I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale

Plot synopsis:
Over the opening credits a man is with two women, all of them nude and on a bed fooling around, while a camera is taking photographs. After the credits, a professor is speaking with his students, and Jane (Suzy Kendall) an American exchange student attending college in Rome, Italy speaks with the professor after class. Stefano (Roberto Bisacco) offer's Jane's friend, Dani (Tina Aumont), a ride home, but she turns him down. She later tells Jane and the man seem to be always following her.Later, Flo (Patricia Adiutori), another one of Jane's friends, is with Sean, making out in a parked car at an overpass. Sean sees someone wearing a ski mask watching them. Sean gets out of the car and runs after the person. Flo gets out of the car, turns on the headlights and looks for Sean. When the headlights are turned off, Flo heads back to the car where the man with the ski mask stabs her in the chest.The next day, Dani shows Carol (Cristina Airoldi) the news of Flo's death. Classes are canceled for the day and Jane goes to see Professor Franz (John Richardson). The two of them have a drink at a local bar and Franz invites Jane to a concert. Across town, Stefano picks up a prostitute, but seems reluctant to do anything with her. When she demands that Stefano pay, regardless of his actions, Stefano hits and chokes the woman. She leaves behind an unsettled Stefano.The next day, Dani watches Carol being taken away by two bikers. They gloved killer is driving around, passing Dani who looks right at the driver. At a hippy party, Carol is kissing the two men and smoking dope, but when one of them tries to further the interaction, she puts her joint out on his chest. Carol leaves and ends up in a marshy area. She sees the masked killer standing a short distance away in the fog and runs away, but the killer catches up with her and knocks her down to the ground. Carol is strangled with a scarf and her head is pushed underwater. When Carol is dead, the killer gets a knife and cuts into Carol's eyes.The next day, the police show the students of the art class the scarf that connects the two recent murders. Dani tells Jane that the two bikers who took Carol and that they had no scarfs. At her house, Dani gets a phone call in which the killer threatens her about her scarf knowledge. Dani's uncle comes home (Jane had seen the man earlier talking to Carol) and suggests that Dani go to the country house in Perugia for a few days to hide out and relax.Meanwhile, Inspector Martino interviews a vender and ask him if he remembers selling a scarf. The man denies any recollection, but after the inspector leaves, the vender gets on a pay phone can tells someone that he wants money to keep quiet about a transaction concerning the scarf in question. A little later, Stefano talks to Dani saying that she "belongs" to him. Dani remembers Stefano wearing the scarf. She gets away from Stefano, calls Jane and asks her to come over.After Dani tells Jane about Stefano, his scarf and the threatening phone call, Jane says she will be coming to the country house a little later then the rest of them. That evening, the "scarf seller" is walking at night with a healthy chunk of cash when he is chased down by a car and crushed against a wall. The killer then takes the cash that he had apparently given the vendor earlier.The next morning, Jane goes to see Stefano and after she lets herself into his house, she sees a doll (recalling the doll flashing in the killer's mind during the murders). A neighbor woman tells Jane that Stefano was not home last night and that he might be out of town.Meanwhile, Dani and her two friends, lesbian couple Ursula and Katia, are traveling by train to Perugia. A friendly doctor named Roberto (having occasionally been seen around the university in Rome) enters their compartment and sits by Dani. The three of them arrive in Perugia and draw some attention with their revealing modern clothing as they purchase goods at a local grocery store for the week they are at a villa over looking the town. That night, Jane arrives outside Perugia in her car at an Esso gas station to ask for directions to the villa and for her car to be worked on. The mechanic says that he cannot work on the car until tomorrow for the garage is closing for the night, so he gives Jane a ride in his car up to the house on the hill. At the house, Jane tells Dani that Stefano probably did not commit any murder. Dani remembers Stefano's scarf design was slightly different for the scarf he was wearing had red stripes on a black background, not the black stripes on a red background as described by the police, but she knows that she saw a man driving a car earlier wearing the scarf but cannot remember who it was.A weird guy from the village arrives at the villa and watches through a window as Ursula and Katia lie on a bed and making out with each other. The weirdo sees the killer with his knife, so he runs and hides, but the unseen killer finds him and finishes him off.The next day, a man comes to deliver some groceries. When Jane runs down the stairs to greet him, she slips and twists her ankle. Roberto visits the house to check on Jane's ankle and Dani remembers him from the train. With