User Reviews

A ruthless serial killer is murdering male prostitutes and Marco (Tomas Arana, Body Puzzle) is the journalist trying to figure out the case, investigating -- some may say Cruising as this movie is the giallo remake remix ripoff of that film -- the gay bars and dealing with his worries about all the male attention he's getting. Luckily he's married to a stewardess named Adria (Gioia Scola, who is in another late 80s/early 90s giallo that needs more people talking about it, Obsession: A Taste for Fear) just in case you think he's going to get converted, which would make this a much more interesting movie -- even if one of the suspects, Andrea (Lorenzo Flaherty) makes him feel rather funny.

You have to admit that a 1993 movie that uses an internet chat room for men to find men is years ahead of the curve, much less a film in which there's no judgment for the male characters finding the sex they dare not speak in the straight world. That's a big leap for the giallo genre, which in the past has only had gay characters appear as red herrings or used as comedy.

Plus, I'm always happy to see Natasha Hovey (Cheryl from Demons) in a movie, as well as Alida Valli (Suspiria, Eyes Without a Face, The Killer Nun, Fatal Frames). Directed and written by Pierfrancesco Campanella, who also made the 2003 giallo Bad Inclination and the shorts La goccia maledetta, L'idea malvagia and L'amante perfetta.

The end of this movie -- spoiler mode -- is incredible because Gioia Scola dresses up like a boy and allows her husband to pick her up.

An investigative reporter, undercover in the gay subculture, becomes the prime suspect in a series of murders when his contacts begin dropping like flies...

RED LIES is kind of a classy (released by "Warner Bros. Italia") cross between CRUISING and ARABELLA THE BLACK ANGEL but without their graphic sex & violence. That's not really a good thing, of course, but the movie's entertaining in its own right. Unlike 70s gialli, homosexuals aren't stereotyped comedy relief and the subject matter is handled matter-of-factly but, typical of Italian film at the time, the "erotic" in this thriller is of the heterosexual variety even though the married protagonist, Marco (Tomas Arana), does begin to question his sexuality at one point when he finds himself attracted to an enigmatic hustler suspect (Lorenzo Flaherty). The two men actually go to bed (even if Marco pretends to be asleep during the encounter) and I'm wondering if the "red lies" of the title have anything to do with the pair of crimson briefs the rent boy leaves behind for Marco's wife to find. Marco uses an internet chat room for hook-ups which seems way ahead of its time for 1993 and the gay world depicted is true-to-life in other ways, too -the pick up parks, porno theaters, discos, and gyms are all typical trysting places and Marco meets a wide variety of gay men (mostly married) ranging from a restroom pervert to a closeted senator, all of whom are handsome and none of whom are effeminate in the slightest. Now that I think of it, that isn't so true to life after all and was no doubt done to titillate. The erotic thriller and the giallo are closely aligned but RED LIES tips the scales in favor of the latter with its black-gloved killer prone to rasping warnings through anonymous telephone calls and the ending sort of reworks DEEP RED's so the killer should be easy for any aficionado to spot early on. Although there's no gore or set piece slaying, the victims are dispatched in a variety of ways (including a Penguin-like umbrella straight out of BATMAN) and the movie ends on an unenlightened note reminiscent of classic gialli: to win her husband back, Marco's wife (sexy Gioia Scola), dressed as a boy, lets him pick her up in the park. The film's adult subject matter was ripe for sleazy treatment and not getting it is a drawback but I'd still recommend this one, nonetheless. Tomas Arana was in another giallo (Lamberto Bava's BODY PUZZLE) that also used closeted homosexuality as a "red herring" motive. Genre mascot Alida Valli's in it, too.