The Slasher... Is The Sex Maniac (1972)

Like most Italian Giallos this movie has a whole bunch of different titles. Here's a few of them... So Sweet  So Dead, Bad Girls, Confessions Of A Sex Maniac, Penetration and a bunch more. All off these titles are different cuts with different runtimes. The copy I have in the big 80's VHS box is called The Slasher... Is The Sex Maniac. The first time I watched this one I wasn't a big fan. I think I probably got bored because the first half of the film is kinda slow with lots of talky talk, but I watched it again and really got into the later half of the film. Here's the problem, My copy clocks in at about 83 min and I did some reading on this movie. There is a 88 min, a 90 & a 95 min version out there and apparently the sex scenes were so explicit that it was released at one point as a porn film, This was the "Penetration" title. Makes sense to doesn't it? When I was watching my version of the film I felt the movie could have definitely used more graphic murder scenes. They were all pretty tame with the exception of maybe one with a nice throat slashing. The main thing that kept me going till the end was the mortician who is some sort of necrophiliac and all the beautiful woman who bare it all. While absorbing all this nudity I found it strange that there was hardly any sex scenes. This is because it was extremely cut down. If all the graphic sex was cut out I'm sure the film was much more violent as well. Aside from the fact that my print was extremely cut. I thought the film had a great ending. The plot was simple. A detective is trying to track down a serial killer who is slashing up married women who cheat on their husbands but in the end the detective finds out that his wife is cheating on him at the same time he figures out who the killer is. So he allows the Sex Maniac to kill his wife before catching him. He basically gets to have his cake and eat it to but the way the ending was put together really made The Slasher a decent giallo flick. You can be sure I will track down the uncut version and there will be another review.