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Memorable, crazy movie

Good movie but grossly overrated

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

A long Roman Holiday: That's what washed-up actor Farley Granger and his lover Bob Calhoun spent over in Italy in the 70s, resulting in the most dreadful c-flick bummers of Granger's career. So Sweet, So Dead isn't the worst of the bunch, though also not exactly a Roberto Rossellini movie: A fiendish maniaco sessuale (see Italian title) is slashing adulterous women who by happy chance all give us eye candy galore before they meet their maker – the usual stupido giallo fare, this one despite the lousy exploitation script nonetheless now and again creating a crude indiscrete-charm-of-the-bourgeoisie feel, including the quite intriguing soundtrack by Giorgio "Musica totale" Gaslini culminating in atonal territory while accentuating a Scena Carnale Grande with Miss Drop-Dead Voluptous 1972, Nieves Navarro, getting up for a truly unfaithful ride. Breathless moments the movie can't live up to, the dichotomy between clothes-off and hats-off being a fair way wider than that between the Apollonian and the Dionysian.

"Rivelazioni Di Un Maniaco Sessuale Al Capo Della Squadra Mobile" aka. "So Sweet, So Dead" from the golden Giallo-year 1972 is a film that many seem to regard as particularly nasty, sleazy and misogynistic. It is definitely sleazy, but I cannot say I agree with the 'misogynistic' part. Sure, the insane killer in the only Giallo by director Roberto Bianchi Montero (the father of sleaze-director Mario Bianchi) targets (hot and exhibitionist) unfaithful wives only, while he leaves the unfaithful husbands alone; however, this may just as well be seen as a comment on the hypocrisy of misogyny as it may be seen as misogyny as such. Anyway, whoever is too squeamish when it comes to sleaze and slight sexism should probably stay away from the wonderful Giallo-genre in general. What I can say is that "Rivelazioni Di Un Maniaco Sessuale Al Capo Della Squadra Mobile" is a textbook example for the golden age of Italian Gialli, a film that is elegant, sleazy, brutal, beautiful and irresistibly stylish, fantastically photographed on beautiful locations, full of gorgeous naked women and sadistic murders, and accompanied by a brilliant score by Giorgio Gaslini that is on a par with the works of greats like Morricone, Ortolani and Bacalov.A sadistic serial killer is on the loose, and his prey are unfaithful wives, all of them gorgeous and belonging to the high society. While Inspector Capuana (Farley Granger) is nagged at by his superior not to annoy the victims' influential acquaintances too much, the bodies of more prominent unfaithful wives pile up...As typical for a Giallo, the victims are primarily hot women (the easiest to be scared for and the sleaziest to kill). The female cast includes well-known Italian genre-beauties such as Femi Benussi, Sylvia Koschina, Krista Nell (who sadly died of Leukemia at age 29 in 1975), and, most prominently, the drop-dead-gorgeous redhead cult-siren Nieves Navarro. Needless to say that all these women are more than willing to take their clothes off at any given opportunity. Farley Granger fits very well in the lead, the male supporting cast includes cult actors such as Benito Stefanelli and the ugly and always-sinister Luciano Rossi in a typically demented role. The murders are quite sadistic, some of them also pretty gory. As mentioned above, the cinematography is (genre-typically) elegant and stylish, the locations are beautiful and the score is fantastic (genre-typically including a text-less but eerie female singing voice).The most controversial aspect about "So Sweet, So Dead" is arguably the (in my opinion great) climax, which, of course, I will not discuss in order not to spoil anything. The only reason why this film does not rank among the very greatest of Gialli is the lack of a truly likable protagonist to be scared for. Even so, the mystery, sadistic murders, demented characters and beautiful victims make it incredibly suspenseful, creepy and atmospheric. "So Sweet, So Dead" is the prefect combination of Horror and Mystery, Sleaze and Elegance that one may expect in a good Giallo. Criminally underrated, and a must for every Giallo/Eurohorror/Cult-Cinema fan.

