5/10
Decent if flawed psycho/thriller
18 February 2017
Following a usual day at the office, a surgeon finds his life thrown into turmoil when the suicide of his mistress at his home launches a wave of people attempting to blackmail him for the crime they believe he committed and he must try to clear his name before they get to him.

This here was quite a decent if entirely uneventful giallo. One of the main problems with this one is the fact that just not a whole lot actually happens worth caring about in here as very little of this is worth the investment. Considering the mystery/thriller aspect is so prominent in this one, the fact that there's just not a whole lot of interesting elements present here makes for quite the bland effort when it features such uninteresting material to work with. Going from the bland and plodding investigation scenes of the police inspector who is just such a bland figure that his scenes are not that interesting while the scenes of him going around trying to find out who's attempting to blackmail him doesn't make for a good or even enjoyable time. That he's not all that interesting a person to spend time with, openly treating women like prostitutes there to serve his needs only and is completely uninterested in them for any other means, berates and beats them constantly and acts with such an air of superiority to everyone else around him that it's hard to assume anyone would even want to be around him so this makes for quite a troubling set of circumstances required to get into the film. Also problematic is the fact that there's so many needless twist and plot-turns throughout here as he attempts to find the source of his mysterious blackmailer and how he goes about attempting to cover up what he did that there's just so little about what's going on in here that makes any kind of sense. Going from the investigation of the doctor to his lovers' spats with his different mistresses and finally ending up at the insane asylum looking for the repressed nymphomaniac is such a series of leaps and jumps that it makes no sense why the story goes off in such a wild series of tangents to get there, further hindering the film's overall stance. Given that all these factors contribute to a bland, sluggish entry without a whole lot of enjoyable points, it's really a disposable effort with only a few noteworthy elements here. One of the film's early highlights is the actual scene of him dismembering the deceased lovers' body utilizing his surgical skills to great effect, keeping everything involved mainly through suggestion and on-screen reading of his thoughts rather than any kind of graphic, explicit disposal of the body. The grisly outcome of the whole affair is certainly memorable, as well as the forthcoming grinding up the body that occurs here which is quite a fine moment within here. It does have a decent stalking moment in the apartment late in the film where the killer bumps off a witness, but beyond these elements the only other worthwhile part here is the solid nudity from those well- equipped to provide it that was usually the case for these films and is all that really holds it up.

Rated Unrated/R: Language, Full Nudity, Violence and a sex scene.
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