Death Walks on High Heels, Exotic Dancer vs. Slasher

Oh, to be a beautiful woman in an Italian horror film. This never ends well.  And if a razor is available...well...the demise will be tortuous and humiliating. Today we look at Luciano Ercoli's "Death Walks on High Heels," from 1971. Stripper...exotic dancer...striptease artist...skank...call her what you will, but in films like this, she will eventually be known as a corpse. Will this one be different? After all, the director was married to the beautiful star, Nieves Navarro.  Or perhaps that will be reason for an even gorier death.

She is the best at what she does...we'll call it exotic dancing. Uh oh, her dad, a jewel thief, has just been murdered. Whoever murdered dad didn't find the stolen jewels and now is making threatening calls to our damsel, Nicole (Navarro). The calls are threatening in nature and one night the fiend sneaks into Nicole's apartment, seizes her, cuts off her underwear, and threatens to scar her for life unless she turns over the jewels.  Nicole has no idea where the jewels are and runs to her boyfriend, Michel (Simon Andreau). He is of very little help as Nicole quickly finds clues to suggest that he is the razor wielding maniac.  What is a working girl to do in this instance?

Right!  This probably isn't a good idea, but a stripper pursued by a psycho is bound to have judgment issues. Nicole takes up with a perverted old man, Robert (Frank Wolff). He gawks at her at all her shows and wouldn't you know it...he's a wealthy surgeon. He whisks Nicole off to his seaside English villa and there they fall in love and have lots of kinky and very erotic sex. In fact, Nicole has many gratuitous strip scenes in this film featuring very sheen lingerie and thigh high boots. Uh oh...a killer...or killers, move in to disrupt Nicole's apparent safe haven, and so does Robert's wife, the sultry Vanessa (Claudia Lange). Stop!  This is the point where a whole lot happens which will have you saying "Whoa...wait a minute, what just happened! That can't be."

The second half of this film features lots of gory death and a brilliant police investigation headed by Inspector Baxter (Carlo Gentili) of Scotland Yard. Will our exotic dancer's beauty save her from a horrible disfigurement?  Might the killer be a woman, not even after the jewels? Is the wealthy Robert too good to be true? This Italian Euro-Trash gem has gratuitous strip scenes featuring Ms. Navarro, gory kills, and a terrific police story mixed in. For fans of Italian horror, enjoy "Death Walks on High Heels."