Knife Under the Throat (1986)
French attempt at a giallo, directed by Claude Mulot (his final film - he drowned whilst swimming four months after the film's release, aged just 44).
The IMDb plot summary simply reads 'Erotic models are stalked by a maniac.' The fact that that just about sums it up says how thin the plot is. To try to flesh it out a bit... Jean Rollin regular Brigitte Lahaie's modelling agency boss slips a night watchman a few bob to let her photographer take some saucy snaps in a local cemetery. As the night watchman watches the photoshoot from his hut he becomes increasingly angry (presumably he hadn't realised what kind of photoshoot it would be) - to the point where the next day he murders an innocent woman who bears a passing resemblance to one of the models. Immediately afterwards, in a fit of guilt, he throws himself under the wheels of an HGV. From then on various people involved in the photoshoot start getting bumped-off by an unidentified, black glove-wearing assailant armed with a knife.
With such a flimsy story, the runtime is understandably short (just 81 mins). Lahaie was the best-known name in the cast at the time, and is easily the name still most familiar to Eurosleaze fans; but the lead of the film is the eye-wateringly beautiful Florence Guérin as Catherine, one of the models. She was just 20 yrs old but had been acting for six years, and - according to Lahaie in a recent interview - had decided she was destined to be a megastar, treating everyone else accordingly. Guérin is still working but never achieved that stardom - perhaps the diva attitude is why. Shame.
It suffers from some things many gialli suffer from; the people don't talk - or react - like real people, some of the plot contrivances are implausible (to say the least), and when the reveal comes it is genuinely laughably ridiculous! But also in true giallo fashion, there are plenty of red herrings, a lot of full nudity - and, perhaps most importantly, the blood looks like bright red paint!
This French attempt is not a bad stab (forgive the pun), and there are certainly Italian gialli that I'd rate lower. 6/10
