My Dear Killer (1972)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This one starts out originally enough. You don't usually see someone getting murdered by being decapitated by the jaws of a hydraulic digger. The dead guy was some sort of insurance investigator (yet again), but why he wished to dredge up a water filled quarry, and why anyone wanted to kill him, is a mystery only George Hilton can solve.Yep - George Hilton's back in yet another giallo, only this time he has a moustache! Plus, he's playing this one ultra-serious too. First off, he tracks down the driver of the digger only to find he's hanged himself...except he hasn't, as George proves using the actual corpse of the driver to demonstrate! George has a quarry-sized mystery on his hands here which seems to be tied in with the kidnap and subsequent murder of a little girl some eighteen months prior, and it seems that the killer is trying to rub out all of the people involved. And some that aren't really that involved, for good measure. George has to retrace what happened back then to find out what's happening right now, and you know what means, right? Suspects!Suspects! include shifty businessman William Berger, his sister, who is married to the one handed guy, and then there's the staff (especially the driver), and there's the guy who likes to paint nude children (can't see that scene occurring these days!) and also has a bunch of statues in his cupboard, similar to the one that the killer used. Patty Shepherd appears as a teacher, but isn't a suspect, so of course the killer cuts her up with a bandsaw in a rather gory scene - while she's watching Django.The film veers wildly from gory scenes like that to drawn out scenes of policemen standing around, but, although lacking in the usual craziness, still manages to be a decent giallo due to George Hilton (and William Berger), a nice Ennio Morricone soundtrack, and taking the unusual step of having all the suspects gathered in a room for the reveal of the killer. What - no rooftop chase?

A man is decapitated by a dredger when trying to find an unspecified item from a swamp. The victim, Paradisi, worked as an insurance investigator on 'the Moroni Case' – an unsolved crime where a little girl was abducted and held to ransom. Her father delivered the ransom but he and the child were subsequently killed. The swamp murder sets off a series of killings as the killer feels the law getting too close. Inspector Luca Peretti is called in to get to the bottom of the mystery.My Dear Killer is a very good classic-style giallo. It has a very convoluted plot, even by the genre's standards. So it demands that the viewer pays close attention. Director Tonino Valerii has managed to put together a quite gripping mystery-thriller here, where the various twists and turns are incorporated into the narrative very effectively indeed. The film has the occasional giallo theme of child-killing. This ensures that there is an especially uncomfortable undercurrent to proceedings. Indeed, one of the suspects appears to be a paedophile and there does appear to be a very young naked girl in his apartment – this scene is extremely shocking to be honest. More typical of the genre is the usual array of violent murder scenes, the most famous of which involves a circular saw. The stalk and kill sequences are all well-handled and quite tense and scary; although, overall, the focus is far more on the police procedural mystery than the more gory violent aspects.George Hilton puts in a very good performance as Peretti and really holds things together well. His character is fairly rounded with a home life too, which adds to the overall depth. Adding to the atmosphere immeasurably too is Ennio Morricone. Il Maestro provides yet another nice score that fits the tone very well, especially good is the creepy lullaby theme that echoes the child-killing background to the story.As I said this is a giallo with a much more pronounced whodunit angle, with the mystery always given precedence. Sometimes this can make a film a little tedious but not in this case. The Agatha Christie side of the story lends itself well to a central police figure and the final scene with all the characters gathered is in particular from the Christie mould. In any case it seems like the best way to present this particular story. In fairness, this isn't one of the more visually striking gialli out there - it was director Valerii's only entry in the genre and maybe because he was more used to making westerns this reflects the grittier look and feel. But, this aside, My Dear Killer is certainly a consummate giallo that does not disappoint at all.

From the opening strains of its eerie, baby-lullaby theme song to its haunting final shot of a child's drawing, "My Dear Killer" (1972) is a giallo pervaded with a sense of tragedy. A year before the action depicted in the film, a young child had been kidnapped from her wealthy parents' country villa and left to die, and now a wave of homicides, seemingly connected to this tragedy, opens the case anew. Giallo regular George Hilton plays Inspector Peretti here, a character who surely deserves a medal or promotion of some sort for getting to the bottom of this case; indeed, "My Dear Killer" is one of the most complicated gialli that I have ever seen. It is the type of film that you watch by the skin of your teeth, just barely comprehending the plot as things unspool; a repeat viewing--in my case, anyway--reveals that this seemingly unfathomable plot does make perfect sense. Anyway, Hilton (mustachioed here, for a change) is excellent, as usual, director Tonino Valerii keeps things nice and suspenseful, and the maestro, Ennio Morricone, provides a score that, if not his most memorable, is appropriately nerve jangling (and eerie, as I mentioned up top). While not a particularly violent giallo, a pair of set pieces should make this film of interest to all the gorehounds out there: one decapitation murder using an enormous dredging machine, and, most horribly, the death of a gorgeous schoolteacher with a circular power saw. (Don't all women have this tool lying around their apartment?) This latter scene, although not overly graphic, still proved kind of hard for me to watch. As far as the killer's identity is concerned, I suppose it IS possible to figure this one out, but my advice would be to just relax and enjoy the fun. The DVD that I just watched, by the way, from the fine folks at Shriek Show, looks just fine, but includes no subtitling option...not even with the interview extras, which are all in Italian! A pity...I would have enjoyed Hilton's comments on this very entertaining giallo, all these years later....

Anyone who ever saw "My Dear Killer" is most likely to agree when I claim that it's nearly impossible to find another horror film with a more convoluted plot! I never thought I'd say this, but this movie almost exaggerates with the constant adding of new twists and complexity! "My Dear Killer", which is a giallo in the purest definition of the term, features nearly a dozen murder victims and an equal amount of suspects. Paying close attention to the development of the plot is difficult enough already, so guessing along for the killer's identity is pretty much out of the question. And yet, it's another wondrous example of Italy's finest horror sub genre, with brutal slaughters, controversial themes and great music! Giallo-regular George Hilton ("All the Colors of the Dark", "Case of the Bloody Iris") plays Peretti, a police detective charged with investigating the eerie murder of an insurance inspector. He was obviously getting too close to someone's dark secrets and, in order to solve the case; Peretti has carry on with the decapitated victim's research. All traces lead to the unsolved kidnapping and eventual murder of a young girl in the area. The killer clearly doesn't know how he is to getting caught, as he precautionary starts to eliminate everyone close to the case. Be advised that the above is a very vague description of the plot, as a more detailed summary would cover several pages. Apart from a few minor holes in the plot and a handful of illogicalness, "My Dear Killer" is a hugely compelling and intense murder-mystery. Especially the violence will appeal to hardcore horror fans, as the killer even uses circular saws and construction machinery! Tonino Valerii is not a very eminent Italian horror filmmaker (or at least not as eminent as, say, Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci or Sergio Martino), but his directing is truly stylish and he obviously read the "big book of giallo-guidelines" carefully before he started making this movie. Highly recommended!