Bezenby Wahey! I didn't expect this one to be as delightfully bonkers as it turned out, but then why did I expect it to be normal, knowing fine well that the police inspector in charge is played by a Humphrey Bogart impersonator, complete with mac and the constant presence of a cigarette?Ol' fake Bogey is out to catch the killer of hooker Barbara Bouchet, beaten to death in a classy French brothel run by Anita Ekberg. At first it looks like her boyfriend did it, which would make sense as he was seemingly the last person with her, and was badly beating her up last time we saw Babs alive. Her boyfriend gets captured and sentenced to death during a court scene shown mostly in negative (?), curses all the witnesses to a violent death, escapes from prison, then accidentally decapitates himself while speeding on a motorbike. Saves wear and tear on the guillotine I guess!Those relieved witnesses are not so relieved as someone starts bumping them off, starting with the beating to death of Anita Ekberg (in a weird, multi-coloured scene), but who would want these people dead? Is it singer Rosalba Neri? Her husband, Pepe? Pepe's lover, (I can't be bothered looking up her name)? What about the author who lives in the brothel, 'researching a book'? The judge seems to be involved too, as does his doctor mate who wants to operate on the boyfriend decapitated head. Gordon Mitchell also shows up for a quick cameo which has nothing to do with anything and is totally pointless. I think he was drunk and just wandered on set.Upping the madness factor is your usual sleaze and some gore thrown in for good measure, and the killer's motivation for killing is remarkably tasteless, even for a film that's shown up two decapitations and a doctor cutting up what looks like a lamb's eyeball. I like my gialli short, daft, with plenty of sauce, so full marks to Bogey!Wait – didn't the doctor's assistant say he saw the boyfriend's eyes move while examining his severed head? What was that all about? He was just told to shut up and not mention it again.

GL84 Investigating a strange death in Paris, a police inspector finds that the main suspect's accidental death doesn't stop the body-count from stopping when more suspects are found dead and races to find the motive behind the strange deaths in finally find the killer.This one here may have been a prototypical giallo but does have some minor flaws. The fact that this one does manage to play so close to the vest in the tropes of the giallo is where this one scores the most, as that keeps this one into the most watchable realms. This one does have a pretty intriguing story here about the use of the brothel and it's clients working throughout here which manages to offer up the kind of suspect list that makes true giallo fans envious at the sordid sleazy characters at play within the confines of the clientele, the fun of the slow revelation with all of their secrets and different connections to each other and the ensuing rampage across the different groups which really sets this going down more pronounced giallo tropes. Putting the familiar black- gloved killer to good use, these stalking scenes are the film's absolute best parts overall with the rather fun stalking scenes in play here with the thrilling stalking of the cheating boyfriend in the house with his lover, some fine stalking around the house where the killer strikes from behind in a great kill as well as a truly brutal triple-victim attack where the killer strikes in a house wiping out three different victims in different methods which is a rather enjoyable encounter overall. There's a lot of fun here with this series of stalking scenes which makes for a rather enjoyable time leading into the big chase at the end into the Eiffel Tower which is a rather thrilling ending helping along with the film's strong body-count. Along with a rather fun motorcycle chase and a copious amount of nudity, there's plenty to like here. Still, there's some rather problematic areas here which does hold this back somewhat. The biggest problem here is the fact that there's just so little about the killer's motivations here even with it being a convention of the genre but here it doesn't really come up at all. There's a lot to like here about the revenge-from-beyond-the-grave plot, but there's little about the actual reason here for the killer and is absolutely lazy about giving one. Another problem here is the film's rather stumbling pace that doesn't really get any kind of momentum going in the middle segments after the fake-out death of the suspected killer, keeping it going on numerous bland tangents without featuring any kind of real investigations into the main plot. Though that makes for a big final half, there's a rather bland set-up to get there. The last problem here is the film's gimmick- filled scenes that don't really do much of anything for the film, using the film-negative set-up for the scenes of the kills or the victims in the different scenes throughout here, and it somewhat hinders this with some cheesy, low-budget feel. Beyond these, there's some rather good stuff to like here.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Nudity, Language, sexual scenes and drug use.

