Luigi Cozzi's "L'Assassino è costretto ad uccidere ancora" aka. "The Killer Must Kill Again" of 1975 is a Giallo that is highly unconventional, but nonetheless great. The film is unconventional, as it basically turns the entire premise of the Giallo sub-genre upside down. The main idea behind the conventional Gialli is that a phantom killer, often wearing black gloves, murders his victims, often beautiful ladies, without the viewer knowing his identity. While guessing who the murderer might be is one of the main points of a typical Giallo, however, the killer's identity is clear from the very beginning of "The Killer Must Kill Again" - And the film therefore has an entirely different structure than most conventional Gialli.
The adulterous businessman Giorgio Mainardi (George Hilton) catches a serial killer (Antoine Saint-John, credited here as Michel Antoine) red-handed, depositing of a girl's body. The ripper and the adulterer then make a deal for the killer to get rid of Mainardi's rich wife for him. In exchange Mainardi will keep silent, and furthermore pay the killer a fair amount of money for his efforts... Regular Giallo leading-man George Hilton once again delivers a solid performance, but the true star of this film is Michel Antoine. Antoine looks incredibly creepy, and it immediately becomes clear why the killer's identity is not kept a secret in this unusual Giallo-gem - Had the killer's face been hidden, the film couldn't have profited from Antoines's weird looks. Antoine plays the role of the killer with a unique laid-back sadism, and the film furthermore has many other qualities to offer. Beautiful Christine Galbo (who is best known for Massimo Dallamano's Giallo-masterpiece "Cosa Avete Fatto A Solange", as well as the Zombie extravaganza "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie") is also part of the film, and she once again delivers a good performance. The film is certainly violent, but not quite as gory as some other contemporary Gialli (such as Dario Argento's masterpiece "Profondo Rosso" from the same year). That does not mean, however, that the film hasn't got a genuine nastiness. What makes this especially nasty is the vileness and unscrupulousness of the characters. The camera work is also great, and the film has several nice stylistic elements. Furthermore, the film has a cool score, which, once again, isn't typically Giallo-ish, but often seems more like one of the Hitchcockian scores. Overall, "The Killer Must Kill Again" is a Giallo that is definitely highly unusual for this great sub-genre, but it is also a very good one. This is one out of only two films directed by Luigi Cozzi I have seen so far (the other being the dreadful "Paganini Horror"), but after this highly original Horror experience it certainly won't be the last. Highly recommended to all my fellow Italian Horror Buffs!
