What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (1977)

I picked this up at a second hand convention, only for the reason it was full uncut and it was a giallo. But from the first minute I was already left with a bitter feeling. The girl hanging on a rope was clearly not a real person. So i thought this wasn't to be what I expected from it but I noticed that it was well shot by the director Massimo Dallamano who of course knew his stuff as a cinematographer from Italian classics like a few spaghetti westerns directed by Sergio Leone.This flick did have it's elements straight from a giallo like the black leather gloved killer and we do have young girls being abused and killed but it do involves a lot of talking too which made it somewhere between a thriller and a giallo.The soundtrack on the other hand is sublime. But it's the story itself that gave this flick a bit of perverted look. It's all about 15 year old girls being abused by older men. And we do have to listen on tape what they are doing with the girls. But one scene makes it kinky when we go back to the mother of Sylvia (Sherry Buchanan) discovering that her 15 year is taking anti-conception. When Sylvia comes home she goes bare breasted before her mother and confronted with the pil see easily says, better that then giving birth to a child. The fact that she is already sexual active at 15 back then and is showing her breasts gave this flick something to talk about. Sherry went further as main lead in Zombie Holocaust (1980)Lovers of the genre must see this but for many horror buffs this will be low on blood and horror, as I said in my summary, somewhere between a thriller and a giallo.Gore 0,5/5 Nudity 0,5/5 Effects 1,5/5 Story 2,5/5 Comedy 0/5

A school-girl is found hung naked in a loft. Initially thought suicide, it soon becomes clear it was a murder. The discovery leads to a sordid case involving an underage prostitute ring and bloody mutilation.What Have They Done to Your Daughters? is pretty much a companion piece to director Massimo Dallamano's other similarly themed film What Have You Done to Solange? Both movies share stories about murder and abuse of school-girls. As a result they both are a little more downbeat than is usual in this category of film, they aren't as graphically violent as other similar movies either, as the bleak story lines are unpleasant enough as they are. Where Solange was a giallo, this film is a hybrid of the giallo and poliziotteschi; for while there is a murder-mystery plot, the emphasis is squarely on the police procedural side of things. To be fair though this is an excellent show-case for both Italian sub-genres. From the poliziotteschi side of things we have a brilliantly shot and pulse-pounding motorcycle chase scene where a leather clad killer is pursued through the streets by police in a high speed chase; alternatively from the giallo side of the coin there is an intensely suspenseful scene set in an underground car-park where the killer stalks the heroine. In other words what makes Dallamano's film so good is that he is so adept at delivering the goods in both sub-genres.The two leads are very good. Giovanni Ralli (Cold Eyes of Fear) and Claudio Cassinelli (Flavia the Heretic) as both believable and strong in their respective roles as the police in pursuit of the killer. To accompany things nicely is a very good score from Stelvio Cipriani; it accentuates the suspense moments to a significant degree and surely must be one of his best soundtracks. As you may also expect, it's photographed very well too. So stylistically this is a strong feature but what elevates it more is the unexpectedly serious-minded tone and story which also comments on political corruption. Its cynicism and downbeat nature are mediated, however, with more typical gruesome touches such as a man having his hand hacked off and an autopsy scene involving a torso cut into many pieces.I've got to recommend this one to my fellow Italian genre enthusiasts. It's the best combination of the giallo and poliziotteschi I am aware of. Its mystery is consistently compelling and it's directed with considerable skill. Well worth tracking down.

As is probably obvious by the lurid title, Massimo Dallamano returns to the same teenagers in peril themes he explored two years earlier in his giallo What Have You Done to Solange. Only this time around the focus is more on the police procedure than the blood and sleaze that is associated with the giallo. What remains the same though is the classy visual style and the mystery aspect.The discovery of a young girl hanged in a run-down attic leads the police to an underground prostitution ring. The story lacks the myriad red herrings of the giallo but it retained suspense and mystery well enough to keep me glued on the screen. Dallamano however throws a black-clad killer in the mix and punctuates this police proceedural with a couple of very well done gore scenes (hand decapitation, machete in the head, screwdriver in the belly; take your pick). As a testament to Dallamano's style, the killer is always shot close-up with wide-angle lenses that adds a reality distortion of sorts.Add to that a sterling score by Cipriani that is equal parts suspenseful and subtle and some well handled action scenes and car chases in the poliziottescho mold (although it lacks the rampant energy of one, so I wouldn't classify it as such) and here you have a movie that is definitely worth the time of ANY fan of 70's Italian crime cinema. I shouldn't forget to mention that the copy I saw had surprisingly good dubbing too.

From the director of the excellent what have you done to Solange, Massimo Dallamano, here is a strange Italian giallo, more a police procedural (an a really lurid tale, a ring of teens used as prostitutes by people in very high places - that was the time, in Italy, when several directors and scripwriters tried their hands on very hot subjects, like this one) than an Argentian thriller (but it is scary enough in a few places and also very gory). It starts with the false suicide of a very young girl, hanged nude under a roof and then proceeds with a lot of cars and bikes chases (the killer is always covered by a motorcycle helmet until the very end - it is possible that the director of Night School took from here the idea of the killer masked with an helmet), almost always running without pauses. Tense and scary enough, good almost till the end (a lot too Dillenger for my tastes).