While we're on the subject of NOTHING UNDERNEATH getting an upcoming video release, what do people think of its sequel TOO BEAUTIFUL TO DIE?
The film opens with the shooting of a "Victoria's Secret"-type lingerie ad featuring four models (Randi Ingermann, Helena Jesus, striking Norhana Arrifin, and Gioia Maria Scola) shot by video clip director David (Francois-Eric Gendron). The four models are invited to a party given by an investor and the other three models help him rape Sylvia (Scola) in a hottub. She runs off into the night. The next morning at a music video shoot called "Blades" (though the music played is Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Warriors of the Wasteland"), a detective arrives and informs them that Sylvia has been found dead in the wreckage of a fiery car crash. Thinking the death to be an accident, everyone goes on with their normal lives. David must find a new model for the lead in the video and notices Melanie (Florence Guerin) dancing at a club (an effective sequence set to one-hit-wonder Kissing the Pink's one hit "Certain Things are Likely" that intercuts her dancing with her audition the next day - though both the audition and the club dancing look considerably more athletic than the gyrating that most of the dangers seem required to do in the actual video). She wins the role and moves in with one of the models (Arrifin). During a photoshoot on the water with the models seemingly dressed in parachutes (scored with Huey Lewis and the News' inexplicable hit "Perfect World"), the detecive tells them that Sylvia's death was not an accident. A bullet was found in her skull. Not only that but there seems to be a wide gap of time between her "leaving the party" and the discovery of the burning wreckage that no one can account for. After one of the models is bizarrely murdered (in the video she is placed in an iron maiden with rubber spikes but one of the spikes turns out to be real), the other models fear for their lives as the killer steels one of the bizarre futuristic blades and goes a stalking. Other potential victim/suspects are the rapist, the sleazy agent, and the director. Even Sylvia is above suspicion as her file reveals that she comes from the same town in America as Sylvia.
The film's plot is nowhere near as diverting as NOTHING UNDERNEATH but the point is the visuals and music video director Dario Piana is more than up to the task (he hasn't directed a film since but I remember reading his name attached to an in-development American horror film recently). The music video and photo shoot scenes are strikingly edited and scored although Piana relies on slow motion a bit too often which becomes boring (a montage of the new roommates having fun, a Toto-scored sex scene). The characterization is as shallow as the characters (even Bava managed to inject a little bit of interest into each of the cardboard characters of the script for BLOOD AND BLACK LACE). The only character who isn't portrayed suspiciously is of course the killer. Roberto Cacciapaglia's score is unspectacular (the main title sounds like an instrumental of "Slave to Love" while the rest is sub-Bernard Hermann strings that are nowhere near as interesting as Pino Donaggio's Hermanesque work on NOTHING UNDERNEATH). Florence Guerin's lead is far less interesting than Scola or the three models. There's also something a bit off about the ending (which reminded me of THE COLOR OF NIGHT) which is supposed to be tragic and sad but then segues to the end credits underscored by the Huey Lewis tune heard earlier.
I have a couple versions of this: a DVDR from the widescreen Japanese Columbia release (a trailer for the film can be seen on the Columbia release of Peter Del Monte's ETOILE), the cut UK tape from Colourbox, a widescreen German tape that looks just as gorgeous as the Japanese release, and a cropped Italian tape on producer Achille Manzotti's own label (he also produced the first film as well as ETOILE and TWO EVIL EYES). I also have a Japanese pressbook which inexplicably includes an image of the killer's face among many color and black and white stills (a marginal film but this is quite a treasure).
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Topic: Too Beautiful to Die / Sotto il vestito niente 2 ( Dario Piana,1988) WITH PICS (Read 11244 times)