Verdict
Summary
A solid giallo that kept me engrossed like a good pulp thriller with a good dose of sexiness thrown in, Nothing Underneath is as stylish as the best of the Italian horror / slashers around. It’s got a really good score by Pino Donaggio, sounding a lot like his score for Body Double, and there a goody mystery here too, which helps. If you like the black glove killer thrillers, this is one of the really good ones.
Plot:
A top model goes missing in Italy, and her brother tries to find her, stepping into a world he doesn’t understand.
Review:
Jessica Crane (Nicola Perring) is an American top model working and living in Milan, and she also happens to be a twin to a brother named Bob (Tom Schanley), who is a park ranger in Wyoming. Sometimes Bob has a vision or a premonition because he’s intrinsically linked to his sister whom he rarely, if ever, gets to see. When he has a striking vision of her getting killed, he rushes to Milan as quickly as he can and begins asking questions about Jessica, because she’s been missing for days and hasn’t been showing up to her photo gigs. A befuddled detective about to retire (played by a bumbling Donald Pleasence with a goofy accent) is skeptical about Bob’s visions and hunch that his sister is dead, but when another model that Jessica knew is found stabbed to death, suddenly things get serious. Meanwhile, Bob is following every clue he gets, slowly putting together a strange puzzle that seems to suggest that his sister was involved in a sordid world where beauty was just a passport to a lifestyle where “there’s nothing underneath,” and now that he is following her path, he discovers that there is indeed a killer in close proximity, but what’s the motive?
A solid giallo that kept me engrossed like a good pulp thriller with a good dose of sexiness thrown in, Nothing Underneath is as stylish as the best of the Italian horror / slashers around. It’s got a really good score by Pino Donaggio, sounding a lot like his score for Body Double, and there a goody mystery here too, which helps. If you like the black glove killer thrillers, this is one of the really good ones. Director Carlo Vanzina did an excellent job with this, and it’s a shame he didn’t make more of these types of films.
Rustblade delivers Nothing Underneath on Blu-ray with a nice transfer and a few bonus features include interviews with Donaggio and the creator of the story, as well as the trailer and a still gallery.
