Fernando De Leo at first seems to usher in the no holds barred approach to gialli during the credits of this film by having a teacher pounced upon, raped and killed by her entire class of teenage deliquents. Further still, it looks like we're up for a tense police interrogation of the entire class one by one which will involve a lot of screaming, police brutality, and double-crossing.
And that's the way it plays out, for about half an hour, and it's a good half an hour. Nearly every single one of these lads is a soulless monster, a product of their environment, and they all maintain their innocence. Our policeman hero has been ordered not to beat any of the prisoners, but he still screams in their face and makes them sit in a pool of super strength booze (which is partly blamed for the attack - but who gave them it?).
At this point someone must have pointed out to De Leo that the plot wasn't 'giallo' enough, and therefore all the tension that's built up over the course of the first third of the film dissipates as our cop (with a social worker sidekick) go off looking for some mysterious woman that one of the prisoners mentioned. So that's all our suspects, that we're introduced to one by one, dumped in a favour of the usual giallo person.
There's also another plot diversion when our police guy decides the best way to get the truth is to take one of the teenagers home and treat him like he's a normal person - eventually this does lead somewhere, but where it leads to is the unmasking of someone as the main instigator of the attack, and it took me a few seconds to actually recognise who it was.
I can't help but feel that if De Leo concentrated only on the pupils in the class we may have ended up with a better film. Who knows? De Leo's next film was The Beast Killed In Cold Blood - a straight forward giallo with over the top gore and nudie bits, and that most terrifying thing of all - Klaus Kinski!
And that's the way it plays out, for about half an hour, and it's a good half an hour. Nearly every single one of these lads is a soulless monster, a product of their environment, and they all maintain their innocence. Our policeman hero has been ordered not to beat any of the prisoners, but he still screams in their face and makes them sit in a pool of super strength booze (which is partly blamed for the attack - but who gave them it?).
At this point someone must have pointed out to De Leo that the plot wasn't 'giallo' enough, and therefore all the tension that's built up over the course of the first third of the film dissipates as our cop (with a social worker sidekick) go off looking for some mysterious woman that one of the prisoners mentioned. So that's all our suspects, that we're introduced to one by one, dumped in a favour of the usual giallo person.
There's also another plot diversion when our police guy decides the best way to get the truth is to take one of the teenagers home and treat him like he's a normal person - eventually this does lead somewhere, but where it leads to is the unmasking of someone as the main instigator of the attack, and it took me a few seconds to actually recognise who it was.
I can't help but feel that if De Leo concentrated only on the pupils in the class we may have ended up with a better film. Who knows? De Leo's next film was The Beast Killed In Cold Blood - a straight forward giallo with over the top gore and nudie bits, and that most terrifying thing of all - Klaus Kinski!