adriangr I usually have a lot of time for cheesy mid-1970's Euro-thrillers, but this one was a very poor effort. It involves a string of murders and the usual red herrings and sleaze, but the presentation is amateurish and without any atmosphere at all.The film begins with a suicide leap from the Eiffel Tower. We cannot see who jumps, but it's only 2-3 minutes into the film and we already have Terrible Special Effect Number One: the suicide leap is depicted by means of a cartoon black silhouette of a man superimposed over a still image of the tower...my jaw dropped. The plot switches to a brothel where the madam (a rather hefty looking Anita Ekberg with a massive hairdo) and her girls are entertaining some rich clients. A less rich and more troublesome customer called Antoine gatecrashes the party and asks for his favourite girl. After some sexy embracing during which time he lavishes stolen jewelry on her, the atmosphere turns sour when she tries to leave the bedroom. Some slapping follows, and Antoine overacts wildly, while attempting to keep his todger covered at all times (failing at least one, which is quite amusing). He eventually flees the brothel, and when the staff come to investigate they find the girl has been murdered.Things go into a decline from here on as some dull police inspectors investigate the murder, and chase after Antoine. Watch out for Terrible Special Effect Number Two as Antoine is shown escaping on a motorbike. In close ups of his face its obvious that he's not even moving and is being filmed in front of plain white and plain black (?) backgrounds instead of the supposed leafy countryside. And wait for a real laugh-out-loud moment with Terrible Special Effect Number Three: a truly lame decapitation.The film plods on, trying to spin a web of mystery and shock. There are more murders. They aren't interesting in the slightest and they are certainly not "sex murders" as suggested by the film's title. At one point a doctor is shown dissecting a human eye. This is depicted by terrible Special Effect Number Four: the use of a bloodied-up sheep's eye which is mauled apart by some amateur stage hand with what seems to be a very blunt scalpel, resulting in bits of goo and gristle getting squished all over the plate it is resting on...some fine medical handiwork there! The acting is uniformly bad, and of course the dubbing is terrible...truly awful. Try this sample English dialogue from a scene in which Antoine is captured: "No I didn't kill her. Are you mad? I'm not guilty! You'll find out I'm not guilty! No I'm not the murderer! You won't believe I didn't commit it!" It's like listening to a rabid Yoda! Especially when he snarls: "From the grave I'll come back!" Was this really the best they could do? Most pointless of all is that the police investigation is presided over by a Humphrey Bogart look-alike, complete with slicked back hair, long raincoats, the lot. There's no explanation for why he's dressed up as a clone of Bogart and it makes no contribution to any part of the film's plot. I sat through the whole thing waiting for it to get better, but it never did. Of course there's a big revelation at the end but it's not much of a pay off for the preceding 90 minutes. The only diversions from the tedium are the very 1970's feel (everybody smokes!), and some groovy music and lots of attractive actresses, but very little else. Do yourself a favour and avoid this one.

