Overview: When the University of Perugia is rocked by a string of murders committed with red-and-black scarves, four co-eds retreat to a countryside villa where the killer is closer than they think.

Blu-ray Verdict: A talented and versatile journeyman, director Sergio Martino (The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key) has lent his talents to multiple genres across his long and varied career, but it is undoubtedly his giallo thrillers from the early ’70s for which he is best known.

Among the most highly acclaimed of these, 1973’s Torso revels in the genre’s time-honored traditions while simultaneously laying the groundwork for the modern slasher movie.

A sex maniac is prowling the streets of Perugia, targeting picturesque university town’s female students. Alarmed at plummeting life expectancy of the student body, Jane (Suzy Kendall, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage) and her three friends elope to a secluded country villa - only to discover that, far from having left the terror behind, they’ve brought it with them!

Also known as Carnal Violence, Torso was released in Italy towards the end of the giallo boom before enjoying a second life on the American grindhouse circuit. Co-starring Tina Aumont (Salon Kitty) and Luc Merenda (The Violent Professionals), the film finds its director at the top of his game, delivering copious levels of violence, sleaze and one of the tensest cat-and-mouse games ever committed to celluloid!

As aforementioned, all the elements of the classic giallo are on hand here. The killer being an unseen entity, face never revealed and in this case masked. The black gloves. The point of view shots from the killer’s perspective. And at the heart of it all a mystery as to why the killer is murdering, what his/her motivation is. It is the mystery in a giallo that makes them worth watching, trying to figure out who the killer is before the final reel.

For all its notoriety the film truly didn’t have near as much gore in it as I expected to find. Perhaps it’s another case of a movie where the viewers were so stunned at the time that they imagined seeing more than was actually there. TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE has the scene of the girl placed in a meat hook that people still claim to have seen popping through her chest though it never happens. PSYCHO fans insist they saw the knife enter Janet Leigh but it never happened. This might be the case here. There is plenty of blood on hand but as for gore I’m struggling to remember much.

Special Features:
New audio commentary by Kat Ellinger, author of All the Colours of Sergio Martino
New video interview with co-writer/director Sergio Martino
New video interview with actor Luc Merenda
New video interview with co-writer Ernesto Gastaldi
New video interview with filmmaker Federica Martino, daughter of Sergio Martino
New video interview with Mikel J. Koven, author of La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo Film
2017 Abertoir International Horror Festival Q&A with Sergio Martino
Italian and English theatrical trailers
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Adam Rabalais

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