Knife Under The Throat is a mid-80’s French Giallo regarding a group of exotic models getting harassed and stalked in a city setting. It’s a fairly fleshy/ sleazy affair, with a rewarding enough who-done-it mystery at its centre, though the kills/ gore side of things is somewhat underwhelming. Here from 88 Films is a recent Blu-ray release of this lesser-known giallo.

Knife Under The Throat (aka Le Couteau Sous La Gorge ) is from the 1986. It was directed/ written by Paris born Claude Mulot- between the late 60’s and mid 80’s he directed twenty-one films- starting off his directing career in porn, Knife Under The Throat was his final film. His other titles move from the mad doctor horror of The Blood Rose (1969), onto softcore romantic drama The Immoral One (1980), through to work shy focused comedy The Day Dawns And The Bullshit Begins (1983).

The film opens with both pace & intrigue as we see a trenchcoated/ semi naked woman running though nighttime city streets- seemingly very alarmed/ panicked. She gets to the police station- blunting out she has been raped by three men, surprisingly there is disbelief/ light laughs from the cops- we find out her name is Cathrine (Florence Guerin), and she regularly insists she’s been raped, but there is never any proof of it. She works as an exotic photo model- her boss is Valrie- played by euro cult legend Brigitte Lahaie.

As the first half of the film unfolds Cathrine and her model friend get a series of creepy/ lightly sleazy phone calls. We get POV glances of a black glove figure, and a selection of possible killers  are presented- there’s a grumpy/ abusive photographer, a middle aged cemetery handy man, a shifty female apartment assistant, and a highly strung ex-boyfreind.

As we move into the films second half we get some kills- but these are largely low key with brief glances of over red blood, or things going on off screen. The only memorable kill is a in bloody bath slashing- an illustration of this scene graces the front cover of this reissue.

The film features a fair bit of panicked running through the city- there’s also a nighttime graveyard set photo shoot, as well as one on skid row- where a bum fondles one of the models. There is a fair bit of mainly topless nudity, and some low-key sleaze.

The acting is largely not great/ rather flat- I’d say the only truly memorable character is the grumpy/ boozy/ unpredictable model agency photographer J.B(Jean-Pierre Maurin). Lahaie has very much of a supporting role- she does well enough in it with a few decent enough acting scenes- though of course she also strips off on a few occasions.

What the film does best is been a decent enough who-done-it, and I really didn’t figure out who the killer was. All in all, Knife Under The Throat is a passable enough late 80’s Giallo- I just wish there had been more creative/ impressive kills, and a little campy flair you’d expect from this era.

This recent Blu Ray is a locked region B release. The HD scan looks nicely clean and crisp through-out. With easy read English subtitles over its French language dialogue.

The only extra on the disc is Brigitte On Your Mind (20.42) this is a new shot on film interview with Ms Lahaie. We find out she acted in a few of Mulot’s early porn films. She talks about there been a rather difficult atmosphere between her and the director on set, as he hadn’t followed through giving her a promised role in his earlier non porn film.  She talks about how the director didn’t discuss her role at tall- how he didn’t really direct her or the other actors on screen. She talks about this been her first more authoritative characters and working with others on the film.

In finishing, Knife Under The Throat is a passable enough 80’s euro giallo- with this release appealing to those who enjoy who-done-it’s, and/or fans of Ms Lahaie.