gavcrimson SPOILERS INCLUDED A masterpiece of the 70's European horror film, Bogeyman and the French Murders sadly remains a rarely screened film, doubly odd given that it has enough style, stars and strangeness to be the epitome of that era. Co-producers Dick Randall and Marius Mattei assembled some of Eurosleaze's most famous faces, Anita Ekberg, Rosalba Neri, and Howard Vernon, or The Killer Nun, Lady Frankenstein and Dr Orlof respectively in what could have been called Humphrey Bogart Fights Back From the Grave. Welcome to the world of Antoine Gottvalles, a lovesick minor jewel thief who we first meet looting a Paris bank. Escaping with a handful of jewels, he heads over to the brothel of Madame Colette in an attempt to lure his girlfriend, a prostitute (Goliathon's Evelyn Kraft) out of a life of vice. When Kraft doesn't want anything to do with him or his err... jewels a butt naked Antoine goes berserk `you are nothing but a broad.. a bloody whore'. Later when the tart without a heart is found with her faced bashed in, the police are called to investigate, bringing unwanted attention to Madame Collette and no surprise since her whorehouse is swinging with Parisian perverts who dress in psychedelic Satanic robes and sex kittens in heat. But wait, in all the towns in all the bars who should be investigating the French murders than an Inspector who acts, looks and dresses like Humphrey Bogart! All the fingers of guilt point to quick tempered Antoine and after a keystone cops chase that has to be seen to be disbelieved Antoine is caught by Paris's finest and sentenced to death (by the guillotine!) but vows to his former friends `from the grave I'll come back'. Later Antoine escapes and is chased around until his motor-cycle runs head on with a pane of glass that lops his head off, but director FL Morris isn't finished with us yet and much to the amazement of the all star cast and `Inspector Bogart' the French Murders continue with the black gloved killer (who keeps a pair of eyeballs in his pocket) disposing of those involved in Antoine's trail. Soon heads are severed with swords, throats are cut and corpses appear with their eyeballs missing. The late Vernon turns up as Doctor Waldemar who requests to experiment on Antoine's severed head! only to end up frantically dissecting Antoine's eyeballs after his assistant reports them moving! Hard as this maybe to swallow Bogeyman was announced as an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Evil Eye, surprising as no such book appears to exist. Still Bogeyman contains one feature noticeably absent from any Poe film treatment, the incredible Robert Sacchi a Bronx born actor whose resemblance to Bogart has to be one of the most spookiest things committed to celluloid, not even Madame Tussards could have come up with a more uncanny likeness. It was certainly enough to earn him the nickname `The Man With Bogart's Face' he even played the title role in a 1980 movie of the same name, but Randall and Mattei were the first to really milk the Bogart comparisons for all their worth. Some may have actually believed the Hollywood star was alive and well and appearing in Euro exploitation movies. Even the plodding detective angle, usually the stepping stone of lesser known giallo into boredom is given a kick by the absurdity of Sacchi's `L'Homme Au Visage de Bogart', less a character than a living breathing film homage lost in a world of psychedelia, bell bottoms and the fleshpots of Pigalle. For a film that captures a time and place in all its kitsch glory, what is amazing is that Bogeyman isn't even a French film, stock shots were later added (by Eurocine) to give the film a Paris by night feel, no easy feat for a movie that begins and ends on the Effel tower. Bogeyman's set must have been an exciting place to be on, not just for the bouncing severed heads, a host of international actresses with their clothes off and a Bogart impersonator but the collection of people behind the camera. The grisly effects were by an uncredited Carlo Rambaldi, the haunting music courtesy of Bruno Nicolai, plus years before he gave the world Women's Camp 117 or Zombie Creeping Flesh, Bruno Mattei's name can be found lurking in the editing credits as well. Bogeyman has a unique utterly mad hallucinatory quality, it forces you to except a world that is unreal. Why is Sacchi's inspector modelled on Humphrey Bogart!, Why is the entire courtroom scene shown in negative! Why would anyone want to operate on a severed head!- just sit back and enjoy the many moments where you wonder if the filmmakers had completely lost any touch with reality. Bogeyman is crazy in a way that all of Dick Randall's Italian productions tend to be, but its also one of his finest post Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield creations. Much like Lady Frankenstein and Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks Randall's influence seems to dominant the proceedings, no doubt because he also wrote the story under his Robert H Oliver pseudonym and cameo's in the film as a fez wearing Egyptian. Largely forgotten in the Randall back catalogue somewhere between The Wild Wild World of Jayne Mansfield and Pieces, Bogeyman merits the energy it takes to track down. For many seeing one of the stars of Slaughter Hotel badly lip-synching to a gloomy song in a Pigalle club will be enough of a recommendation, but Bogeyman shouldn't also be missed by fans of sexy Italian actresses, giallos, stock footage of the Effel Tower, gratuitous sex and violence or Humphrey Bogart!!!