This is yet another giallo helmed by a little-known director; the suggestive but actually deceptive original title, which translates to REVELATIONS OF A SEX MANIAC TO THE CHIEF OF THE MOBILE SQUAD, would lead one to believe that this is very low-brow stuff indeed – however, the end result (propelled by a pounding Giorgio Gaslini score) is not bad at all. Besides, there is a good cast on hand: the obligatory American 'star' is once again Farley Granger (looking remarkably more mature than in SOMETHING IS CREEPING IN THE DARK [1971]), but then we have what can best be described as cameos by "Euro-Cult" regular Silvano Tranquilli and three of its luscious starlets – Sylva Koscina (playing Granger's wife), Femi Benussi and Susan Scott; all the females are made to shed their clothes, with the latter two even involved in surprisingly explicit sex scenes! Incidenatlly, along with STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER (1975; also with Benussi), this was the most erotically-oriented genre effort I have watched so far; in fact, the movie under review was subsequently re-assembled and distributed as outright hard-core material under the moniker PENETRATIONS (but Granger understandably – and successfully – sued the producers over it)! The plot sees the traditional black-gloved killer targeting a small town's apparently unending population of cheating wives (leaving as calling-card photos of them caught in flagrante, albeit with their respective partners' face clinically erased); in this respect, it also emerges as one of the more moralistic giallo entries (at least, this time around one is spared the usual pursuit of the proceeds of either an inheritance or an insurance policy!). By the way, the film even foregoes the last-minute explanation of the killer's motives which concludes (unsatisfactorily) many a giallo – though, in view of just this unexpected striving for satirical relevance (which proves rather vapid nevertheless, given the sheerly exploitative elements by which it is surrounded), here was perhaps a case where one would have liked to know what made this particular person tick (a gratuitously deranged morgue attendant had been made to fit the bill all along, but the real culprit was not too far off the mark anyway)!!

Most movie buffs will have seen the captioned Hitchcock film from 1950 and perhaps the earlier "Rope" (1948) but here is a chance to see another Farley Granger performance 22 years down the line - I was impressed how little he had aged.He plays Inspector Capuana in this very average Italian horror film from 1972.In fact I found him unwittingly distracting because I kept thinking of the above films and how he now looked a bit like Rock Hudson in his mature years, wearing a moustache.Put simply, it is the story of a psychotic maniac who murders unfaithful wives by stabbing them after first taking the necessary photographic evidence which he then liberally sprinkles at the murder scene to "justify" his act.I was amazed how he knew who all these faithless wives were and where he found the time for his "hobby".The victims all seemed to know each other so the film seemed to be set in a hot bed of adultery.All the usual horror film cliches were present - the murderer who always seems to magically appear in the house by apparantly walking through solid doors and windows,(doesn't anyone ever lock their houses in horror films?).The chase scene where despite the girl running away, the slower moving maniac is always closer behind, the car door which is always locked preventing escape, the closed doors and windows etc.My! how all these women loved to smoke!!None of them seemed happy unless puffing away continually - its amazing they hadn't all died earlier from lung cancer!.I only bought the video to see Krista Nell but she only had one decent scene and then gets "bumped off" for her trouble before her boyfriend arrives at her house for "a bit of nooky".My video arrived with rather irritating Japanese subtitles.What was rather comical was that Farley Granger was obviously originally speaking his lines in English (the other actors in Italian) but his voice had then been overdubbed by another English speaking actor so we could understand.Instead, I kept hearing in my head his real voice from "Strangers oon a Train"..."Bruno you're crazy"!I won't provide spoilers in the extremely unlikely event anyone would want to buy this title after reading this review.The plot becomes rather repetitve after a while and the characters of the femaile adulterous victims become very one dimensional and there is a lot of bare bosom around from virtually all these lady victims.Another "comical" character was the blond mortuary attendant, he really seemed to be in his element as a rabid necrophilliac!Overall poor and I rated it 3/10.