7 CADAVERI PER SCOTLAND YARD (1971)
aka Jack the Mangler, Jack el destripador de Londres
Article 2574 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-22-2008
Posting Date: 8-30-2008
Directed by Jose Luis Madrid
Featuring Paul Naschy, Patricia Loran, Renzo Marignano
Country: Italy / Spain

A Jack-the-Ripper style murderer is loose in London, and Scotland Yard is on the case. Their prime suspect is an ex-acrobat whose wife was one of the first victims. Or could it be that he’s being framed…?

I wasn’t quite sure what this Paul Naschy film was going to be like, but had I taken my cue from the title under which I watched this (7 CADAVERI PER SCOTLAND YARD, which translate as SEVEN CORPSES FOR SCOTLAND YARD), I would have suspected from the outset that this would turn out to be a giallo. And indeed it is; thought there is the gore you’d suspect from a serial killer movie, the emphasis is on the investigation with a satisfying number of twists and turns. Quite frankly, I really enjoyed the story of this one; I thought I had figured out who the murderer was, but I was just playing into the movie’s hands; like a good Hitchcock movie (which in some ways, this one resembles), it manipulated me well and I liked it. Still, giallo fans may well be disappointed by the lack of style here; it’s flatly directed and has a fairly forgettable music score, so I’m not surprised it has an uneven reputation. Still, I found it pretty good for a Paul Naschy film, and, despite other weaknesses, the movie gets by on story alone.