The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Razor Shreds Italian Women

For every stunning babe in Italy...there is a straight razor looking to mar her. Hence...the logic of Giallo...Italian sexploitation. 1970's "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage," directed by Dario Argento, is the classic Italian psycho horror film with a lot of cheesecake slashed. In this one, the victims are all sultry Italian women and their demises will be quite bloody. A straight forward plot with some really neatly deviant and weird characters highlight this one.

Sam (Tony Musante), is an American writer (of boring books) in Italy to find inspiration for future plots. He brings his GF Julia (Suzy Kendall) with him. She's pretty useless except for pre-marital sex. One night, while walking past an art museum, he sees a killer clad in black trying to gut a beautiful woman.The woman, Monica (Eva Renzi), barely survives as Sam scares away the attacker.  Inspector Morosini (Enrico Maria Salerno) is on the case. Her attacker tried to make Monica his fourth victim. The previous three were also attractive women who died in states of undress or helplessness by razor or knife.

Morosini eventually figures out that Sam isn't the killer and releases him. Sam...always looking for a good plot...decides to play detective, He researches the victims and tries to formulate a suspect. Meanwhile the killer calls him and orders him to go back to America or he'll gut Julia. Other than being a babe, Julia is quite obnoxious and useless...but Sam likes sex with her. Now a piece of macabre artwork gives Sam some interesting leads and will introduce him to a creepy artist. As Sam begins to make headway in his case, the killer makes his way over to an unguarded Julia.

Will Julia be disemboweled by this Italian slasher? Will anyone mind? Is the depraved eroticism of some of the murders a clue to the motive? Sultry babes either dying horribly or in much peril highlight this Giallo offering. For some good slasher action and a lot of European cheesecake, see Dario Argento's "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage."