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Stitch's Movie Madness: 'Strip Nude For Your Killer'
19 years ago
General
Ah, the giallo. That's Italian for 'yellow', but in movie circles it usually doubles for 'brutal murder, lurid ladies and a mysterious killer wearing black leather gloves'. The genre is still around today, but its heyday was the 1970s, when knife-wielding crazies did their thing before a backdrop of eye-searing pop art and cool, jazzy soundtracks.
Typically stylish, violent murder mysteries, the best of the gialli (Dario Argento's 'Deep Red' and Pupi Avati's 'House With Laughing Windows' spring quickly to mind) blended pulpy psychodrama with grand guignol murder setpieces.
Then there's Andrea Bianchi's 1975 opus 'Strip Nude For Your Killer', a garish, even laughably repulsive little thriller that, if nothing else, cannot be accused of having a misleading title. Starring Nino Castelnuovo and Edwige Fenech, 'Strip Nude' promises nakedness and death, and it delivers those in spades. What it also dishes out in thick, rancid dollops is an atmosphere of pure sleaze and what could charitably be described as overwhelming misogyny.
Fairly or not, most slasher movies that feature women getting killed face some amount of criticism, but let's not mince words - 'Strip Nude' is a movie that hates the ladies. Hates them with a passion that borders on hysterical.
The story, such as it is, has something to do with a killer (the inevitable black gloves are accessorized this time around with an all-leather ensemble and matching motorcycle helmet) stalking and dispatching the various employees of a modeling agency. There's the usual mysterious clues (earrings left at murder scenes, stolen photographs and quick-cut flashbacks to a failed illegal abortion), but in the end they don't matter - not least because the mystery, when finally revealed, doesn't make a lick of sense. Nor are the bloody but unimaginative killings really the thing that makes 'Strip Nude' stand out from the pack.
No, what you'll take away from the film when all is said and done is its spectacularly crude attitude toward all things female, particularly as embodied by Castelnuovo's loathsome photographer 'hero' Carlo.
Carlo is the sort of guy who picks up random women by verbally berating them and then putting his hands all over their unwilling bodies until they relent to his charms. In real life his 'hands-on' approach would probably get him arrested. Fortunately for him, though, in the world of 'Strip Nude', ladies go crazy for any and all sorts of abuse, including attempted rape. It makes them horny, see. Carlo is a veritable chick magnet thanks to his time-tested application of crude smarm, sexual harassment and constant abuse. Oh yes, and sometimes he tries to strangle his girlfriends if they piss him off (don't worry, though... they love it.)
All of which would be forgivable if the film were in any way aware of just how over the top its attitude towards women is, or how much of an unlikeable prick Carlo is... maybe then it would have played as a satire. As it stands, though, 'Strip Nude' is a movie that aims low (straight at the crotch) and still misses the mark. It may not be scary and it may not be sexy, but as a grimy little window into the heart of all things unabashedly chauvinistic, it's jaw-droppingly hilarious.
Typically stylish, violent murder mysteries, the best of the gialli (Dario Argento's 'Deep Red' and Pupi Avati's 'House With Laughing Windows' spring quickly to mind) blended pulpy psychodrama with grand guignol murder setpieces.
Then there's Andrea Bianchi's 1975 opus 'Strip Nude For Your Killer', a garish, even laughably repulsive little thriller that, if nothing else, cannot be accused of having a misleading title. Starring Nino Castelnuovo and Edwige Fenech, 'Strip Nude' promises nakedness and death, and it delivers those in spades. What it also dishes out in thick, rancid dollops is an atmosphere of pure sleaze and what could charitably be described as overwhelming misogyny.
Fairly or not, most slasher movies that feature women getting killed face some amount of criticism, but let's not mince words - 'Strip Nude' is a movie that hates the ladies. Hates them with a passion that borders on hysterical.
The story, such as it is, has something to do with a killer (the inevitable black gloves are accessorized this time around with an all-leather ensemble and matching motorcycle helmet) stalking and dispatching the various employees of a modeling agency. There's the usual mysterious clues (earrings left at murder scenes, stolen photographs and quick-cut flashbacks to a failed illegal abortion), but in the end they don't matter - not least because the mystery, when finally revealed, doesn't make a lick of sense. Nor are the bloody but unimaginative killings really the thing that makes 'Strip Nude' stand out from the pack.
No, what you'll take away from the film when all is said and done is its spectacularly crude attitude toward all things female, particularly as embodied by Castelnuovo's loathsome photographer 'hero' Carlo.
Carlo is the sort of guy who picks up random women by verbally berating them and then putting his hands all over their unwilling bodies until they relent to his charms. In real life his 'hands-on' approach would probably get him arrested. Fortunately for him, though, in the world of 'Strip Nude', ladies go crazy for any and all sorts of abuse, including attempted rape. It makes them horny, see. Carlo is a veritable chick magnet thanks to his time-tested application of crude smarm, sexual harassment and constant abuse. Oh yes, and sometimes he tries to strangle his girlfriends if they piss him off (don't worry, though... they love it.)
All of which would be forgivable if the film were in any way aware of just how over the top its attitude towards women is, or how much of an unlikeable prick Carlo is... maybe then it would have played as a satire. As it stands, though, 'Strip Nude' is a movie that aims low (straight at the crotch) and still misses the mark. It may not be scary and it may not be sexy, but as a grimy little window into the heart of all things unabashedly chauvinistic, it's jaw-droppingly hilarious.
Wow, I'd kind of forgotten that I even wrote this review. Reading it over again, I can see where I miss my glory days as a college newspaper film critic.