Review of Five Women for the Killer

Personally I don't really like it, nor do I think it's a very bright idea, when the body count of the horror movie you're about to watch already gets spoiled in the title… Seriously, five women for the killer? Well, okay, that pretty much suggests there will be five female casualties, but don't get your hopes up too much for witnessing much more carnage that this. It's a shame, really, because one of the many reasons why I seek out Italian gialli movies is the often unpredictable and unrestricted amount of gruesome murdering going on! I still definitely wanted to watch "Five Women for the Killer", of course, and mainly because it was writer/director Stelvio Massi's only genuine excursion into the giallo-domain. The underrated Massi made nearly two dozens of awesome Poliziotteschi thrillers, and most of them – like "Emergency Squad" or "Convoy Busters" to name just two – were so damn brutish and sadist that I really wondered what a giallo of his would look like. This one-man jury's verdict states that "Five Women for the Killer" is an adequate and more than watchable giallo, but it certainly isn't one of the genre's prime examples or highlights. The plot is reasonably tense and compelling, albeit also sluggish from time to time. The murders and particularly the killer's motives and choice of victims are vile and just a tad bit disturbing. Like in most Italian gialli, the psychopath targets pretty young women, but here the victims all recently found out that they were pregnant and our crazed killer viciously cuts open their stomach and intimate parts. The murders begin shortly after journalist Giorgio Pisani loses his wife whilst giving birth to their premature son. No wait, the murders only begin when Giorgio learns from his doctor and friend that he is – in fact – infertile and couldn't have been the child's father. Can't Giorgio accept that his wife was unfaithful and does he extract his vengeance on the pregnant women in his surrounding? Or is this just what the real killer wants everybody – and the police in particular - to think? "Five Women for the Killer" doesn't feature any great names in the cast, but the performances are solid and convincing. All the girls in the cast are ravishing and provide glorious full-frontal nudity (unshaved was still the standard), but of course they get savagely slaughtered shortly after so it's not a very sexy climax. Recommended for giallo-fanatics and fellow sick puppies all over the world!