From Emilio Vierya, the director of The Deadly Organ, The Blood of the Virgins, and The Curious Dr. Humpp comes this mostly dull thriller with horror elements. A detective is trying to solve a rash of murders, and it seems all the victims are dancers in a variety show. He also happens to be sleeping with one of the performers, which complicates things. It also doesn’t help that the star of the show, a suave, philandering crooner, seems to be the prime suspect.
The detective stuff is boring, and the love story subplot is even worse. In all fairness, the version I saw didn’t have English subtitles. Even if I was a master of the Argentinian language though, that doesn’t disguise the fact that the film suffers from a lot of filler, most of which comes courtesy of the performances in the variety show. (There’s also an annoying tap dancer who gets way too much screen time during a party scene.) The scenes of the singing star crooning away aren’t very good either. One element I enjoyed was the act that featured a guy in a Dracula mask ballroom dancing with a gal in masquerade attire. (The mask is so cool that the killer adopts the get-up later in the film.) This scene is kind of like a vampire version of Bobby and Cissy, and I really wish there were more oddball touches like this elsewhere in the picture.
I was a fan of Vieyra’s The Curious Dr. Humpp and The Deadly Organ, but this one is sorely lacking the absurdity of the former and the seediness of the latter. Leading lady Gloria Prat (who also appeared in both of those movies) looks hot though and her performance (weird Dracula dancer aside) is the best thing the flick has going for it. (The creepy guy who looks like Lou Reed cosplaying as Chief Brody is pretty cool too.) Oh, and while there’s a little bit of T & A here (we only get a handful of brief topless scenes), the majority of the skin comes from scantily clad waitresses and showgirls in bikinis. Thankfully, the beast remained fully clothed at all times.
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