Elio Petri was one of the pre-eminent socio-political satirists of European cinema during the 1960’s and 1970s. A student of Italian neo-realism, Petri used this formal foundation and incorporated psychological elements into his narratives. As time separated the Italian people from the end of the second world war, collective and individual identity amongst socio-political instability was at the forefront of Petri’s creative output. Released mere months before a decades long period of unrest in Italy known as the Years of Lead, We Still Kill the Old Way (1967) is a paranoid thriller within the world of Mafioso masculinity and concerns the corruption and hypocrisy that permeates all levels of society.

When discussing directors of giallo films, Giuliano Carnimeo’s name does not appear often. Notable for his contribution to the Italian western and commedie sexy all'italiana genres, The Case of the Bloody Iris (1972) is an outlier in Carnimeo’s filmography, being the only giallo film he helmed. Despite this, it is a strong example of what giallo films from the period have to offer in terms of genre tropes, including sex, nudity, violence and mystery, and not to mention a production crew, on and off screen, that is a who’s who of Italian genre film royalty

In 1984, James Robert Baker (aka James Dillinger) produced a tape. Not a film. Not a movie. A tape. On this tape is the feature Blonde Death, a subversive coming of age story that follows Tammy Lynn Beaverdorf (Sara Lee Wade) as she transforms from an abused, downtrodden, Disneyland-dreaming innocent young women into a gun-wielding sex-crazed tour de force of a bombshell.