Torso (1973)/Old Review

 I actually revisited Martino's film on Wednesday. This film has just moved up my Martino list. And my Giallo list, too. It checks the boxes.

From IMDb user comments on November of 2006:

Lesser Sergio Martino giallo still has a lot to recommend from it especially a very suspenseful finale. The film works best as a building mystery with one story(Daniela and Stefano)actually being a diversion from the true story arc thanks to a twist that comes out of nowhere.

A psychopath, donning a ski-mask, strangles college girls with a red-n-black scarf and sees this recurring image of a child's fingers poking the eyeballs out of dolls. When a couple are both killed after passionate love-making, the police make it known that there is a possible killer targeting college kids. Couple that with the murder of a well known slut(the scarf is dropped and shown to the college kids as evidence providing everyone something that might trigger a possible suspect seen wearing it recently). The film points loudly towards Stefano who shows signs of being possibly homicidal as he almost strangles a hooker(with his hands, mind you)and obsessively stalks Daniela. Daniela is a key character in the film for she seen who was indeed wearing the killer's scarf, and she thinks about one that Stefano was wearing that looked eerily similar. Her uncle convinces Daniela to take a trip with two lesbian friends to his château to get away from the trauma for a couple of days. The château is way on this massive hill apart from a village below. The other key character is visiting American Jane who is a friend of Daniela's and excepts an invite to come stay at the château herself. Before leaving, Jane has a possible love interest in art professor Franz.

The killer doesn't just use a scarf to kill, but often cuts certain later victims with a knife(he runs over a scarf vendor with his car when said vendor tried to blackmail him). In the final 20 minutes, poor Jane, who suffered a twisted ankle after tripping down the stairs, is stuck in the château as the killer is down-stairs carving up bodies to bury away. She will have to find help or some way out of her bedroom towards the top of the stairs without the killer's knowledge in order to survive. A key element in the film is a village doctor Daniela and her friends meet on a train coming to the village who later attends to Jane's badly twisted ankle.

While the story is much weaker than other Martino gialli, the finale delivers the macabre goods in high order. The violence isn't as effective as others in the genre which does hurt in a way because the effects used in the murder sequences look quite unconvincing. The two leading females, Suzy Kendall as Jane and Tina Aumont as Daniela are gorgeous creatures..this is always a constant in Martino's gialli. Also, the film submerges with female nudity with Martino's camera luridly crawling up the bodies of beautiful women. I believe this film does influence later slashers just in how the murders are set up and how the killer looks.