Jane disabled, the three other women walk to a spring behind the villa to skinny dip. While swimming, Dani think she sees Stefano and calls out to him, but Ursula and Katia do not see anyone. That evening, the women say goodnight to the bedridden Jane. Downstairs, Dani decides to call Stefano and discovers that the phone is dead. The door buzzes and Stefano is standing in the doorway with his scarf, but he drops dead to reveal the masked killer behind him (clutching onto Stefano's scarf). Dani and the other two women scream.The next morning, Jane awakes up, limps to the door and calls out to her friends. She slowly walks down the stairs and screams when she sees Ursula and Katia dead in the living room, having been stabbed multiple times. Dani appears and reaches out to Jane, but she falls to the floor also from being stabbed and left for dead, but she dies before she can tell Jane anything. When she sees the front door being unlocked, Jane hides. The unseen black-clad killer enters the living room and begins sawing Ursula's corpse with a saw as Jane cringes in her hiding spot behind a door from the sight and sounds of it. Just then, the delivery man arrives with his groceries and leaves when no one answers to his knocking on the front door. After the man leaves, the killer resumes sawing up Ursula, puts her disembodied remains in a plastic bag and walks out. Jane comes out of her hiding place and heads for the stairs, and freezes when the door is opened again but the killer is only throwing in the bread and milk delivery left behind. Finding the telephone dead and the front door locked, Jane goes upstairs, despite the intense pain from her sprained ankle, resting at the top and not realizing that her slippers have come off.Jane goes to her bedroom window and sees the town below. She tries to signal someone using her cosmetics mirror reflecting sunlight. Roberto, still in town, looks up at the house and sees the reflection of the sunlight. He checks a phone directory at a local payphone and calls, but receives no answer. Jane, seeing the killer coming back, quickly cleans up the bedroom and hides all her clothes and other stuff to give the appearance of no one being there. She sees that her slippers are gone and looks out the bedroom door and sees the killer sawing up the dead body of Katia. Just then, the gas station owner arrives with Jane's car and knocks on the front door. With the killer again freezing and Jane unable to make a sound out of fear of being discovered, the gas station man leaves. As Jane goes to the window to try to signal a warning, she knocks over a chair. The killer comes upstairs forcing Jane to hide behind a drawer. After looking around the room and finding no one or any belongings, the killer then locks the bedroom door, with Jane still inside and leaves the key in the door. The killer then finds Jane's slippers on the steps, but he instinctively picks them up and throws them onto a bathroom floor. Jane is now locked in her own room while the killer goes back downstairs to resume sawing up Katia and Dani's dead bodies and leaves with them to bury them in a field a short distance away. When he is finished with burying the bodies of Stefano, Ursula, Katia and Dani, the killer then cleans up the house, washing away the blood and leaves while Jane watches, but she is still locked in her bedroom.At night, the grocery man tries to convince a group of local men that there are four women at the house as opposed to three the men had seen arrive. The killer is nearby and overhears the men. At the same time, Roberto goes to the gas station to get fuel before driving away and sees Jane's car there. The gas station manager tells him that although no one answered the door when he went to drop off Jane's car earlier, he also says that he did not see any of the other women leave.Back at the house, Jane, still locked in her bedroom, slides a newspaper under the door and pushes the key through the keyhole. The key misses the paper, but the killer graciously places the key on the paper for her. When Jane retrieves the key and finally gets the door open, Franz grabs her. Both of them are surprised to see each other and Franz tells Jane that "he had to do it", and that the women "were only dolls".A flashback shows a young Franz with his brother and a girl, and his brother, wishing to see the girl in an intimate ways, goes for her doll at the edge of a cliff and falls to his death. This made Franz see women who bring nothing but bad things for men. Franz also tells Jane that Flo and Carol seduced him and blackmailed him (they were the three people in the beginning), and they he had to kill Dani because she would have eventually remembered him and his scarf. Franz says he never wanted to hurt Jane, but since she knows that he is the killer, he must kill her to keep his secret intact.Just as Franz begins to strangle Jane with the red and black scarf, Roberto arrives and he and the crazed professor struggle which leads out the front door and into a barn. The struggle leads to the edge of a cliff that the barn sits right beside. Jane stumbles outside and hears someone fall. She watches warily as Roberto returns to her claiming that Franz is dead and the two of them leave to get the police.

