Una Libelula Para Cada Muerto, or A Dragonfly for Each Corpse as it's more commonly known amongst English speaking audiences, is set in Milan where some drug addict low life named Franco Perotti buys his latest fix & heads home to inject but once there he is brutally murdered by a hatchet wielding psycho... Italy's finest Inspector Paolo Scaporella (Jacinto Molina under his usual Paul Naschy pseudonym) is on the case with the only clue being a small Dragonfly left on the body, Franco was the second to fall victim to the 'Dragonfly Killer' & as the bodies continue to pile up the pressure on Scaporella increases. It seems someone is waging a one person war on the drug users, dealers, prostitutes & the general scum of Milan. Scaporella has little to go on apart from the Dragonfly's & a drawing by one of the victims, a drawing of something that Scaporella can't quite make out but his wife Silvana (Erika Blnac) thinks she can which makes her the Dragonfly killer's next target...
This Spanish production was directed by Leon Klimovsky & I personally thought it was nothing more than a below average murder mystery that tries to spice it's undercooked story up with some nudity & fairly gory (for the time) murders. The script by star Jacinto Molina (under that name) is your basic who dun-nit & not one that particularly impressed me, it starts off well enough with a couple of decent kills but then all sorts of unlikely things happen to stretch the story out & I found the climactic unmasking of the killer very underwhelming. The film states early on that the killer is trying to 'clean up' Milan & in the final reckoning that's all it amounts too, so in that respect we know the killers motives from pretty much the first five minutes & after that it's just a case of them being found out which in the end Scaporella's wife does! Why didn't they just put her on the case in the first place? Also there's the usual stupid unrealistic character actions, for instance if you knew the identity of a sadistic killer who had brutally murdered at least five people would you try to black mail them & even worse meet up with them in the middle of the night in a completely deserted & isolated location? I mean that's just asking for trouble, isn't it? I don't get the roller-coaster escape bit either, if your trying to escape from the police why get on a roller-coaster? I mean a roller-coaster just travels around the same track & will always end up back where it started, right? There really is very little chance of escaping anywhere on a fairground roller-coaster. The film moves along at a reasonable pace, it has a fair few murder scenes although they're not that graphic & it's watchable but it's just not very clever, the killer's motives & identity are both disappointing & could have used more thought.
Director Klimovsky does OK, the film has that 70's sleazy horror atmosphere to it, there's a fair bit of nudity but it lacks gore or violence. Oh, isn't that title A Dragonfly for Each Corpse just great? The title is one of the main reasons I bothered with it & as many of you already know you can't judge a film by it's title. The fashions & facial hair are all very 70's & the film has a certain dated feel to it which I liked.
Technically the film is alright, it's well made enough with decent production values. The film was shot in Spanish & I can honestly say the dubbing & voice acting is absolutely terrible which gives the film an unintentional & unwanted comedic element. Naschy sports a fine moustache in this one, he's all man...
Una Libelula Para Cada Muerto is a by-the-numbers murder mystery that can't quite decide whether it wants to be a full on gory slasher or a thoughtful who dun-nit, it's somewhere between the two without totally satisfying in either department. Watch something like Tenebre (1982), The New York Ripper (1982) or Opera (1987) instead.
This Spanish production was directed by Leon Klimovsky & I personally thought it was nothing more than a below average murder mystery that tries to spice it's undercooked story up with some nudity & fairly gory (for the time) murders. The script by star Jacinto Molina (under that name) is your basic who dun-nit & not one that particularly impressed me, it starts off well enough with a couple of decent kills but then all sorts of unlikely things happen to stretch the story out & I found the climactic unmasking of the killer very underwhelming. The film states early on that the killer is trying to 'clean up' Milan & in the final reckoning that's all it amounts too, so in that respect we know the killers motives from pretty much the first five minutes & after that it's just a case of them being found out which in the end Scaporella's wife does! Why didn't they just put her on the case in the first place? Also there's the usual stupid unrealistic character actions, for instance if you knew the identity of a sadistic killer who had brutally murdered at least five people would you try to black mail them & even worse meet up with them in the middle of the night in a completely deserted & isolated location? I mean that's just asking for trouble, isn't it? I don't get the roller-coaster escape bit either, if your trying to escape from the police why get on a roller-coaster? I mean a roller-coaster just travels around the same track & will always end up back where it started, right? There really is very little chance of escaping anywhere on a fairground roller-coaster. The film moves along at a reasonable pace, it has a fair few murder scenes although they're not that graphic & it's watchable but it's just not very clever, the killer's motives & identity are both disappointing & could have used more thought.
Director Klimovsky does OK, the film has that 70's sleazy horror atmosphere to it, there's a fair bit of nudity but it lacks gore or violence. Oh, isn't that title A Dragonfly for Each Corpse just great? The title is one of the main reasons I bothered with it & as many of you already know you can't judge a film by it's title. The fashions & facial hair are all very 70's & the film has a certain dated feel to it which I liked.
Technically the film is alright, it's well made enough with decent production values. The film was shot in Spanish & I can honestly say the dubbing & voice acting is absolutely terrible which gives the film an unintentional & unwanted comedic element. Naschy sports a fine moustache in this one, he's all man...
Una Libelula Para Cada Muerto is a by-the-numbers murder mystery that can't quite decide whether it wants to be a full on gory slasher or a thoughtful who dun-nit, it's somewhere between the two without totally satisfying in either department. Watch something like Tenebre (1982), The New York Ripper (1982) or Opera (1987) instead.