Two gorgeous young girls living in the same building get killed just short days apart… and two other gorgeous young girls renting the same apartment will soon be threatened by the same maniac! Yippeee! A great 70s giallo! With personal favorite Edwige Fenech! Gaaargl! What great satisfaction to witness that kind of movie getting a great treatment on DVD.

So, we have your typical nutcase getting some kicks in polishing off great looking girls. Edwige’s character, Jennifer, thinks that it could be her ex, a cult leader that needs no great excuses to set up some elaborate mystical orgies. But could the crimes be the work of a local neighbor? The violin-playing teacher? His lesbian daughter? Some old witch that seems to be a fan of horror magazines? Or someone else hiding behind that strange entourage?

A typical product of the early seventies, this film can equally be seen as an awesome parade of then topical popular female fashion, as Edwige plays a model posing for men’s magazines. She’s introduced to us wearing very short shorts and displaying amazing body-painting on her perfect torso. Early on at that point, I decided that this production could be a masterpiece: there’s beautiful gals everywhere, including an exotic dancer that wrestles on stage with clients (!) and a mysterious and opportunistic lesbian. There’s a suspect that can’t stand the sight of blood, police inspectors on the verge of being completely useless (including one eating a sandwich in his car as a murder occurs close by!) and a choubidou music score close to perfection. On the trivia side, for an Italian movie of this genre, the killer doesn’t wear black gloves, but light brown ones! Also on the menu are a Brigitte Bardot poster and one from a Clint Eastwood movie. Did I mention the outrageously gay photographer?

At this moment in my life, where I can claim to have seen close to 6000 movies, one of the most memorable image in all these viewings is the sight of Edwige wearing a black suit and a large orange tie. I can be proud in seeing Citizen Kane close to 30 years ago and then decide that it was an important film, giving me the taste of discovering the Seventh Art. Is Orson Welles responsible for my movie passion? Who knows? But in all the discoveries I made along the way (and there are many of them, believe me), that shot of Edwige remains precious. The Case of the Bloody Iris was some years back only available in a The Giallo Collection Box, but now you can purchase it individually. Why don’t you go next weekend?

Here are the screen grabs featuring our heroine in all her legendary beauty: