7 cadaveri per Scotland Yard

Someone is jabbing the life out of hookers in London and Scotland Yard are up to finding out who is responsible. It seems that Jack the Ripper has come back from the dead, but the police actually suspect hard drinking, limping, fat tiny Spaniard Paul Naschy for the murders.

Paul plays Pedro, a retired trapeze artist with a bum leg whose hooker wife is murdered early on by our douchebag killer, who also frames Pedro, who can't seem to go anywhere without dead hookers turning up.

A certain inspector is out to catch the killer, and has some suave mate whose wife he might be in love with. It's all like EastEnders only with murders and translated through a Spanish eye. It doesn't have the style of an Italian giallo (hence the accusations of it being drab and flat) but it does have a good pace and plenty of sauce.

It also has plenty of cheeseball moments, from when a hooker has a speech about how all men are bastards or the various moments when members of the British public try and avoid the camera that has no doubt appeared undeclared right in front of them! This film also has a fairly high body count so I'm a bit unclear on how it can be boring. Cheap looking, yes, but entertaining throughout.

Also, I went to London a few days ago, all jazzed to see Piccadilly Circus the way it appears in this film, and they've replaced it with a giant TV screen! What a let down.

The giallo was an Italian invention; however, there were several Spanish movies that are accepted entries in the genre. Seven Murders for Scotland Yard is a pretty typical example of this sub-genre of the sub-genre. It stars Iberian horror icon Paul Naschy in the lead role. In it he plays medical student turned acrobat who is the chief suspect in a series of prostitute murders in London. The killings recall the work of Jack the Ripper.

This is a pretty routine murder-mystery. It's hampered a bit by its low budget. It lacks the sense of style that most of its Italian counterparts had, so it comes across as somewhat more rough-edged. The murders themselves have pretty crude gore effects, while there is a distinct lack of nudity. The latter is clearly as a result of the Spanish origins, seeing as this was made in Franco's Spain and film nudity was a bit of a no-no – Spaniards like Jesus Franco had to make films in France and West Germany in order to ramp up the sex. The mystery itself isn't bad as such but the small cast means that there really aren't a lot of suspects to begin with. Still, it's certainly an entertaining enough flick, just don't go into it expecting too much.

Following a rash of brutal murders, a Scotland Yard inspector attempting to solve the case finds that the evidence pointing to the legendary Jack the Ripper implicates a former trapeze artist as the main suspect and forces him to find the real killer to clear his name.

This one was quite the enjoyable Giallo effort. One of the film's better aspects is the fact that this one manages to tie into the historical connections and works itself into the modern setting. Despite knowing early on that the clues point to the mythical killer through the style of knifings and the connection with the blades found at the crime scenes, the inherent inability to see past that and focus on the one character for the vast majority of the running time with a series of improbable tactics to try to place him at the foot of the killings as there's no real reason why he should be placed squarely in the blame for the incidents which all ties together into the workings of the genre. That also extends rather nicely into the film's stalking scenes which are quite fun and enjoyably in the giallo vein, from the opening shock murder of the prostitute thinking she's with a client only to pull a knife unexpectedly, a later stalking of a woman in her flat who is completely unaware of the killer approaching her room and then taking her out makes for a chilling sequence and the great attacks in the school gym and a woman alone in her apartment all come off much creepier than they should which really enhances the stalking action in here. The manner in which he gets implicated, being found the morning after a night with a dead prostitute and her blood on him which forces a daring escape into the night that keeps him having to dodge the police after him, and along with a solid brawl with a gang of youths attempting to bring him to justice also giving this one some solid action alongside the stalking. That leads into the film's other great aspect in the finale which is the highly enjoyable brawl in the killers' lair as there's plenty of hand-to-hand brawling that makes for a truly enjoyable time and gives this a strong finish. Still, even with these great elements there's some minor troubling factors. The biggest issue with this one is the rather stilted and one-note investigation that carries on throughout here which renders a vast majority of what's going on really bland to get through. The insistence on the circus performer as the killer is inherently ludicrous as the physical feats performed renders his career-threatening injury the perfect scapegoat to place him beyond the scope of investigation as a simple search realizes that quite easily. It's so weak in fact that there's even the mention of this in the final showdown when they make mention of the fact that the case is rather mysterious in how it lead to the killer and they just gloss over it. The other flaw is the rather troubling lack of sleaze and violence here, as the attacks leading into the revelation about them being prostitutes leaves this with little to no nudity and utterly cheap-looking gore effects that ruin any illusion of realism by showing a knife actively carving up animal meat due to the consistency and color that's far beyond what human skin looks like. These do drag it down, but otherwise it was quite fun.

