Giallo in Venice is a 1979 giallo directed by Mario Landi and starring Leonora Fani, Jeff Blynn, and Gianni Dei. The story follows a detective investigating the murder of a married couple in Venice involving a sexually abusive cocaine addict husband while, at the same time, an unknown killer commits multiple grisly murders.
Contains examples of the following tropes:
- Asshole Victim:
- The movie spends a lot of its run time showcasing how abusive Fabio was to Flavia.
- Marco doesn't treat his lover any better.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Marzia is stripped down, strapped to a kitchen table, and gruesomely tortured to death.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Let's see: being stabbed in the crotch with a pair of scissors, burned alive, getting a leg hacked off and bleeding to death...
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: It's a giallo set in Venice.
- Fan Disservice: Mariangela Giordano is a beautiful woman with a fine figure. She doesn't look so nice, though, when she's being slowly tortured to death. For that matter, a lot of the sex scenes are this, since the women are being pressured into them.
- Gorn: Of all kinds, including a woman's leg being slowly sawed off with a long knife.
- Groin Attack: The hooker is stabbed in the vagina with a pair of scissors.
- Man on Fire: Andrea Caron burns Marco alive.
- Red Herring:
- The first two deaths were assumed by the police to be done by the same killer behind the rest of the murders. Instead, it was a Murder-Suicide: Flavia stabbed Fabio to death with a pair of scissors and then drowned herself.
- Despite having offered to kill Fabio, and having the murder weapon in his possession, Bruno (Flavia’s former lover) didn't kill Fabio or Flavia. In fact, Bruno tried to save Flavia from her suicide attempt.
- The Reveal: The double murder at the beginning was actually a Murder-Suicide. After being pushed too far by her scumbag husband, Flavia stabbed him to death with a pair of scissors and drowned herself in the canals. Flavia's paramour, Bruno, brought her ashore and tried to save her, but was too late. That's how her body ended up on land instead of floating in the canals.
- R-Rated Opening: When a movie literally starts out with a man being stabbed to death, you know you're in for a treat.
- Shear Menace: Fabio and the prostitute are both murdered with a pair of scissors.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Inspector Angelo has a thing for hard-boiled eggs. In almost every scene with him he can be seen peeling and eating one.
