Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

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

Yet another film in the Drive-in 50-pack collection. This film is known as Trauma, Rings of Fear and Enigma rosso (Virgin Killer). It's really just meh in my book. It's not a good film... really on the awful side but there is a so-so story that is tolerable to watch.As with a lot of these types of B and Z rated 1970s films, you will see a bit of soft-core porn. It's there just as a time filler and to get viewers I believe - otherwise its not necessary to have in the film. This film does have quite a bit of it.Really not a good film but, again, there is a barely tolerable story that's so-so that might be of interest to some.2/10

Alberto Negrin's "Enigma Rosso" (aka. "Rings Of Fear"/"Virgin Killer") of 1978 is a sleazy and entertaining, but overall not too memorable Giallo effort that was co-written by the great Massimo Dallamano. And the film does indeed bear Dallamano's handwriting as the theme is quite similar to Dallamano's directorial works, "Cosa Avete Fatto A Solange" and "La Polizia Chiede Aiuto", only that this film can not nearly reach the brilliance of the aforementioned films. "Cosa Avete Fatto A Solange" (aka. "What Have You Done To Solange") of 1972 is a masterpiece that easily ranks among the greatest Gialli ever made, and while "La Polizia Chiede Aiuto" (aka. What Have They Done To Our Daughters" of 1974 is not quite as brilliant a film it is nonetheless a great mixture of Giallo and Poliziottesco that no fan of Italian genre cinema could afford to miss. "Enigma Rosso" also follows the 'crazy ripper targets naughty schoolgirls' premise, but with a lot less style and imagination this time. Nonehteless, "Enigma Rosso" is an entertaining film which is recommendable to Giallo-buffs exclusively for its sleaziness.When the mutilated body of a teenage schoolgirl is found, homicide detective Gianni Di Salvo (Fabio Testi) begins to investigate in the girl's posh boarding school, and finds out there are lots of sleazy things going on... Fabio Testi is well cast as the rough and tough, but overall kind-hearted copper. Testi always delivers solid performances (his doubtlessly greatest film being "Cosa Avete Fatto A Solange") and he fits very well in his role here. Apart from Testi, the cast also includes Christine Kaufmann ("The Last Days Of Pompeii") and Jack Taylor, who is probably best known among my fellow Exploitation buffs as a regular in the films of Jess Franco. Some of the female cast members are very beautiful, and they all tend to get naked on every possible occasion. This, and a range of perversions make the film recommendable to all the lovers of the sleazier Gialli out there. The murders are not as nasty as I thought, they'd be, but not too tame either. There is also a 'funny' (and somewhat silly) subplot about the inspector and his sexy girlfriend (played by beautiful Christine Kaufmann) who happens to be a kleptomaniac. The score by Riz Ortolani is more than decent, but not one of his best, and neither highly memorable for Giallo standards. The photography is very good. Overall, "Enigma Rosso" is recommendable enough to my fellow Giallo-fans, but it is by no means a must-see. The film definitely entertains, but I strongly recommend to see "La Polizia Chiede Aiuto" and especially "Cosa Avete Fatto A Solange" before this one. One more aspect that deserves to be mentioned about this one: "Enigma Rosso" includes the arguably coolest jeans advertisement poster ever seen on film.

Third and least of a series of ‘schoolgirl’ gialli: the previous two, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SOLANGE? (1972) and WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOUR DAUGHTERS? (1974), were both directed by Massimo Dallamano – he co-wrote this but, since he died in 1976 and the film was released a couple of years later, it appears that he only managed to be involved during the early stages of the writing.Anyway, the earlier films had tackled the subject matter from different angles – the first from the viewpoint of a suspect and the second from that of the police. The third entry should have taken yet another view – perhaps from that of a possible victim – but, being an Italian/West German/Spanish co-production, the casting of Fabio Testi (graduating from the suspected teacher in SOLANGE to a police inspector) prevailed as well as that of German actress Christine Kaufmann in, basically, a nothing role! While the plot isn’t particularly involving and fairly muddled until the various threads come together at the end, the film provides the usual quota of thrills, gore and sleaze: especially interesting is the cross-cutting (albeit too brief) between an orgy and an abortion, but also notable is the scene where marbles are used for purposes of murder (a girl slips down a flight of stairs and, symbolically, brings to the ground with her the statue representing the saint after which the school is named). Incidentally, both the original title – which translates to RIDDLE IN RED – and the English RINGS OF FEAR prove meaningless! The score by the usually-reliable Riz Ortolani does the job but it’s nowhere near as memorable as the work of Ennio Morricone on WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SOLANGE? and that of Stelvio Cipriani on WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOUR DAUGHTERS? Still, the identity of the corrupt official exposed by the investigation (there's always one but, this time, he also doubles as the killer!) is interesting – and even more so that of the “Nemesis” figure, whose messages (quoting poet Robert Burns) turn up intermittently throughout. The supporting cast includes veteran German actor Ivan Desny as Testi’s superior and Jess Franco regular Jack Taylor as the depraved but gutless owner of a shop for women’s clothing. The English dubbing wasn’t too bad under the circumstances, though the image quality of my DivX copy was soft and incredibly murky (especially during scenes set in the dark).

This rather obscure giallo is relatively tame in terms of gore, but gets its creepiness from certain plot elements, like the young age of some important characters. The plot has too many suspects to keep track of and is difficult to follow at times, but that's not surprising considering that SIX (!) people worked on the script. Add some high-grade nudity from some VERY beautiful schoolgirls, a bizarre method of interrogation (choking the suspect while on a wild roller-coaster ride!), and a perfectly functional Fabio Testi performance in the lead and you have an uneven but creepy giallo. Too bad I only saw a badly cropped version of it, called "Trauma". (**1/2)