Rated Unrated/R: Violence, Language, Brief Nudity and mild sex scenes.

Most people perhaps don't know this, but back in the 1970s, the Spanish horror monument Paul Naschy occasionally did more than just put on his furry werewolf coat and depict Waldemar Daninsky in the legendary and long-running "Hombre Lobo" series! Some of this non- wolf man movies rank among the absolute greatest things he ever did, in fact, like for example "The Hunchback of the Morgue", "Inquisition" and "The Hanging Woman". In that same decade, Naschy also starred in three very worthwhile Spanish variations of the Italian giallo: "Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll", "A Dragonfly for Each Corpse" and this "7 Murders for Scotland Yard"; in which a vicious serial killer copycats the modus operandi of Jack the Ripper in contemporary London. The most entertaining thing about Paul Naschy movies – and this goes for practically ALL Paul Naschy movies – is that he clearly worships himself and seemingly always insists to portray an invincible hero! Even though Nashy was relatively short-sized and rather chubby, the most ravishing women always fall head over heels in love with him and he always beat his opponents in bare-knuckle fights even though they are much fitter. In this particular movie, we are even supposed to believe that Naschy's character – Pedro – was a former trapeze artist in a circus. I can guarantee that it's quite a hilarious sight to see him in his bright purple tights…

"7 Murders for Scotland Yard" is a fun and undemanding giallo that delivers the goods in terms of sleaze, bloodshed and grotesque plot twists. The whodunit-aspect is rather weak, since there are only three primary suspects in the murder investigation and, since it's fairly obvious straight from the beginning that someone is blatantly trying to frame Naschy's character, there are actually just two… More than 80 years after Jack the Ripper terrorized London, someone is once again targeting prostitutes and removing their organs with utmost surgical accuracy. Pedro, the former circus artist who now drinks too much and stumbles around on a handicapped leg, becomes Inspector Campbell's main suspect when also his girlfriend's lifeless corpse gets discovered. While the corpses keep piling up, and Pedro tries to look for the killer on his own, Inspector Campbell is busy blabbering with his best friend Winston. The murders are quite grim and explicit, and after a while Jack the Ripper doesn't restrict himself to prostitutes and even slashes an extremely young and cherubic school girl. What else is there to say about "7 Murders for Scotland Yard"? Well, perhaps that whoever invented this alternative title clearly cannot count properly, as there are far more murders being committed than seven. The biggest shortcomings of Spanish gialli in comparison to their Italian counterparts are undoubtedly the lack of style, the shortage of imaginative camera-work and the absence of a memorable soundtrack. José Luis Madrid's direction is anonymous and flat, but there's enough action and the connection with Jack the Ripper is original.

7 Murders For Scotland Yard? There might have been… to be honest, I wasn't keeping a tally of the killings; instead, I was counting down the minutes to the end of this dreadfully dull Spanish giallo starring Iberian horror icon Paul Naschy as Pedro, an ex-trapeze artist (sh'yeah right!) with a manky leg who is suspected of committing a series of grisly London murders in which the young female victims have their organs surgically removed, Jack the Ripper style.

With way too much in the way of boring police procedure, repetitive killings that deliver minimal (and unconvincing) gore, and very little of the style to be found in many Italian giallos, about the only thing that the film really has to offer fans of '70s Euro horror are a few reasonably attractive women in various states of undress (although there's no actual nudity, quite the rarity for this kind of film) and some authentic location work (that said, the scene where Naschy has a knife fight with three men clearly wasn't shot in London—we don't have crickets chirping loudly in the evenings).

3.5 out of 10, generously rounded up to 4 for the hilarious scene in which a victim's severed head is delivered to a police inspector, and then casually passed around the station so that everyone can take a look.