Get me right, this is a movie that plays like a tv-movie from the early 90's, so you know you will be hearing a lot of tacky music emulating orchestras with digital keyboards. Not all of it though, as the film actually has some groovy jazz music with real orchestration. Story and dialogue is not original in any way, but I was entertained the whole film and it was short (just under 80 minutes). The real saving graces of the film is the acting by Kay Rush who actually pulls it off playing the female cop and delivers in scenes of battle. It may confuse to begin with, as it has two parallell investigations but the real one that will conclude the film is screaming giallo. Given we're talking 1992 and most entries from this time was totally horrible, I have seen a lot worse I must say. This one along with Washing machine and Strange story of Olga O is probably among the better giallo entries from the early 90's.
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Andreas_W33329 September 2021
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A mixture of giallo and polizia this doesn't really work in either genre. The polizia part is unoriginal and the giallo part is confusing, so either part not having much impact. The rushed ending is just baffling. So who was the killer fond of decapitation? Or were there two killers? And who was the body in the empty house? How did the Countess escape? Perhaps I should have paid more attention. There is a strong performance from Annie Girardot but she is not in it much. Kay Rush as the detective Lisa is divertingly easy on the eye and Burt Young was, well, Burt Young. A throwback to the 1970's without going forward in any way. The music score wasn't much cop either.
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Leofwine_draca3 May 2020CIRCLE OF FEAR is a late stage cop thriller from the writer/director combo of Dardano Sacchetti and Aldo Lado. Both men were prolific during the heyday of the genre in the 1970s, when Lado in particular was well known for unusual and classy gialli like SHORT NIGHT OF THE GLASS DOLLS and WHO SAW HER DIE? Sadly, both men have little to work with in this silly and lacklustre outing, which is a pure exercise in box-ticking and nothing more. American import Michael Woods gives a nothing performance as a cop hunting drug traffickers, but because that plotline is so very slim there's also a gialloesque murder mystery which picks up towards the climax. The budget is below low and the resultant film is stilted and forced, particularly when it comes to the OTT sound effects of the many shoot-outs.
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BandSAboutMovies13 January 2021Aldo Lado made some pretty dark-themed giallo, like Short Night of Glass Dolls and Who Saw Her Die?, as well as a slicker version of Last House on the Left with Last Stop on the Night Train and one of the stranger Stars Wars cover movies, The Humanoid. This may not be a full-on giallo - it's closer to a poliziotteschi - but that doesn't mean that it's not a good watch.
Tony Giordani (Michael Woods, brother of James) is a narcotics agent whose ex-wife is killed while he's in the hospital. Is it a mafia hit? Or does an empty house that his wife had been shooting photos of hold the answers? Once Tony checks it out, he discovers a burned body and some clues that lead to the Full Moon Killer, a man who has been beheading prostitutes. And even crazier, the owner of the home is a countess who has been locked in a mental ward, but has now escaped. Also - Tony quickly gets over his ex-wife getting killed and starts aardvarking with his partner Lisa, but you know, when you're targeted by a serial killer, stuff happens.
The supporting cast for this movie is pretty darn great, with Burt Young as a drug smuggler, Philippe Leroy as the police chief and Bobby Rhodes as a pathologist.
To be honest, this whole movie feels like a 1990's cop movie that could have been made by anyone and is surprisingly from the maker of two of my favorite giallos and written by Dardano Sacchetti. I expected more, you know? -
dopefishie20 September 2021Almost unwatchable.
It's inspired by Silence of the Lambs but without any of the talent. The acting is painfully bad all around. I'm not sure who to recommend this to... If you're a diehard 80s detective film fan that needs to see every single film. But even then, you're better off skipping this one.