Body Count, Friday the 13th Italian Style

What happens when the Italians try to rip-off "Friday the 13th"? Right...pure poetry. Naked nubile babes, hunks dying to try to save them, and a slasher with a machete...yes! Throw in some booby-traps, a chainsaw, and gratuitous shower scenes and the dubbing won't bother you. Italy is similar to Camp Crystal Lake...pre-marital sex will get you killed...morality films Italian style! Hence 1986's "Body Count," directed by Ruggero Deodato.

As our fable begins a high school hunk (Stefano Galantucci) and babe (Clelia Fradell) are butchered by a monster shaman in a cursed campground after having pre-marital sex. 15 years later some really great looking hunks and babes arrive at the cursed campground for dirt-biking and pre-marital sex. The women will take showers and the guys will grunt a lot. Uh oh, Ben (Nicola Farron) arrives after getting out of the army. His parents Robert (David Hess) and Julia (Mimsy Farmer) run the campground. Oh yes, the frisky Julia is having an affair with the sheriff (Charles Napier). As the teens frolic and copulate, aerobic babe Tracy (Nancy Brilli) and Tony (Stefano Madia) are butchered...too bad as Tracy looked terrific in and out of some fine 1980s aerobic leotards.

As babes and hunks fall, we are left to wonder if the shaman is really the culprit, or maybe its Julia or Robert...who will display some anti-social behavior. Primo babe Cissy (Cynthia Thompson) will frolic some more, strip, and be chased by the fiend. Oh yes Carol (Luisa Maneri) appears a likely final girl, even after a gratuitous shower scene. As the fiend closes in on the last beautiful and handsome survivors, a surprising final reveal approaches. There will be knives and axes to the head and shotgun carnage befitting Italian opera...I mean horror.

Are naked Cissy and Carol too beautiful to die? Oh yes, I forgot, this is an Italian film. Is the evil shaman really the culprit, or are Robert and Julia into unorthodox marketing strategies for their cursed campgrounds? Will Cissy and Carol engage in a gratuitous cat-fight to decide who will be crowned the final girl? Gratuitous with gore and nudity, "Body Count" is a slasher film rip-off that should be well received. After all, would you rather see "Friday the 13th" ripped off, or "Ordinary People" ripped off?