The Case of the Bloody Iris



The Case of the Bloody Iris (1971) is an Italian giallo, or gruesome murder mystery, that managed to offend me more than most examples of the genre. There is a certain level of misogyny running through most italian horror, but Bloody Iris manages to pile misogynistic scene on top of misogynistic scene from the very beginning, and furthermore hits just about every misogynistic theme I've seen in Italian horror cinema by the time it's over.


"Good day, ma'am, I'll be your mysterious killer for today."

In the very first scene a woman is murdered in the elevator of a high rise building. The three tenants who find the body seem more annoyed by the mess than sympathetic for the dead woman. The very next day one of those tenants, Mizar, a model who wrestles men in a nightclub, is also murdered by drowning in the bathtub of her apartment. Andrea (George Hilton), who works for the company that owns the building, arranges for two sexy models, Jennifer and Marilyn, to move into the apartment. Jennifer is being stalked by her husband Adam, who is the head of a free love cult, and Marilyn is prone to to doing and saying incredibly stupid things, like pretending to drown herself in the same bathtub where Mizar was found dead. Soon Jennifer is complaining about a masked man who breaking into her apartment. Then Adam is killed, Marilyn is stabbed, Andrea goes on the run... What is going on here? The police aren't much help, because the detective in charge of the case seems more interested in berating his inferiors and pilfering crime scenes for interesting stamps.


Woody Allen finally gets complete creative control over a movie.

As with many giallo most of the goings-on exist only to provide red herrings. There's Jennifer and Marilyn's photographer who comes across like a gay Woody Allen. There the music professor who plays violin at all hours, and his lesbian daughter, who is apparently suspect only because she is a lesbian. The detective tells her to stop "wasting her talent" and give men a try. Jennifer's husband and his love cult provide the iris of the title, but have nothing to do with anything. Then there's the old lady next door who is hiding her disfigured son in a closet. All vaguely interesting, but don't expect a great revelation to tie everything together at the end. The killer is revealed, killed in the obligatory fight, and the end credits roll. I was left wondering what the hell just happened, which is about par for the course.

There is some camp value to The Case of the Bloody Iris. The fashions are very 1971, and the dialogue is unintentionally hilarious. ("No orgies," Marilyn complains, "I get motion sickness.") The movie is apparently supposed to take place in London, a fact which I base on the map on the wall of the police department and a few spoken references, but was obviously filmed in some Italian city.

Posted: Mon - July 5, 2004 at      

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