Torso is a 1973 Italian Giallo horror thriller film about a sadistic serial killer who is strangling and dismembering female students.
Directed by Sergio Martino (The Mountain of the Cannibal God; All the Colours of the Dark; Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key; et al) from a screenplay co-written with veteran scripter Ernesto Gastaldi.
Torso is considered to be one of the forerunners of the modern slasher genre and has developed a cult following among fans of the Giallo genre.
Plot:
The murder of two college students (and one’s boyfriend) leads to a manhunt for the killer, whose chief weapon is a red and black ascot to strangle his victims.
When a young college student discovers that she recognizes the murder weapon, she becomes a target of the killer and agrees with one of her friends, who is acquainted with their art history teacher, to stay at a local villa located on a nearby cliff.
However, the isolated cliffside villa offers no protection for the killer, who runs over the street vendor who he buys his scarves from and who tried to blackmail him for his silence. At the same time, a young college student who is obsessed with one of the four girls and has been actively stalking her (and wearing a similar red and black scarf) and one of the locals in town, go up to the villa to spy on the girls only to be ruthlessly killed.
The young student who invited her friend to the villa breaks her ankle and a doctor gives her a sedative; as such, she is asleep when the killer makes his way into the house and kills the girls, including the one who can identify him. She wakes up in time to watch him dismember the bodies but hides to avoid detection.
However, the killer locks the house, trapping her inside while he prepares to dispose of the body. When he realizes that the last girl is alive, he baits her into coming out of the room she is hiding in and reveals himself to her…
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Our review:
Slick production values, stylish direction, picturesque provincial Italian locations and a great score by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis add up to another superior giallo thriller from Sergio Martino. Torso is only marred by an unsavoury element of leering Italian machismo and the somewhat protracted finale that stretches the suspense levels a tad too long and the film then loses impetus.
Adrian J Smith, MOVIES & MANIA
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Release:
Having been released on Blu-ray by Blue Underground (in the USA) and Shameless (in the UK), Torso has received a brand-new Special Edition 2K restoration via Arrow Films. Their Torso Blu-ray was released in the United States on October 30, 2018.
Brand new 2K restoration of the film from the original camera negative by Arrow Films
High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentations of both versions of the film: the 94-minute Italian and 90-minute English cuts
Original lossless Italian and English mono soundtracks*
English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack
New video interview with co-writer/director Sergio Martino
New video interview with actor Luc Merenda
New video interview with co-writer Ernesto Gastaldi
New video interview with filmmaker Federica Martino, daughter of Sergio Martino
New video interview with Mikel J. Koven, author of La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo Film
2017 Abertoir International Horror Festival Q and A with Sergio Martino
Italian and English theatrical trailers
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Adam Rabalais
Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Adrian Smith and Howard Hughes
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Filming locations:
Corcolle, Rome, Lazio, Italy
Dear Studios, Rome, Lazio, Italy
Monte Gelato Falls, Treja River, Lazio, Italy
Perugia, Umbria, Italy
Tagliacozzo, L’Aquila, Abruzzo, Italy
Technical credits:
Aspect ratio: 1.66: 1
Technicolor
Audio: Mono (Westrex Recording System)
Original title:
I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale “The Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence”
Trailer:
