Director Ken Hughes made the children classic Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. In this giallo slasher, Hughes pulls his punches when it comes to graphic horror.
The film begins with a female teaching assistant being slashed in a playground by a black clad motorcyclist in a black helmet. She is decapitated and her head is found in a bucket.
The victim went to Wendall College. Several other women linked to the college are found dead, the heads cut off and found in water.
The detective investigating the murder horns in on lothario Professor Millett who teaches anthropology, the detective's partner suspects the weirdo working in a restaurant. The professor has a collection of skulls acquired from tribal headhunters in places such as Papua New Guinea and he might had been romantically involved with the victims.
The professor's latest girlfriend is his assistant Eleanor (Rachel Ward) who is annoyed by his infidelity and she is pregnant with his child. She explains to the detective the symbolism regarding the skulls in certain tribal societies.
Hughes does not add a lot of style with this film in contrast with Italian giallo movies of that period. It is a straightforward low budget slasher, most of the violence is off screen and less than gruesome. The suspect is rather obvious and the victims are all helpless women. There is some black humour when the body parts of one of the victims turn up in a stew pot. However Hughes rather sets up the joke for too long as if it was filler for the film.
Some of the acting is bad, Rachel Ward in her film debut is less than ordinary but she does look adorable.
The film begins with a female teaching assistant being slashed in a playground by a black clad motorcyclist in a black helmet. She is decapitated and her head is found in a bucket.
The victim went to Wendall College. Several other women linked to the college are found dead, the heads cut off and found in water.
The detective investigating the murder horns in on lothario Professor Millett who teaches anthropology, the detective's partner suspects the weirdo working in a restaurant. The professor has a collection of skulls acquired from tribal headhunters in places such as Papua New Guinea and he might had been romantically involved with the victims.
The professor's latest girlfriend is his assistant Eleanor (Rachel Ward) who is annoyed by his infidelity and she is pregnant with his child. She explains to the detective the symbolism regarding the skulls in certain tribal societies.
Hughes does not add a lot of style with this film in contrast with Italian giallo movies of that period. It is a straightforward low budget slasher, most of the violence is off screen and less than gruesome. The suspect is rather obvious and the victims are all helpless women. There is some black humour when the body parts of one of the victims turn up in a stew pot. However Hughes rather sets up the joke for too long as if it was filler for the film.
Some of the acting is bad, Rachel Ward in her film debut is less than ordinary but she does look adorable.