Tags: murder, violence, cult, horror, sadist, flashback, philosophical, storytelling

Review:
But little do they know the killer has followed them...While director Sergio Martino isn't Dario Argento or Mario Bava his direction in this film is pretty well done.
Particularly great is the beautifully atmospheric stalking sequence with Carol in the woods, as well as the highly intense scene where Jane must hide from the killer while he dismembers one of her friends.
This effort will be most entertaining to the exploitation fans, as the film has plenty of female nudity and the occasional bit of gore.The cast is fairly decent, Suzy Kendall is the biggest stand-out though as a young woman trapped by the killer.Over all a good horror effort that would later influence the slasher genre.
Sergio Martino's "Torso" is one of the most underrated giallos ever made.A series of sex murders shock a college campus,and four young beautiful girlfriends(Jane,Daniella,Ursula and Katia)head for the safety of an isolated country villa.Soon a mysterious black-gloved killer begins to kill them one by one."Torso" is filled with plenty of sleaze and graphic violence,so fans of Italian exploitation won't be disappointed.The murders are stylish and properly gory,and Martino has populated the film with several strikingly beautiful women,all of whom,with the exception of Suzy Kendall,take off their clothes.Martino managed to generate a fair amount of suspense,especially during the breathtaking climax as Jane and the masked murderer engage in a chilling contest of cat-and-mouse.The score by Guido and Maurizio DeAngelis is pretty effective too.A must-see for fans of Italian giallos!.
The Case of the Scorpion's Tail was a classic-style giallo that had a strong mystery element, The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh added a significant layer of eroticism, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key added intense melodrama into the mix along with the plot of Edgar Allan Poe's the Black Cat, All the Colors of the Dark combined the giallo with an occult horror story; what Torso did was move the genre closer to the slasher film.
In many ways this is a fairly average Italian slasher pic, but it stands out from the rest by having possibly the most beautiful women ever to have featured in this type of film.The gore effects are extremely unconvincing, especially a pathetic eye gouging seen and a head being smashed against a wall by a car.Apart from the poor effects there are a few atmospheric scenes, a nice soundtrack and the dubbing isn't as bad as it could be.Overall it's a decent film and worth checking out if your into this sort of thing.I viewed this film on the uncut/unrated DVD released by Anchor Bay.(nice picture, although a bit grainy in darker scenes).
I admire this piece of giallo cinema because of its great style and how director Sergio Martino contrasts the gorgeously beautiful Italian countryside with the bloody activities of a mysterious gloved killer.
The story follows a group of young, gorgeous Italian coeds frightened when their friends start dropping like flies at the hands of a brutal slasher, who likes to strangle, stab and fondle the nude bodies of his victims (another sick, effective touch which makes the film all the more nasty).
Again, this movie is creepily effective, well-acted, and has great photography, and even if you do find it slow-moving, keep with it, as the finale is probably the best part of the film as the heroine has to watch the killer carve up her friends, one of the most unnerving sequences I have ever seen captured on film.
Sergio Martino's movie has some genuine edge-of-the-seat moments, a very attractive female cast, a superb score by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis and beautiful cinematography.While some of the special effects are a little on the poor side, the film succeeds in keeping the viewer enthralled in the plot and its strong points far outweigh any minor criticisms.I really enjoyed this movie.
