Also released as "Erotic Blue" and the more verbose "What Are Those Strange Drops Of Blood Doing On Jennifer's Body?" in Italy, Bloody Iris was another giallo entry by veteran genre writer Ernesto Gastaldi - best known for Torso , and Mario Bava's The Whip and the Body .

Helmer Giuliano Carnimeo (aka Anthony Ascott on English prints) ably constructs the film's murder sequences with slow buildups and rapid attacks, and makes excellent use of the large apartment building and its numerous rooms and creepy underbelly. The widescreen cinematography embraces the broad sets and primary colour schemes, and Anchor Bay 's transfer enshrines the orange-red-yellow-green shades typical of the seventies.

The audio is plain mono, with a standard sound mix, and Bruno Nicolai's Morricone-esque score delivers a familiar blend of easy-listening lounge and percussion ripples.

The extras include the film's trailer - attractively playing up the film's mystery and basic story - and a shortened version of a daytime murder, which downplays the gore and suffering minutia, but adversely affects the scene's pacing. The DVD's rounded off with a director filmography, but some details regarding Carnimeo's career, and the prolific usage of English pseudonyms among European genre directors would have given this little-seen shocker some context, much like the concise interviews that accompany the remaining entries in the label's giallo series.

This title is only available as part of Anchor Bay's Giallo Collection box, and cannot be purchased separately. Other titles include "Bloodstained Shadow," "The Case of the Bloody Iris," "Short Night Of Glass Dolls," and "Who Saw Her Die?"

© 2002 Mark R. Hasan