Director: Alfonso Brescia.
Starring. Robert Hoffman, Irina Demick, Pilar Velazquez, Adolfo Celi. Italy. 1h 32m.
I’m not sure what the fascination is with the Giallo scene and parks, houses being on the edge, and girls getting killing in them. But this was a bit of a jumbled mess for me, I got the story but some of the characters were a little too bat-shit-crazy to make the film all that plausible.
I’m pretty sure the title translates as Naked Girl Killed In The Park!?? And there certainly is one at one point during the film and she’s probably the highlight.
But it starts out with a bizarre black and white story of a family destroyed in an air raid then cutting to a rich man’s body is found dead on an amusement park ride, hours after a million dollar insurance policy was taken out on his life. An investigator is assigned to the case manages to dodge the local law enforcement ( former bond villain Adolf Celli) frequently and he starts by checking out the dead guys family and becomes involved with the guys two sexy and neurotic daughters and pretty much their mother a well, who seems to around their age!? The mother begins to lose touch with reality and spends more and more time in her own bubble talking to her late husband who is apparently accusing people of his murder from the afterlife!!?
At some point the sister with the bigger mouth ends up dead in the park, naked of course, the police and family rush to the scene as the plot thickens as to why the patriarch of the family raised the insurance and then seemed to have suddenly died in such a bizarre place, why would a rich mogul go to an amusement park out of hours?!
Not all is right with the family wealth and tons of repressed memories and secrets start to leak out of the second half but the film begins to get incredibly complicated and even less straight forwards as Hoffman becomes the lead and the rest of the crew through more and more sets of dumb events. The only seasoned actor is pretty good but sadly underused; the great Celli is great at pointing the finger in the name of justice. Meanwhile the rest of the cast are pretty enough but fumble around their roles overreacting at everything.
With the rich interiors and pretty faces the film makes for a luxurious Giallo but with so little entertainment actually going on and hardly any slashing it’s not a memorable one. except for the naked girl.. I guess that’s something.
Rating 5/10
R – The Sweet body of Deborah (1968)
L – A-Z of Giallo
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