The end result of Torso looks more like a big budget Herschell Gordon Lewis flick (with its inept acting, story, gore, nudity, etc) than a stylish work by Argento or even Luici Fulci.
Unlike Argento movies, Torso is crass and worthless and is nothing more than cheap and boring producer's end product disguised as a giallo.The "film" is a complete patchwork of nonsensical scenes strung together with the flimsy excuse to titillate, and it fails to do even that.
Their mutual friends, 4 beautiful women, traumatized and shocked by these gruesome murders decide to go to a secluded villa, to drink, dance, sunbathe in the nude and have lesbian "sex"!!!!Yep, that makes sense!Funny enough, if the four babes wanted to go into hiding, as inconspicuously as possible from the killer, they totally failed as we see the women, dressed in next to nothing, attract the attention of EVERY men in the village, including the village idiot.
Sergio Martino's "Torso" is definitely a film for which all these negative detractors apply to, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't provide its fair share of entertainment.It would be best to classify "Torso" as a middle-of-the-road entry in the popular slasher/giallo genre.
While "Torso" does contain a few sequences like that (the last third's cat-and-mouse game between the heroine and the killer is especially effective), its pacing is too slack for it to be truly involving and certain elements of the film are just plain laughable.
TORSO (I Corpi Presentano Tracce di Violenza Carnale) Aspect ratio: 1.85:1Sound format: MonoFollowing the murder of several classmates by a frenzied sex-killer, a group of female students retire to an isolated villa until police have apprehended a viable suspect.
But the maniac is wise to their deception, and he/she follows them...This stylish, gripping giallo-thriller - the equal of anything directed by Dario Argento at the time - was co-written by veteran scribe Ernesto Gastaldi and director Sergio Martino, the latter a journeyman technician whose commercial ethos catapulted him from one genre to another within the dictates of Italian popular cinema (cf.
Despite bland performances from an unremarkable cast - including Euro stalwarts Suzy Kendall (THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE), John Richardson (THE MASK OF Satan) and Luc Merenda (COSÌ SIA) - and some pretty obvious red herrings amongst the supporting players, TORSO is augmented by a number of beautifully crafted set-pieces - most notably the stalking of a young woman (Cristina Airoldi) - through desolate marshland by the masked maniac), photographed with stunning visual flair by Martino's regular DP Giancarlo Ferrando (THE CASE OF THE SCORPION'S TAIL) and edited to perfection by Eugenio Alabiso (MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD).The second half of the movie, during which Kendall becomes enmeshed in a nightmarish situation at a remote but picturesque country villa, is genuinely nerve-racking, staged with cat-and-mouse efficiency by Martino at his most inspired.
I sure as hell hope the makers of the new Halloween film have seen this film (I bet I know the answer to that question but I'll wait until this film is released to either have my hunch confirmed or refuted).An example of this tension within Torso would be the scene in which the lone survivor is in the villa with the killer thinking that there's no one else there.
It's a great scene in a great film.When it comes to giallo everyone seems to know the work of Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci and Mario Bava and for good reason.
Whereas in past films Martino ignored the murder scenes instead of story, here the violence is extended, placing the killer and his actions in full view.
One of the film's best features is the fact that this one manages to play so well into the confines of the giallo despite forgoing the prototypical route of the other films, as instead of the film rallying around the girls' trying to remember a clue about the killer's identity it remains far more in touch about them being in danger at the start and using the trip as a way to relax.
Very underrated giallo film that really sticks with you after a viewing and is a bit different from the rest, Torso doesn't have too much blood or gore and nothing that interesting really happens after the first 45 minutes, but the atmosphere alone more than makes up for it.
Hell, there's even Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace or the fabulous House With the Windows that Laugh or What Have They Done to Solange; TORSO, however, isn't an entry on the illustrious list of prime examples of the Giallo, but that doesn't mean it's a bad film.
Sergio Martino is often considered one of the better Italian directors of the Giallo genre, but honestly his films are generally hit or miss...
