THE KILLER RESERVED NINE SEATS is a giallo with a difference – instead of focusing on a murderer targeting a string of women around a city, the plot of this one harks back to classic murder mysteries a la Agatha Christie as it has a bunch of people trapped in a single location and being offed one by one by an unknown killer. Here, the setting is an effectively spooky old theatre, and the killer is somebody who wears an eerie disguise when carrying out his crimes. If this set-up sounds familiar, it's because Michele Soavi virtually remade this as a slasher film in 1987, entitled STAGE FRIGHT. However, while Soavi's film is packed with tension, drama and violence, and as a result is a very good film, THE KILLER RESERVED NINE SEATS is one of those overly talky films that it's a real chore to sit through.
Director Giuseppe Bennati only made this one giallo film and it seems that he's uncomfortable with the genre. The scenes are all very staged and the dialogue seems to go around in circles; when the eventual identity of the killer(s) is revealed at the film's climax, it all seems unbelievable and contrived, not the effect it was supposed to have, I imagine. The cast is packed with familiar faces – Lucretia Love from THE SHE-BEAST, Paola Senatore and Janet Agren from EATEN ALIVE, Chris Avram from A BAY OF BLOOD, Andrea Scotti and Howard Ross from absolutely tons of Italian genre flicks – but nobody seems to be making much of an effort here in the acting stakes and it all feels distinctly so-so.
The murders are routinely staged and there's the typical genre cliché of having the women strip off before they die (and this wouldn't be a giallo without a couple of lesbians in it, would it?). Expect murky stabbings and one unpleasantly sexualised murder which really pushes the boundaries of bad taste. While the theatre setting is always effective in these type of films, the action that plays out just isn't interesting enough to bother with – which is why this giallo flick is so hard to come by.
Director Giuseppe Bennati only made this one giallo film and it seems that he's uncomfortable with the genre. The scenes are all very staged and the dialogue seems to go around in circles; when the eventual identity of the killer(s) is revealed at the film's climax, it all seems unbelievable and contrived, not the effect it was supposed to have, I imagine. The cast is packed with familiar faces – Lucretia Love from THE SHE-BEAST, Paola Senatore and Janet Agren from EATEN ALIVE, Chris Avram from A BAY OF BLOOD, Andrea Scotti and Howard Ross from absolutely tons of Italian genre flicks – but nobody seems to be making much of an effort here in the acting stakes and it all feels distinctly so-so.
The murders are routinely staged and there's the typical genre cliché of having the women strip off before they die (and this wouldn't be a giallo without a couple of lesbians in it, would it?). Expect murky stabbings and one unpleasantly sexualised murder which really pushes the boundaries of bad taste. While the theatre setting is always effective in these type of films, the action that plays out just isn't interesting enough to bother with – which is why this giallo flick is so hard to come by.