 @ 448 Kbps; #2 Italian AC3 1.0 @ 448 Kbps | Subs: English
Genre: Thriller | Mondo Macabro
Director: Luigi Cozzi
Stars: George Hilton, Antoine Saint-John, Femi Benussi
Director Luigi Cozzi (Starcrash) made his debut with this dark and disturbing thriller, very much in the mold of his mentor Dario Argento. Although regarded as a classic by fans of Italian horror the film has been almost impossible to see for many years. This DVD is the first official US video release.
A rich womaniser (George Hilton) plans to murder his wife. He blackmails a man into doing the evil deed for him. The car with the murdered womans corpse is stolen by a pair of joyriders. The viscious killer sets off in pursuit - with more than just murder on his mind.
Previously released in a cut, fullscreen version, this DVD returns the film to its original length and is presented in a digitally restored format, anamorphically enhanced for widescreen TV's.
I’ve seen a few of Luigi Cozzi’s films and never been all that impressed with his work. Sure, Starcrash is fun for all the wrong reasons but films like Contamination and the dreadful Paganini Horror left me very, very cold. I knew of his association with Giallo maestro Dario Argento but was a little trepadatious when Mondo Macabro announced they’d be releasing (for the first time on home video in North America even!) the director’s early entry into the Italian thriller genre, despite the fact that it has a pretty decent reputation.
The story begins when a man named Mainardi (Sergio Martino regular George Hilton of All The Colors Of The Dark) completely by chances comes across a murderer (Michel Antoine of The Beyond) as he is literally in the process of dumping his victim’s body into the river. Mainardi figures he can use this to his advantage and he decides to blackmail the killer taking care of some rather nasty business he needs completed – he wants him to kill his wife (Teresa Velazquez) and get rid of the body. Mainardi offers to pay the killer $20,000 and seeing as he really doesn’t have much a choice, he agrees to the proposition.
The killer gets into the couples’ apartment and offs Mrs. Mainardi reasonably easily without running into any serious snags. The problem arises when he dumps the body into the trunk of the car, goes back into the house, then comes out to find that a young couple, Laura (Cristina Galbo of Let Sleeping Corpses Lie and What Have You Done To Solange?) and Luca (Alessio Orano of Lisa And The Devil) of stolen his wheels and headed to the coast. The killer arranges an alternate form of transportation and heads off in search of the couple to get the body back and make sure there are no witnesses. He tracks them to a house on the side of the ocean and lets himself in. Meanwhile, Mainardi is being talked to by the police who suspect more than he knows about the circumstances surrounding his wife’s demise.
So after spending almost ninety minutes in front of the TV, I came away with the conclusion that The Killer Must Strike Again is a very well directed film. Considering my previously noted reaction to Cozzi’s other films, I was quite surprised, but there you have it. The camera movements are slick and professional looking and make the cinematography makes great use of shadow to create atmosphere and heighten tension, giving an almost claustrophobic look to a few of the darker interior scenes. The script has a couple of nice twists and is atypical in the sense that it’s not really a whodunnit (we know who the killer is two minutes into the movie) so much as it is a howtheygonnadoit. This convention leads to a great, ironic ending that turns the table on the two central characters and allows for some nicely handled murder set pieces as well.
Surprisingly intense compared to some of the director’s other works, The Killer Must Strike Again also features as interesting rape scene that is shown in cuts as the camera shows in succession a series of shots from a forced rape contrasted against a consensual sex act happening not too far away at the same moment in time. Without spoiling the film for those who haven’t seen it, this sequence really goes a long way towards showing the true character of a couple of key players in the film and Cozzi handles this scene very well given the context of the acts and the explicitness of the material.
Performances are decent all the way around. Hilton plays his usual slick self, always the dashing playboy as demonstrated by the way he’s entertaining people at a cocktail party, telling amusing stories knowing full well that his wife is being murdered only a few blocks away. Femi Benussi (of Strip Nude For Your Killer) and Teresa Velazquez provide some nice Eurobabe eye candy and Cristina Galbo is adorable and sympathetic in her part of Laura. The real star of the show however is Antoine Saint-John (credited here as Michel Antoine), who looks every bit the part of a homicidal killer with his unusual facial features and long, gaunt appearance. When he stabs his victims towards the end of the movie he does so with a cold precision that is almost believable.
This early Luigi Cozzi film gets the deluxe treatment with tons of great extras and a gorgeous new transfer from Mondo Macabro. The Killer Must Kill Again is a solid giallo with a nice twist ending and this disc is very much worth your time and hard earned money.
Special Features:
- Brand new anamorphic transfer from the original negative
- Commentary track with Director Luigi Cozzi
- Featurette - The Road to the Killer - Cozzi on making the movie
- Featurette - Initals DA - Cozzi on working with Argento
- Featurette - The Giallo Genre - Author Adrian Luther Smith on Giallo
- Theatrical Trailer
- Text pages and filmogaphies
- Huge gallery of rare on set stills
- Mondo Macabro preview trailer
All Credits goes to Original uploader.
No More Mirrors, Please.
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