Review: 'The Sister of Ursula'

Title: THE SISTER OF URSULA
Year: 1978
Director: Enzo Milioni
Writer: Enzo Milioni
Starring: Barbara Magnolfi, Stefania D'Amario, Anna Zinnemann, Marc Porel

When you watch lots of genre films you'll discover that may are advertised as "pure sleaze" or something similar to that effect. It's become a buzz word of sorts, often times hardly fitting as an accurate description of the film it intends to describe.

"Heightening the giallo genre with the Sleaze-O-meter cranked up to 11," reads the press release for writer/director Enzo Milioni's THE SISTER OF URSULA. Having never seen the movie prior, I didn't know what to expect but surely this would be another genre film in which sleaze is not the most appropriate representation.

I was wrong.

THE SISTER OF URUSLA is a beautiful movie, don't get me wrong. Shot on location in Campania, Italy, cinematographer Vittorio Bernini (THE MAD DOG KILLER) captures some wonderful shots. Still, that gorgeous splendor of Italy could not stop me from feeling filthy when the final credits began to roll.

On a search for their mother, sisters Dagmar and Ursula, find themselves at 5-star, luxury seaside hotel. During their stay the sisters, mostly due to Dagmar's urging, decide to enjoy themselves. They mingle with other hotel guests and enjoy some of the nightlife the hotel has to offer. That's when things begin to take a turn for the worse as an unknown killer begins picking off some of the more promiscuous woman one by one.

Milioni delivers a fairly straight forward giallo. Essentially we're dealing with a mystery. There's a killer on the loose and a number of likely suspect, yet not a single one has quite enough evidence pointing their way. We know the killer wears gloves and appears to use some type of blunt object but for most of the movie the viewer isn't entirely sure of what that is as most kills take place off screen or are only seen in shadows and silhouettes.

The film also follows a simple formal. Dialogue scene, often times with someone naked or undressing, followed by a sex scene, followed by a murder and wrapped up by the discovery of the body. Repeat 3-4 times, put together the clues and then solve the mystery. Indeed, it's a simple formal, but an effective one.

The sleaze is raised by two things - the nudity and sex, which there's quite a bit of, but more so the way the victims are murdered. We don't learn this until the end and although we don't see the murder as it takes place, we see the aftermath. There's hints of this throughout the movie, but personally never really expected it to go where it does. But it did and it was quite shocking.

THE SISTER OF URSULA is a good movie. It delivers on the promised sleaze and as such makes you want to shower after viewing. It's not a perfect movie. A little slow at times but those moments are few and far between. I'd also like to see a bit more of the killer in action and would sacrifice some of the sex scenes in order to do so, but that's more of a personal opinion. At the end of the day if you want 70's Italian sleaze, THE SISTER OF URSULA is certainly the movie for you.

Rating: 3/5

***THE SISTER OF URUSLA is out now from Shameless Entertainment. For more info please visit Shameless-Films.com