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Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
Released on: April 25th, 2023.
Director: Stelvio Massi
Cast: Francis Matthews, Pascale Rivault, Howard Ross, Giorgio Albertazzi, Katia Christine
Year: 1974
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5 Women For The Killer – Movie Review:
A lesser scene mid-seventies giallo from director Stelvia Massi, 1974's 5 Women For The Killer, begins when a reporter named Giorgio Pisani (Francis Matthews) lands in Rome after having spent time abroad. Shortly after his arrival, he's understandably devastated to learn that his wife just died in childbirth before he could make it home. If this weren't bad enough, a short time later he learns from his wife’s doctor, Lydia Franzi (Pascale Rivault) that he wasn't actually capable of impregnating his wife, meaning that someone else was the father.
It isn't long before other expecting mothers interred in the same hospital his late wife had been in are getting murdered by a killer with a hatchet in various locations around the city. Poor Giorgio winds up the prime suspect, everyone assuming that he's snapped after all that he's been through in recent days.
The Police Commissioner (Howard Ross) is on the case, hoping to find the killer and bring them to justice before they can strike again, while Giorgio starts doing some snooping of his own hoping to clear his name and prove that he’s the victim of a conspiracy rather than a killer himself.
As stylish and tense as you’d expect from Massi, 5 Women For The Killer is a pretty nasty entry in the giallo cannon, mixing whodunit style suspense with some less exciting scenes of police doing their investigative duties. It’s paced fairly well and there are two spectacularly vicious murder set pieces in the movie that really pack a pretty strong punch, and the mystery aspect of the storyline, which has three writers attached to it - Gianfranco Clerici, Roberto Gianviti and Vincenzo Mannino – is well thought out and comes complete with a few interesting twists and turns.
The cinematography from Sergio Rubini is pretty good, if never extraordinary. There’s some interesting camerawork on display and a few quirky angles keep us on edge during some of the film’s tenser moments. The score from Giorgio Gaslini is okay, but never more than that and not on par with the better giallo soundtracks that are out there. It isn’t terrible by any stretch, it just won’t stick with you when the movie is over.
Performances are pretty good across the board. Leading man Francis Matthews does fine work as our poor hero. His character goes through a lot in this movie and he plays the part well. Lovely, dark haired Pascale Rivault, who some will remember for her appearance in Walerian Borowczyk’s The Beast, is also pretty good here. Howard Ross fills out the core cast as the tough as nails and fairly surly cop. His character is a cliché but Ross plays part well enough.
5 Women For The Killer – Blu-ray Review:
Vinegar Syndrome brings 5 Women For The Killer to Blu-ray taken newly scanned and restored in 4k from its original 35m negative and framed at 2.35.1 widescreen. The transfer is a good one, offering up the movie in very nice shape and with good depth and detail. Colors look great and skin tones are always lifelike and accurate, though keep in mind that, stylistically speaking, this movie is very dark. The movie always looks like a proper film transfer, showing no obvious noise reduction or edge enhancement, and the image is free of compression artifacts or crush. There’s some minor print damage here and there in the form of the occasional small white speck, and some scenes are grainier than others, but that’s about it, the image is otherwise very clean, aside from the aforementioned natural film grain that you’d want preserved here.
The only audio option for the disc is a 24-bit DTS-HD 2.0 Mono track in Italian. Optional English SDH subtitles are included, though there are a few typos in them. Audio quality is fine. The levels are generally well-balanced and the dialogue easy to follow and understand. There aren’t any problems with hiss, distortion or sibilance, the track sounds pretty clean.
Extras start out with a new commentary track with film historians Eugenio Ercolani and Troy Howarth that goes into a lot of detail about Stelvio Massi’s career as well as his life overall, discussing his direction style in this film specifically. They also go over all the details you’d want them to as far as the cast and crew are concerned and offer up some interesting comparisons to other giallo pictures, discuss the popularity of the giallo picture during this period and go over some of the themes and ideas that the movie explores.
My Name is Howard is a twenty minute interview with actor Renato Rossini where he speaks quite candidly about his experiences making the movie, working with Massi on the film, getting along with some of his co-stars, how he wound up becoming a bit of a muscle man in his boom years, doing stunt work, collaborating with Mario Baca and quite a bit more. It’s interesting stuff.
In the twenty-five minute The Massi Touch we hear from filmmaker Danilo Massi, son and frequent collaborator of director Stelvio Massi. He speaks about growing up the song of a prolific filmmaker during the golden age of Italian genre cinema, what he was able to learn from his father, what it was like working together, some of the bigger films that his father had a hand in directing that led to more commercial success for him and other details surrounding his life and career.
Working With Stelvio is a thirteen minute featurette where actor Luc Merenda discusses his experiences collaborating with the director. He talks about some of the different films that they made together, the different characters that he played for the director and what the man was like both personally and professionally.
Five Women For A Giallo is a twenty-two minute piece with director and film historian Luigi Cozzi on Five Women For The Killer and the evolution of the giallo film. Here, Cozzi does a nice job of tracing the growth of giallo cinema from the massive success of Argento’s early pictures to the countless thrillers made in a similar vein that followed in his wake. He also goes over the international success that some of these films had, how they found an audience outside of their native Italy and some of the key elements, such as scores, that made the films as successful as they were for as long as they were.
The last of the featurettes on the disc is Cinematographers In Arms, a thirteen minute piece with friend and fellow director/cinematographer Roberto Girometti wherein he talks about how a few cinematographers popular in the business were making the leap into the director’s chair at this point in time, what the Italian film industry was like during this period in history, his experiences shooting feature films but also news footage, as well as some of the people who were important to his own career including Massi.
Lastly, the disc also includes seventy-two seconds of interesting gore inserts from the re-edited version of movie as well as menus and chapter selection options.
This release also comes packaged with some reversible cover sleeve art. Those who purchase the disc directly through the Vinegar Syndrome website can get their hands on a limited edition slipcover limited to 6,000 units designed by Dani Manning.
5 Women For The Killer - The Final Word:
5 Women For The Killer is a decent giallo, if not a top shelf one. Still, those murder set pieces stand out and the performances are strong. Massi and company do good work here and Vinegar Syndrome’s Blu-ray release of this genuinely obscure picture presents the film uncut and in a very nice presentation with some solid extra features, making a great package overall for fans of vintage Italian thrillers.