Arrow Blu-ray Film Review

The Sergio Martino Collection (1971–75) • Blu-ray [Arrow Video]

‘The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail’ • ‘Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key’ • ‘The Suspicious Death of a Minor’.

Sergio Martino is probably best known for his formative contributions to the giallo but, like many Italian pulp directors, his varied career is dominated by soft sexploitation romps, sports comedies, and made-for-TV dramas. His run of a half-dozen gialli through the first half of the 1970s remains his career-high, with his sophomore feature, The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh (1971), being one of the finest examples.

This was followed, in quick order, by The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail (1971), All the Colours of the Dark (1972), Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972), and Torso (1973). He took a break from the form to make a handful of pecorecce (saucy sex comedies) and poliziottesco (violent crime thrillers), before his final foray into giallo with The Suspicious Death of a Minor (1975) after which he only ever dabbled with the tropes, making a few…