The Girl in Room 2-A (VHS)
                                      (1973) 
                                         review by Monkeyman

One of the more stilted giallos available,and not a personal favourite by any means,this oddity nevertheless exerts a certain fascination,mostly due to its slightly off-kilter dialogue and bizarre character behaviour.

A young girl,Edie,is murdered,and her body is thrown off a cliff to make the murder appear to be a suicide. Margaret(Daniela Giordano)is released from jail and moves in to an establishment owned by Mrs Grant,who lives with her weird son Frank.Margaret is soon menaced by a bizarre red hooded figure who suddenly appears in her bedroom.

The brother of the murdered girl from the first scene shows up,and together with Edies boyfriend,Charlie,they set about solving the mystery of who exactly is knocking off ex-convicts at a rapidly increasing rate.The appearance of Mr Dreese,the leader of a red robed cult who dont take kindly to ex-jailbirds,further confuses preceedings.

The identity of the murderer is virtually unguessable,as his/her motive is not even discussed,and indeed the character is largely irrelevant to the entire film! To make matters worse,the musical score by Berto Pisano is possibly the worst to appear in any of the one hundred or so giallos that Ive seen It is reasonably gory,the first victim being despatched by a particularly long sharpened spear,and does contain some nudity,but I couldnt really recommend this to anyone except the most avid giallo completist.