Unfortunately, as it stands with the meanderings of the opening reels, the end becomes only a technically well-executed accumulation of suspense sequences that admirable but not emotionally involving.For fans of Gialli, I would recommend it, but to others they would do best either watching one of Sergio Martino's better films ("The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh" being one) or, more preferably, simply watch something by Dario Argento, such as "Deep Red"..
Unfortunately the big three murders all happen off camera and at once and if the finale is suspenseful, it is also a little drawn out and maybe better pacing would have made this good film into a great one..
Unfortunately for them, the killer knows their whereabouts and is intent on spoiling their break.In Torso, director Sergio Martino takes a bevy of busty Eurobabes, a handful of Giallo clichés, some lightweight gore and a whole bunch of red herrings and delivers a horror/thriller that never achieves the brilliance of genre luminaries Argento or Bava, and genuine connoisseurs of Italian horror may be sorely disappointed by the result.Fortunately, Martino mixes horror and sex in equal amounts, meaning that every victim gets her kit off prior to being slaughtered, and the copious eye-candy helped me to overlook the rather weak storyline and lack of gory set-piece deaths which usually proliferate this kind of movie (even in the uncut Anchor Bay DVD, the deaths are brief and the gore is almost non-existent  thank heavens for the gratuitous interracial lesbian scene!).Towards the end, the pace of the film picks up, and Martino manages to wring some tension from the scenes in which Jane hides from the killer (firstly as he dismembers her friends, and later when she is hiding in her room after having first removed all evidence of having stayed there).
This disappointing giallo does offer some atmospheric sequences and lots of nudity, but the story progresses in a very fragmented fashion, making it hard for the viewer to even tell the characters apart, and the gore effects are embarrassing, actually some of the worst I've ever seen in an Italian horror film.
A killer is killing coeds and Jane (Suzy Kendall) gets stuck in a rented house with him in this VERY unjustly under-rated thriller giallo.
Torso may not be the best giallo that Sergio Martino ever made, but I'll argue that it has some of the most intense moments found in any of his films.
American-abroad Jane (Suzy Kendall) leaves with her friends to a cliffside manor located in a villa outside the city for the weekend, but unfortunately for her and her friends, the killer is on their trail.While the plot to "Torso" is fairly substandard on paper, Sergio Martino's 1973 thriller is anything but.
Despite having read a huge amount of praise for his work in the Giallo film sub-genre,I've found myself constantly putting director Sergio Martino's work to the bottom of my 'must watch' pile,due to having found his 1978 title The Mountain of the Cannonball God to be a rather disappointing film.With a poll for the best titles of 1973 being held on IMDb's Classic Film board,I felt that it was the best time to start afresh with Martino,and to take a look at his Giallo world for the first time.The plot:As a John and Florence Heinken start to get hot'n' heavy in a car,they spot a masked stranger staring at them.Chasing after the stranger in the woodland area,the stranger corners the couple,and kills both of them.Thanks to Florence and John both of them being popular students at an arts university,reverberations from the attack are sent across the campus.Attempting to block the dangers from her mind,a visiting US arts student accepts an offer from leading tutor Franz to take her to an opening art exhibition.Sadly for Franz and Jane,their plans are left in tatters,when another student is discovered murdered,with a red scarf around her neck.With a serial killer stalking the students,the police arrange a meeting,where they tell the students to be on the lookout for anyone who is wearing the same scarf that the killer left behind.Talking to her group of friends,Jane is left shaken,when one of them tells her that they can remember seeing someone wearing the scarf.Asking for advice from her tutor,Franz gives Jane and the gang keys to his villa,so that they can get away from all of the chaos taking place around them.Sadly,once they have reached the villa,Jane discovers that she is closer to getting a grip on the scarf than she ever could have desired.View on the film:For the screenplay of the film,co-writer/director Sergio Martino and Ernesto Gastaldi attempt to create a multi-threaded Giallo by giving an equal amount of focus to each of Jane's friends.Whilst this approach does allow for the fear that each of the characters have to be fully expressed,it also sadly causes the movie to never spend enough time on a particular character,which along with making each of the characters disappointingly interchangeable,it also leads to the mystery element feeling rather dry,due to none of the characters appearing to heavily invest in the unmasking of the stranger.Whilst the screenplay sadly fails to build a strong sense of suspense,director Sergio Martino closely works with cinematography Giancarlo Ferrando to give this Giallo a fantastic supernatural atmosphere,thanks to Martino and Ferrando superbly using corner shots to build a feeling that the stranger could appear from thin air in the corner of a room.
