An Ideal Place to Kill – Mondo Macabro (Blu-ray)

Theatrical Release Date: Italy, 1971
Director: Umberto Lenzi
Writers: Antonio Altoviti, Lucia Drudi Demby, Umberto Lenzi
Cast: Irene Papas, Ray Lovelock, Ornella Muti, Michel Bardinet

Release Date: May 26th, 2020
Approximate running time: 89 Minutes 36 Seconds
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Widescreen / 1080 Progressive / MPEG-4 AVC
Rating: NR
Sound: DTS-HD Mono Italian, DTS-HD Mono English
Subtitles: English
Region Coding: Region Free
Retail Price: $29.95

"Two free-spirited teenagers, Dick and Ingrid (played by Ray Lovelock and Ornella Muti), set out to spend the summer together in Italy. To pay their way they sell Scandinavian porn mags and pictures of Ingrid posing nude. But then they get busted by the cops and are given 24 hours to get out of the country.

Instead of leaving they take to the road, where they come up against a thieving biker gang and they are mistaken for a pair of bank robbers. Heading south in a hurry, they run out of gas in the middle of nowhere and take refuge in the house of Barbara Slater (Irene Papas), a seemingly bored, middle-aged housewife who appears to be up for some sexual shenanigans. The naive pair party with Barbara but soon discover she is hiding a terrible and deadly secret." - synopsis provided by the distributor

Video: 4.5/5

Here’s the information given about the transfer, “brand new 2k transfer from a film negative”.

An Ideal Place to Kill comes on a 25 GB single layer Blu-ray.

Disc Size: 20.6 GB

Feature: 15.6 GB

The source used for this transfer is in excellent shape; colors are nicely saturated; image clarity and black levels look solid throughout; there are no issues with compression; and grain remains intact.

Audio: 4.25/5 (DTS-HD Mono Italian, DTS-HD Mono English)

This release comes with two audio options, a DTS-HD mono mix in Italian and a DTS-HD mono mix in English. Both audio mixes are in great shape; dialog always comes through clearly; everything sounds balanced; and range-wise, ambient sounds and the score are well represented. Included with this release are removable English subtitles for the Italian language track. It should be noted that there are portions of dialog that were never dubbed in English, and while watching the film in English, these Italian dialog exchanges come with English subtitles.

Extras:

Extras for this include, a Mondo Macabro promo reel, a trailer for the film (4 minutes 7 seconds, Dolby Digital mono Italian with removable English subtitles), X Rated inserts: #1 (12 seconds, Dolby Digital mono English, no subtitles), #2 (9 seconds, Dolby Digital mono English, no subtitles), #3 (11 seconds, Dolby Digital mono English, no subtitles) and #4 (40 seconds, Dolby Digital mono Italian with non-removable English subtitles), an interview with director Umberto Lenzi titled Porn Smugglers (23 minutes 44 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo Italian with removable English subtitles) and an audio commentary with film historians Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson.

Summary:

An Ideal Place to Kill was directed by Umberto Lenzi, a diverse Italian filmmaker whose filmography includes Sandokan the Great, The Pirates of Malaysia, Kriminal, A Gun for One Hundred Graves, Paranoia, Seven Blood-Stained Orchids, The Man from Deep River, Gang War in Milan, Knife of Ice, Spasmo, Almost Human, Eyeball, Syndicate Sadists, The Tough Ones, Violent Naples, The Cynic, the Rat & the Fist, Brothers Till We Die, Nightmare City, Eaten Alive!, Cannibal Ferox, and Hitcher in the Dark, Also, An Ideal Place to Kill was released under the alternate titles Oasis of Fear and Dirty Pictures. 

An Ideal Place to Kill is a very satisfying mix of eroticism and thriller genre elements. And though An Ideal Place to Kill gets classified as a giallo, it actually lacks two of the giallo genre's key components: a rising body count and a black-gloved killer whose identity has been obscured. In fact, there is only one corpse in An Ideal Place to Kill. With the narrative revolving around a character who is looking for someone to take the fall for their murder.

Fortunately for a Giallo that’s limited to one killing, there’s never a shortage of tense moments. Besides anticipating the killer's exposure, there’s also mounting tension between the killer and two lovers that the killer tries to frame. With the tension building to a fever pitch by the time the film reaches its moment of truth.

Performance wise, the cast is very good in their respective roles, especially the three leads: Ray Lovelock (Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man) and Ornella Muti (The Most Beautiful Wife) in the roles of two free-spirited lovers, and Irene Papas (Don’t Torture a Duckling) in the role of Barbabra Slater, a chameleon-like character that draws her prey in like a black widow.

An Ideal Place to Kill is a different kind of giallo from Umberto Lenzi. Though An Ideal Place to Kill straddles the line between the psychological gialli of the late 1960’s and the in your face visceral gialli of the early 1970’s, The result is a film that’s unlike anything that's come before or since.

An Ideal Place to Kill gets a definitive release from Mondo Macabro; highly recommended.

Written by Michael Den Boer