So Sweet So Dead

RIVELAZIONI DI UN MANIACO SESSUALE AI CAPO DELLA SQUADRA MOBILE

Sales Title: SO SWEET, SO DEAD

U.S. Video Title: THE SLASHER IS A SEX MANIAC

D: Roberto Montero (Bianchi)

P: Eugenio Lorimonte for P.C.R Produziono & Produzioni Cinematografiche//St & Sc: Luigi Angelo, Italo Fasani, Roberto Montero//DP: Fausto Rossi//E: Rolando Salvatore//Music: Giorgio Gaslini.

Cast: Farley Granger, Sylva Koscina, Silvano Tranquilli, Annabella Incontrera, Femi Benussi, Chris Avram, Krista Nell, Susan Scott, Angela Covello, Fabrizio Moresco, Andrea Scotti, Irene Pollmer, Luciano Rossi, Ivano Staccioli, Nino Fotti, Jessica Dublin, Philippe Hersent.

Rich society women are being killed off in a number of gruesome ways. The reasoning behind their deaths appears to be infidelity as photos of the women involved in illicit affairs are left at the scene of each crime. Inspector Capuana is assigned to the case and it's obvious he'll receive no help from the victims' aristocratic husbands. Professor Cassali suspects a jealous homosexual but Cappuana sets his sights on morgue attendent Gastoni. As the murders continue, Cappuana, in a last ditch effort to flush out the real killer, arrests a mentally deficient man who claims to have committed the murders. Cappuana plan works as the real killer is offended by being associated with a mental inferior and is flushed out into the open. But not before the inspector allows the madman to bump off his own wife since he discovered she too had been unfaithful to him.

Roberto Montero Bianchi, father of director Mario Bianchi, had a prolific career in all the major Italian genres, such as Western, Crime and Horror. This film was his most delirious, out of control film and unlike say, Ferdinando Merighi, who had a great cast for LA CASA D'APPUNTAMENTO and refused to exploit it, Montero does not make that same mistake here. The actresses who play victims here read like a who's who and are all featured in various stages of sex and death—ultimately what this genre is all about. Montero is by no means an artist, but his offbeat visual absurdity reaches overload in the SO SWEET SO DEAD version where the killer, in black gloves, mask and hat is seen in broad daylight, running down the beach chasing future victim, Femi Benussi. In Montero's defense, that's more a fault of the lab transfer as in other versions of this film, the scene is darkened to simulate night time. Farley Granger's performance is usually singled out as one of his worst (no arguement for the first 90% of the film's running time), but the last sequence where he allows the murderer to kill his wife before sending him to Hell, redeems an overall perfunctory delivery. For the film's 1976 re-release in the U.S., William Mishkin added hardcore sex sequences featuring Kim Pope and Harry Reems and retitled the film PENETRATION. To date, this version has never surfaced.