Seven Blood Stained Orchids (1972)

Seven Blood Stained Orchids is another black gloved killer Giallo flick from the 70's. Italian director Umberto (Cannibal Ferox) Lenzi is responsible but regardless of what you think he holds back on the blood a bit and relies much more on the story line and plot.

Don't get me wrong. The violence is still there. There are three exceptionally brutal scenes but it all pales in comparison to films like Ferox and Nightmare City which the director would become so infamous for with the over the top gore and bloodletting.

One of the nastier of scenes shows a hooker having her achy-breaky skull smashed in with a pipe. We do get the red stuff and to top it off she is nude and not to bad to look at. Then we have another naked beauty being slain but this time Lenzi creates a bit more of an artsy-fartsy vibe with a camera angle that would give Dario Argento an erection and he mixes the blood with some paint that was laying around for a very strange outcome.

Then we have my personal favorite kill. Naturally it is the most gory of the lot and involves power tools. What we get here is an early example off a drilling-killing. Might I state that Seven Blood Stained Orchids came out in 1972 and the cult classic Abel Ferrara Driller Killer would not come out till 1979. Toolbox Murders was 78, Last House On Dead End Street in 77 and even Peter Walkers cannibal gore-fest Frightmare wouldn't come for another two years. To my acknowledgment Seven Blood Stained Orchids might be the first power drill killing sequence to hit celluloid. I'm sure I will rack my brain long enough and come up with an earlier title but as of now Lenzi is holding the original title for this type of bloodshed. The scene comes complete with bright red-orange Dawn Of The Dead style blood and boy does it spurt!

But as I mentioned this one has a bit more substance then your average American slasher. We get a very thick plot and while some very minor hints may be dropped as to who the killer is, my guess is that the average viewer would not guess it right.

I will say that Seven Blood Stained Orchids is a typical Giallo in some senses of definition. First off we get a black gloved killer and secondly there are a bunch of priests in the movie. I will not go into who the killer is but I will tell you that it was a well thought out script with lots of dead ends and gear shifting.

This one is really for the die-hard Giallo fans. If you are looking for lots of gore you might as well skip it and just rewatch one of Fulci's flicks.