A Dragonfly For Each Corpse (1974)

Dir: Leon Klimovsky

A Spanish take on the then-popular giallo craze, "A Dragonfly For Each Corpse" sees a subdued Paul Naschy (who also wrote the script) playing a medium-boiled cop (he knows kung-fu and thinks all hookers are "garbage" but wears an apron while he cooks and loves presents) on the trail of a serial killer in Milan. There are some amusingly weird red herrings here, including a Nazi, a gay dressmaker, some hookers and a transvestite, as well as a few crazy deaths (death by golf club and death on a ghost train are both fun) but the mystery is quite weak by the time it reaches its lacklustre conclusion. A shame because there are some enjoyable elements. At times, the film almost feels like an intentional send-up of the genre (especially when Naschy is seen boiling pasta, eating salami out of the fridge and making coffee in a Bialetti kettle) but there's enough gore, nudity and fashionable outfits to make this a passable, though by no means essential, giallo. **