AllMovie

This misogynistic, slow-moving bloodbath concerns Det. DePaul (who sucks eggs as a diversion) investigating the murder of a married couple found near a Venetian canal. DePaul learns that the perverse husband, Fabio, was a cocaine addict who could only become aroused by forcing his wife Flavia into degrading sexual situations. Meanwhile, a psychotic killer stabs a prostitute in the crotch, sets a drug-dealer on fire, then ties Flavia's friend Mariza to a table naked and slowly saws off her leg with a long knife. Alas, he is not the man who killed Flavia and Fabio. Giallo a Venezia is a very obvious film whose primary purpose is graphic softcore sex and excessively explicit bloodshed. On that level, it succeeds, as the leg-sawing was one of the decade's most memorable gore scenes, and the sex is undeniably titillating, but the film falls short as both erotica and horror. Director Mario Landi and screenwriter Aldo Serio have instead created an unsatisfying mystery with an underdeveloped plot and a nonsensical finale, undercutting everything which precedes it. Leonora Fani, Jeff Blynn, Gianni Dei, and Maria Angela Giordan star in this unsavory film for completists and gorehounds only.