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A Major Disappointment

A Disappointing Continuation

Young people are often portrayed so gleefully negatively in horror films, it is always a relief to find appealing 'teen leads'. As unlikely as it sounds, the two exploitative hippies featured here, Ingrid and Dick (Ornella Muti and Ray Lovelock) are a truly cute couple. Selling softcore pictures of Ingrid, the two gad about Italy spending their money on brief periods of excessive living before they are eventually asked to move on by the law.They become even more endearing when, now on the run, they accept an offer from the mysterious Barbara Slesar (Irene Papas) to stay the night at her opulent home – naively unsuspicious that anything could be amiss. It soon becomes apparent that the nervous, vulnerable Mrs Slesar could teach the young tearaways a thing or two about subterfuge.This is a giallo that stretches the rules. There's no black-clad killer, no huge revelation or great unmasking at the end, but it works very well and the finale packs a punch even though it isn't entirely unexpected. It seems things could either have gone one way or the other. They go the other! Ornella Muti is new to me, but has had (and continues to have) a prolific career. Precocious and wilful, it is Ingrid's credulousness (entirely in keeping with her free-living, unconstrained character) that lands herself and Dick in the climactic situation they find themselves in, but because she is so child-like and appealing, she never loses our goodwill.Variations of the very catchy theme music 'How Can You Live Your Life', sung by Lovelock, are threaded throughout - it should have been released commercially.'An Ideal Place to Kill' is also sometimes known as 'Oasis of Fear', 'Dirty Pictures' and 'Deadly Trap'.

A couple of young hippies decide to make a quick buck selling pornography in Italy. They soon get into bother and eventually go on the run. They wind up in a villa inhabited by a friendly if somewhat odd older woman. Their problems are only just about to begin.This film is labelled as a giallo by many, although I'm not sure I necessarily agree that it is. It's more of a crime-thriller than anything else. It basically boils down to a cat and mouse game between three people. It feels relatively restrained for an Umberto Lenzi picture. It isn't very violent at all, although it does have some quite frank sexual scenes. While it is a thriller, it does feel very much more a product of the end of the counter-culture, with it's pessimistic ending recalling the nihilistic finales of Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Easy Rider (1969). It's hippies gone bad idea is very much in line with the then hugely topical post Manson Family massacres. At one point a character even writes the word 'PIGS' in large letters on a mirror for no discernible reason other than that was precisely what the Manson girls did in the houses where they committed their infamous homicides; although admittedly, in reality these words were written in the blood of their victims, rather than in ketchup, as was the case in this movie!It's all-in-all a good enough genre picture, although not a great one. Like most other Lenzi flicks it is unashamedly salacious stuff, with enough unpretentious sleaze to ensure it's entertaining stuff on the whole.

Man, there's something about seventies Umberto Lenzi films.This one, which he made either right before or right after Deep River Savages, concerns two smug hippies running (literally - they run everywhere!) around Italy being annoying, having a great sex life (annoying, I've got two small kids who are the best contraceptives ever), being free spirits (wish I had the time but I'm too busy earning money to buy nappies), and stealing stuff (also annoying). They end up being mistaken for another equally annoying couple and therefore do a runner or something...or maybe it was something to do with selling pervy pictures...Anyway - they end up at this house and that's where the mystery and intrigue start, I ain't one for spoiling a good Italian movie. Lenzi is very smart with this film...not even particularly bothered about whether or not the audience understands where the film is heading until about the one hour mark. If you don't have two small kids then you could possibly have enough time to actually sit down and watch this one - It's another beauty from the man whose mental health would give us 'Ghosthouse' and 'House of the Damn it Can't Even Remember the title of this one due to lack of sleep (two small kids)...Shameless, bless them, have given us a good copy...my only beef with Shameless is the photographic archiving of every dirty bit from the film on the back of the DVD - Cheers for making me feel like a dirty old man!

This is one of those films that plays out exactly as you might expect, almost by-the-numbers. A young couple get arrested for selling 'dirty pictures' (one of the titles for this release) although the pictures sometimes show nothing more than Ornella Muti naked in a photo-me-booth. They end up in the mansion of a rich lady (Irene Pappas giving a performance less lively than some of the furniture and obviously wishing she were elsewhere) because they run out of gasoline, and when she finds them in her garage syphoning off some fuel she realises she has a use for them. Anybody who doesn't realise what she is up to in about five minutes could only have seen ten movies in their lifetime. It plays out like an old episode of the TV show 'Thriller' with some nudity added (though Pappas obviously has a body double) and some hippy/flower-power shtick thrown in replete with cheesy music which is probably the best thing in this predictable yawn of a movie. Only of interest to Ornella Muti fans if they're not above barely-legal leering.