For as much lip service as Halloween gets for being the beginning of slasher films, there are any number of films that precede it, and something I’m starting to realize the more I dive into Italian horror is just how much of the prototypical slasher film’s DNA comes from giallo. Sure, it’s a term that encompasses more than just horror, but within the ones most commonly associated with horror, starting with The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, you see what would eventually lead to Halloween and all the dross that came after. And as someone who doesn’t really like slasher films, a lot of the early examples are more interesting in how they don’t hew to a formula (because the formula didn’t exist yet) or bring in elements of other films.
And to this end, I Corpi Presentano Tracce Di Violenza Carnale (Torso) is a noteworthy addition to the list. It’s an Italian horror film that doesn’t have the visual flair of something like Suspiria or Deep Red, or the gonzo weirdness of something like The Beyond, but acquits itself well and probably works even better now because of a shift in cultural norms.
It opens, as many of these films do, lurid and weird. Someone’s photographing a bunch of women sort of writhing around naked in soft focus. There’s a child’s doll, and a set of fingers comes into frame to gouge out its eyes. So already we have a pretty good idea of what we’re in for. Cut to an art history lecture, and a professor examining the relationship between sacred art and artists who are non-believers. We’re introduced to a number of female students - Flo, Carol, Dani, Katia, Jane and Ursula. It’s coming up on the weekend and they’re making plans. For Flo, “plans” consist of driving to a remote area and making out with a guy.
They did not include a masked figure murdering both of them, but there you go.
The basic structure of the film is as simple as any slasher film - people try to figure out who’s doing all the murders, murders keep happening, often strangulation with a very distinctive-looking scarf, eventually there’s a final reveal and confrontation. The music’s pretty stock, the settings aren’t especially flashy, but it’s well-paced and has, I think, a couple of things going for it. First, intentionally, it makes good use of the trappings of the whodunit. Just when you think you’ve got a particular character nailed as the killer, something comes along to upend that and make you question your own judgment. It’s pretty engaging on that front, and the final reveal feels earned, if not just as melodramatic in its explanation as any other film in the genre. I don’t like thinking of films in terms of “kill scenes,” but I think it handles the requisite scenes well - they’re mostly set-up, and though the violence is sufficiently graphic, it’s not lingering or gratuitous. It gets pretty gnarly at points but you never feel like it’s indulging for the sake of it.
The second thing is, I think, not intentional, but more a factor of the way sensibilities have changed since the 1970s, when this was made. It’s a film that is very much of its time. The original title translates to “the body showed traces of carnal violence” and if I didn’t know better, I’d say this film was key in the inclusion of sexual content in later slasher films. There is lots and lots of gratuitous nudity in this film, starting with the opening credits but by no means ending there. The scenes don’t need it, and it’s lingered upon. It’s strictly directed at the female characters and it’s utterly unapologetic. The camera leers and so do pretty much all of the men in the movie. Like, literally there’s one scene that’s just a bunch of men gawking at a woman. Like, that’s it. Both in how they’re treated visually and in how the male characters talk about them, the women in this film are completely objectified. So right off the bat, there’s something alienating about this film, in the degree to which it is the product of a sensibility you rarely see depicted so blatantly any more. But I think the alienation helps it - we’re presented with a world very different from our own, and that creates a certain atmosphere.
This is further assisted by the nature of the men in the film. With a couple of exceptions, all of the men in the film are creepy to one degree or another. It’s tough to tell how much of it is intentional and how much of it is just because it was an Italian film made in the 1970s. but, as it does in
Black Christmas, it adds this uneasy layer to the film - it’s already a hostile atmosphere, and on top of that, pretty much anyone could be the killer. Is it the art professor who hits on Jane and takes a compliment about his eyes really strangely? Is it the student clearly obsessed with Dani, who wears a suspiciously familiar-looking scarf and starts choking a sex worker when she suggests he might be gay? Is it the apparently well-meaning doctor who gives a bunch of them the once-over on a train out of town? Is it the weaselly owner of the newsstand who sells scarves like the one from the killings? Is it one of the two dudes who grope Katia and then try to beat her up when she rejects them? Is it Dani’s uncle, who isn’t above checking her out surreptitiously while she’s just wearing a towel? It could be any of them because they’re all equally complicit in treating women like objects that exist for their pleasure and nothing else. It’s like these women are adrift in a sea of predators because misogyny makes everything a minefield for them.
The first act sets up all the suspects, the second act starts picking people off, and the third brings it home, though interestingly enough, instead of getting more frantic toward the climax, it slows way down and plays most of it as an extended game of cat and mouse, making the big reveal pretty much at the last possible minute. True to the form, there are plenty of cryptic flashbacks, murders performed by a mysterious figure in black leather gloves, the requisite pop-rock soundtrack (chase scenes are never more mellow than they are in films like this), and plenty of blood. There’s strangling, stabbing, eyes getting gouged out, heads getting crushed by a car, the usual, though the violence is far less fetishized in this film than the sex, about which attitudes are as confused as you’d expect - plenty of women traipsing around naked for reasons, dialogue about what this particular man would do to that particular woman, but a scene of the killer peeking in on two women kissing has the kiss itself obscured by a conveniently placed headboard. There’s also an early instance of the Final Girl, predating Halloween by a good five years. It doesn’t hit the most deliriously berserk heights of the form, but it’s also much more coherent and keeps up a good sustained feeling of tension and unease. Nobody and nowhere feels safe in this film.
It is, in some ways, a very workmanlike film. It doesn’t exceed expectations, but there’s also not too much to complain about - there’s one very goofily choreographed fight scene that looks more like a slapfight than anything else, but that’s about it. If you have a low tolerance for men being gross about women, this is not your film, and though it isn’t as transcendent as something like Suspiria or The Beyond, it’s very solid.
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