Instant Favorite.

Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Fernando De Leo at first seems to usher in the no holds barred approach to gialli during the credits of this film by having a teacher pounced upon, raped and killed by her entire class of teenage deliquents. Further still, it looks like we're up for a tense police interrogation of the entire class one by one which will involve a lot of screaming, police brutality, and double-crossing.And that's the way it plays out, for about half an hour, and it's a good half an hour. Nearly every single one of these lads is a soulless monster, a product of their environment, and they all maintain their innocence. Our policeman hero has been ordered not to beat any of the prisoners, but he still screams in their face and makes them sit in a pool of super strength booze (which is partly blamed for the attack - but who gave them it?).At this point someone must have pointed out to De Leo that the plot wasn't 'giallo' enough, and therefore all the tension that's built up over the course of the first third of the film dissipates as our cop (with a social worker sidekick) go off looking for some mysterious woman that one of the prisoners mentioned. So that's all our suspects, that we're introduced to one by one, dumped in a favour of the usual giallo person. There's also another plot diversion when our police guy decides the best way to get the truth is to take one of the teenagers home and treat him like he's a normal person - eventually this does lead somewhere, but where it leads to is the unmasking of someone as the main instigator of the attack, and it took me a few seconds to actually recognise who it was.I can't help but feel that if De Leo concentrated only on the pupils in the class we may have ended up with a better film. Who knows? De Leo's next film was The Beast Killed In Cold Blood - a straight forward giallo with over the top gore and nudie bits, and that most terrifying thing of all - Klaus Kinski!

Naked Violence is yet another well made and effective offering from Fernando Di Leo; a director that often doesn't receive the praise he deserves. Di Leo would go on to make some of the best Italian crime films in the early to mid seventies, but he also made some interesting stuff in other genres; such as this film. The film is based on a novel by Ulkranian writer Giorgio Scerbanenco, who also wrote books that inspired other Di Leo films. The film is very concise and the director is keen to focus on the important elements of the plot, which helps the film to keep focus and in turn makes it more interesting. The film begins with a scene that sees a young schoolteacher raped and murdered by her class; which just happens to be full of delinquents high on alcohol. Police Inspector Liberti gets on the case and begins by interrogating the kids in the class, but as he continues his investigation; he realises that it's becoming less and less likely that the kids acted on their own accord, and his suspicions are confirmed when his best witness is found dead.The film is essentially a character study and we mainly focus on the Police Inspector and a handful of the boys at the centre of the crime. The locations used are not particularly diverse; especially not during the first third when almost everything takes place inside a room in the police station. The film does have a very minimalist approach, but it's all done very professionally and the film is of a higher quality than a lot of the output from Italy in the late sixties and early seventies. The film is bolstered by a handful of good acting performances; Pier Paolo Capponi is absolutely great as the police inspector and receives good support from Giallo heroine Susan Scott (who in truth doesn't have a whole lot to do) and Giuliano Manetti as the main character of the school class. The majority of the film is build-up as we try to work out the reasons behind the heinous crime at the start of the film; and the brutal climax doesn't disappoint. The motive for the killings might not go down too well in some circles; but it's inventive enough and ensures that the film finishes well. Overall, this is an excellent thriller and comes highly recommended!

"I Ragazzi del Massacro" tells the story of the brutal rape and murder of a female teacher by the students in a classroom. The opening scene shows the teacher, the classroom and the students. There's no other sound beside the ominous soundtrack. She's is writing something on the blackboard and then we see the faces of the students. They don't seem about to start singing "To Sir with Love". We see their faces in close-up, the apprehensive look of the teacher. The scene builds to a crescendo till her rape and murder - this is not shown graphically but rather in an elliptical way. We see faces, pieces of flesh, her being undressed, the students crowding her.. Cut! In the next shot her dead body is lying naked and defenseless - it is surrounded by policemen. An investigation is about to begin.The police detective Marco Lamberti (Pier Paolo Capponi) has to interrogate the students of the classroom to know the who, how and why. The students of this school are from the lower classes, come from reformatories, live lives in which poverty and violence are their daily companions. But police detective Lamberti is indignant - all he wishes is to crack some heads. Curiously, after the rape & murder scene, I myself was so full of anger that I felt in sympathy with the cop's indignation. It's funny! On seeing a film, I'm not the one who roots for the cops. Especially if there's a lot of finger wagging and preachiness. But "I Ragazzi del Massacro" doesn't follow the easy way - the crime is shown in all its hideousness, but we are given also brief glimpses into the lives of those students - illness, violence, hopelessness...Lamberti has to find out who started the thing, and he can't lay a finger on the students - they are under age, and Italy, after all, is a democracy.Lamberti is teamed up with a social worker, Livia (Nieves Navarro/Susan Scott). Justice and compassion work hand in hand to find out what happened. But make no mistake. This is not a political film in the strictest sense of the word - it's just a crime flick with a social consciousness.What is remarkable is the honesty and crudity of "I Ragazzi del Massacro". This was very rare at the time. And even now, if the same story were told by Hollywood, it would be transformed into the usual tear-jerker - the tears would be followed by revenge and crowned by beautiful moral lessons.The acting overall is very good - the tough but sensitive Lamberti (Pier Paolo Capponi), the students, the lovely Susan Scott as the social worker etc.. The soundtrack is a gem, it is scary and ominous without being too flashy. The story is well told and there are many surprises in store - it's not a predictable film at all! The film hooked me from the beginning to the end.What are you waiting for? See this film if you can.

Another masterpiece I'll remember, the flashbacks in the movie were done really, well. I don't thinlk the story was that good, but DiLeo once again made it into a masterpiece. After any of his movies I seriously can't watch anything else, he's to good. I'm seriously thinking of leaving my Job and becoming a director, and try to continue his legacy. This film, agan is based on the milano of the late 60s, when no one in Italy made real movies about outsider kids, but he dug deep and, as always made a masterpiece