Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians serves as the basis for giallo The Killer Reserved Nine Seats, which sees a group of bickering friends, relatives and acquaintances, all of whom have complex relationships and serious character flaws, assemble at a deserted theatre where they find themselves locked in and killed off one-by-one by a masked assailant. Is the murderer flesh and blood or a malevolent spirit driven by a centuries old curse?If the film had stuck to a simple murder-by-numbers plot, it could have been a very effective thriller— after all, the same basic set-up served Michele Soavi well for his excellent '80s slasher Stagefright (1987)—but the supernatural element makes The Killer Reserved Nine Seats way too bewildering for its own good, with a frustrating finale that fails to make matters clear. Thank heavens, then, for those mainstays of the giallo, violence and nudity…With such a collection of disagreeable characters, there are plenty of well deserved deaths, although they are less graphic than I had expected: some reviews have remarked on the nastiness of the murders, but barring the nailing of one woman's arm to a wooden beam (an effect that uses a hilarious plastic-looking fake hand), the violence seemed rather tame to me (I definitely didn't see any crotch stabbing), leading me to wonder whether the version I watched was shorn of some gore.Thankfully, all of the nudity seemed intact, with virtually all of the female characters getting nekkid at some point, either willingly, or by having their clothes torn off by the killer before being brutally dispatched. This certainly helps to make the film more entertaining, especially the scene in which one woman takes time out amidst all the murder to dance topless to some funky music.

THE KILLER RESERVED NINE SEATS is a giallo with a difference – instead of focusing on a murderer targeting a string of women around a city, the plot of this one harks back to classic murder mysteries a la Agatha Christie as it has a bunch of people trapped in a single location and being offed one by one by an unknown killer. Here, the setting is an effectively spooky old theatre, and the killer is somebody who wears an eerie disguise when carrying out his crimes. If this set-up sounds familiar, it's because Michele Soavi virtually remade this as a slasher film in 1987, entitled STAGE FRIGHT. However, while Soavi's film is packed with tension, drama and violence, and as a result is a very good film, THE KILLER RESERVED NINE SEATS is one of those overly talky films that it's a real chore to sit through.Director Giuseppe Bennati only made this one giallo film and it seems that he's uncomfortable with the genre. The scenes are all very staged and the dialogue seems to go around in circles; when the eventual identity of the killer(s) is revealed at the film's climax, it all seems unbelievable and contrived, not the effect it was supposed to have, I imagine. The cast is packed with familiar faces – Lucretia Love from THE SHE-BEAST, Paola Senatore and Janet Agren from EATEN ALIVE, Chris Avram from A BAY OF BLOOD, Andrea Scotti and Howard Ross from absolutely tons of Italian genre flicks – but nobody seems to be making much of an effort here in the acting stakes and it all feels distinctly so-so.The murders are routinely staged and there's the typical genre cliché of having the women strip off before they die (and this wouldn't be a giallo without a couple of lesbians in it, would it?). Expect murky stabbings and one unpleasantly sexualised murder which really pushes the boundaries of bad taste. While the theatre setting is always effective in these type of films, the action that plays out just isn't interesting enough to bother with – which is why this giallo flick is so hard to come by.

Great fun! Indeed, great title, great poster, great costumes for all the ladies and great how easily they just slip off. Actually, the poster is a heavily censored and cropped impression of what really happens in the film. There are many and varied kills but the one depicted here was by far the most extreme. Saddled with the hoary old Ten Little Indians plot, we have, of course, a whole bunch of people we are not interested in and who cannot be fully explained to retain the possibility that any one of them could have killed the rest. Possibly needlessly, on top of this we have a concurrent supernatural plot suggestion, that doesn't particularly improve things. But never mind, the theatre is a wonderful setting giving endless nook and crannies, corridors and overhead and subterranean spaces for the victims to be chased and caught and spectacularly killed. The chit chat gets a bit tedious but the sudden clinches and arch performances a hoot. Must have been as much fun to make as it is to watch.

Despite suffering from many flaws and shortcomings, "The Killer Reserved Nine Seats" is still warmly recommended to fans of the Italian giallo (and we know their number increases every day!). The absolute greatest and most inventive titles of this wonderful Italian horror sub genre pretty much all received fancy DVD-editions by now, so there must be some very good reasons why this film is still obscure and hard to find. And yes, it doesn't take the slightly experienced giallo-fanatic very long to figure out that Giuseppe Bennati's effort is far inferior to – let's say – the work of Sergio Martino or Dario Argento. Gialli are almost fundamentally blessed with a fantastic musical score, yet the opening tune in "The Killer Reserved Nine Seats" is ugly as sin and suggests an entirely wrong ambiance. The music isn't the biggest shortcoming, but it's definitely what bothered me the most as I expect a giallo-score to haunt my dreams for several more nights. On the night of his birthday, millionaire Patrick Davenant invites eight of his acquaintances to an abandoned theater that he owns but never visits. The atmosphere in the group is hostile, yet they stay close to Patrick as they all depend on his fortune. After a bit of wandering around the old theater, the first girl is brutally murdered with a dagger and the rest of the group discovers that the place carries an ancient curse. Is there really some kind of evil supernatural force luring from within the walls? Or is one of these nine people an old-fashioned flesh & blood killer? Let's just say the answer to this question is not hard to predict, but it'll still take many corpses before the characters know for sure...Let's start with discussing the BEST elements about this film! "The Killer Reserved Nine Seats" is a decent and straightforward murder-mystery with a reasonably fair amount of plot-twists and intrigue. Not nearly as convoluted as most gialli, but compelling enough to keep you alert and hoping for a surprising denouement. Undoubtedly the greatest aspect about this film is the claustrophobic theater setting, which provides the story with an uncanny almost Gothic atmosphere. This same original setting offers the opportunity to make the murders ingenious and somewhat special. The deaths of the lesbian lovers, whose mutilated bodies are exhibited like some kind of stage tableau, are the finest examples to state this. There are several insurmountable problems with the script, however. There's way too much talking about irrelevant stuff and the characters do incredibly stupid things, like leaving the group to investigate the dark and secret corridors of the theater all on their own. Not smart. The supernatural sub plot is overall stupid and definitely not very efficient as a red herring, but I suppose it was a worthwhile attempt. The acting performances are surprisingly adequate and – very important – there's a fine share of genuine Euro-sleaze. Every actress takes her clothes off at least once and they all have ravishing bodies. That HAS to count for something, right?