After directing several giallo films in a row (Macabre, A Blade in the Dark, You'll Die at Midnight), Lamberto Bava began to dislike the genre and wanted to do more works like Demons. That was the inspiration for this film, where he used the killer's point of view to show fantastic images of the victims, from a woman with a giant eyeball to another that looks like a human insect. He also claimed that this was one of the few times that he had the time and budget he needed to get it right.Gloria (Serena Grandi, the "Dolly Parto" of Italy who also appears in Antropophagus and The Adventures of Hercules) is a former model who has inherited the magazine Pussycat from her dead husband. The magazine takes off once a killer begins murdering whatever model is on that month's cover, starting with Gloria's friend Kim.Her neighbor Mark, who is in a wheelchair due to a mental condition, sees the murder and alerts her, but all she finds are photos of Kim's body. Soon, Kim's body is found in a dumpster.Gloria's brother Tony is a photographer for Pussycat and does a photoshoot with Sabrina (Italian glamour model, singer and songwriter Sabrina Salerno) and tries to have sex with her, but he's impotent. After he leaves, killer bees sting her to death and sends the photos to Gloria.Flora (Capucine, the famous French model and actress), an old friend of Gloria, is trying to buy the magazine and Gloria finally agrees, hoping that the murders will finally end. I wouldn't say that she's a friend actually, as she has all this old footage of Gloria back when she was a model and did porn and horror movies, which keep showing up every time we go back to her office.Tony and Gloria start another photo shoot with Susan in a department store, but Tony ends up dead. The killer taunts them over the loudspeaker and kills Susan. When the police arrive, there are no bodies, but Gloria gets the photos and her friend Evelyn (Daria Nicolodi, ex-wife of Dario Argento, mother of Asia, writer of Suspiria and the star of Shock) finds Susan's body.The police go to question Roberto and discover the backdrops of Gloria that were in every one of the killer's photos. He shows up at her house and she runs, just as a car hits him. The police now consider that the case is closed.The magazine is finally sold and Evelyn quits. Tony's body is floating in the pool and the killer shows up...but it's Tony. He explains that he committed these murders to protect his sister, but he's cutting off her clothes with a butcher knife while he's doing this. So at the last second, Mark shoots him in the groin. He then visits her in the hospital at the end, seemingly recovered from his mental issues.Completely unrelated to the plot, George Eastman shows up as one of her old boyfriends. I'm not complaining - George can be in every movie.I'm not pretending that this movie is any good. You can tell when making a movie like Demons that Bava really cares. Here, things sloppily head toward its ending. A movie about a porn magazine filled with murder, gore and nudity that ends up boring you has to be a total failure. There's just enough here to stay enjoyable, but it's borderline at best.

Lamberto Bava is nowhere near as well-respected a film-maker as his father, having directed some real stinkers in his time (Devouring Waves and La Maschera del Demonio, to name two of his abominations); however, he occasionally rises to the occasion, such as with this enjoyable late '80s giallo that has plenty to recommend it.The plot is a typical convoluted murder mystery in which a mysterious killer targets glamour models working for an adult magazine owned by curvaceous beauty Gloria (Serena Grandi). There are suspects aplenty, making it fun to try and figure out the identity of the killer (good luck with that... as with many a giallo, the killer is someone very unlikely and their motive even harder to guess). While the murders are relatively tame for the genre, two of them are made extremely memorable by the fact that the killer's POV portrays the victims as bizarre mutations: one girl is seen with a giant, veiny eye for a face, while another (played by Italian pop sensation Sabrina Salerno) is depicted with a bee's head (and is stung to death by a swarm of the insects!).In addition to an enjoyably absurd plot and the freakish hallucinations, we also get a ton of gratuitous female nudity (mostly from Grandi, although Sabrina fans will also be happy), making the film a delightfully sleazy affair. Chuck in neat supporting roles for Italian exploitation actor George Eastman and Argento regular Diaria Nicolodi, and what you have is a thoroughly entertaining, occasionally stylish (Gloria being stalked through a department store is a well-handled, suspenseful highlight) and not-at-all-stinky thriller.

The younger Bava's films never scaled the heights of his famous father's influential work; this giallo is a largely mediocre effort (the one good example from the sub-genre to emerge during this decade was Dario Argento's TENEBRE [1982]) with little to hold one's attention - apart from the actresses' physical attributes and especially star Serena Grandi!Here, the director even borrows a page from his father's book by utilizing the oft-used fashion-house setting (providing a cheap excuse for ample gratuitous nudity). He even strives for a distinctive color scheme during the murder scenes, but the killer's POV produces a weird gimmick involving the victims wearing laughable make-up and underscored by equally exaggerated sound effects! The cast (including Daria Nicolodi, George Eastman and Capucine), at least, provides enough suspects to keep the audience guessing and the electronic score by Simon Boswell isn't too bad either, under the circumstances.

~Spoiler~ Delirium: Photo of Gioia is a giallo from the late 80's directed by Italian horror veteran Lamberto Bava. Let me just say that I started off with the best giallo-Tenebre. It was the first one I ever saw. I haven't found one yet that has surpassed it and it's the standard by which I judge all other giallo. So, having said that, Delirium is not the best of its kind, but it's certainly not the worst. George Eastman said in an interview, for the DVD release no less, that it was a waste of time. Daria Nicolodi also pretty much disowns it. Granted Eastman, Nicolodi, and David Brandon aren't given much to do, but it's really not that bad. Bava himself even doesn't seem that proud of it. It's sad really. I thought if they had fixed a few problems this could have been a classic. It needed a few more kills and a little more action. Delirium is basically a starring vehicle for the beautiful Serena Grandi (who gives the film much of its ample amount of nudity). It's about a madman killing models and terrorizing the owner of a Playboy type magazine, Gioia (or Gloria in the US version). But it's also deeper than that. If you check out this DVD do yourself a favor and read the brilliant Scooter McCrae essay included as a special feature. The most creative aspect of this film is the killer's perspective. Whenever he's about to kill someone, we get to see what's inside his head. The victim's are seen as monsters to the killer. It's a really original concept and they should have exploited that more. One of the things I really didn't like was score. It was done by Simon Boswell and he basically re-used the score he did for Demons 2. Also, the film drags at points which is why I think it could have used a few more kills. But it's not as bad as its makers would have you believe. You should either be proud of the things you create, or you shouldn't create them at all.