Emphasizing the supernatural vibes Guido and Maurizo De Angelis give the film a wonderfully creepy score,which shrieks as the killer gets close to a victim in Martino's terrific Gothic Horror villa.Placed at the centre of the film,Suzy Kendall gives a fantastic performance as Jane,with Kendall brilliantly making the 30 minute near- silent final a truly nerve-wrecking experience,thanks to Kendall showing Jane having to plan each move she makes,as the mysterious scarf-wearing killer prepares to attack the next victim's torso..
Another, involving Carol (Cristina Airoldi, the most gorgeous girl in this picture) stumbling off into a dark, wooded area, only to meet a violent end at the black-gloved hands of the killer, in my favourite scene in this movie.
It is the mystery in a giallo that makes them worth watching, trying to figure out who the killer is before the final reel.For all its notoriety the film truly didn't have near as much gore in it as I expected to find.
Sergio Martino dispenses with plot twists and mind games and delivers a truckload of boobs, gore and tension instead in what is one of the strongest Gialli you'll see, even though it's strong points have nothing to do with that genre at all.After a mysterious, sexy introduction where two girls are having a threesome with an unknown man while someone photographs them, a ski- masked murder junky kills and mutilates one of the students at an Italian art school.
The niece of the rich uncle is getting stressed out about all her friends being killed and herself being stalked and decides to go to the country with her three pals – Carla Brait and her lover, and Suzy Kendall, who when I think about it fits in with the 'final girl' stereotype from the slasher film, as she's the only one that doesn't have a sex life and seems most interested in the academic work.
This is said to be one of the main films (along with A BAY OF BLOOD) that influenced Friday the 13th and the American slashers of the 1980s, and some scenes are very similar - namely the nubile half-naked young woman being stalked through the woods by a masked villain scene, or the various graphic murders that said mystery killer commits.
His choice of murder weapon is a red and black silk scarf, but after killing his victims he likes to gouge their eyes out, and in one scene, he apparently employs a hacksaw to dismember their already dead bodies.One of the movie's four beautiful leads receives a threatening phone call that leads her to believe she has seen the killer, and may be next on the hit list.
Are you noticing parallels to the yet-unborn slasher film?Aside from the "group of people in remote location so they can't escape the killer" set up, "Torso" also resembles a slasher more than the average giallo in that the mystery aspect of the movie isn't substantial.
After their friend Carol (Conchita Airoldi) is murdered, Jane (Suzy Kendall), Daniela (Tina Aumont), Ursula (Carla Brait), and Katia (Angela Covello) leave town to Daniela's uncle's villa for the week, but little do they know, the killer is coming with them...The movie, to me, has always seemed like the Italian version of Black Christmas (1974) but without the phone calls and the sub-plot of the leading lady being pregnant.
Sergio Martino made a lots of movies but he is going to be remember by his contribution with the Italian genre called Giallo.
The dismemberment theme extends to the women even before they meet their fate, Martino using the camera frame to 'cut-up' live, and usually naked, flesh.All in all Torso is surprisingly a pretty good thrller, the only disappointing part for me was when those three girls got murdered off screen and to be honest the killers identity wasn't at all a surprise.
This is indeed a truly scary Giallo that combines all elements that make this great sub-genre of Italian Horror so brilliant.Several pretty girls, all students of the University of Rome, are brutally slain by a masked and gloved killer.