Martino’s Torso is really a perfect example of the giallo genre. Plenty of naked girls, an insane killer, suspense and slashings. The only real weakness it has is its insistence on showing poorly executed gore sequences. As a low-budget film, it works extremely well, but in these gore sequences it is difficult not to lose one’s suspension of disbelief.
What interests me the most about the film is really the way that the eroticism functions. Clearly, one of the reasons for watching the film is the attraction of the sleaze – the naked girls, the lesbian scenes and so forth – but as much as male sexuality is gratified by the film, it is just as much ridiculed and deconstructed.
The plot is basic enough, but provides an entry into the discussion of male desire in the film. However, this is spoiler filled, so read on at own risk. The killer, disturbed as a child by seeing a friend die due to a doll, sees women as dolls of flesh and blood, and kills them to punish them for his childhood trauma. His inability to view women in a normal way, leads him to a warped sense of reality and so he kills them, subsequently caressing their naked bodies. The original Italian title I Corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale literally means “the corpses bear signs of carnal violence” carnal being as much meant in the erotic sense here.
But it is not just the killer who has a warped sense of sexuality – in the small town where the girls go to relax, a group of guys serve as comic relief in their overly macho behavior and their talk of what they want to do with the girls. “8 legs, 8 titties and 4 asses” as one of them says. Yet, for all their desire they never act on their impulse and seem mostly pathetic and comic.
Even at the hippie/orgy place, where two guys get a girl stoned and fondle her breasts, she takes control by demanding that they get naked before she does and when she leaves, their chase ends in a pool of mud and their aggressive chants of “I’ll kill that bitch” turn hollow and childlike.
All the males in the film – with the exception of the doctor – are presented as pathetic creatures who are unable to handle their desires. The film thus problematizes male desire while it simultaneously plays up to the male desire by presenting naked girls in lesbian interaction. It is this conflation of narrative and material existence which is so typical of exploitation films, and Martino’s film here is a good example of this.
