The Giallo genre was at the end of its heyday in 1973 and ended up giving way to the more action orientated Polizi films towards the middle of the seventies. There were still a few Giallo's being made after 1973, but the genre never really reached the heights it did in the early seventies. Mario Moroni's "Clap, You're Dead" obviously takes influence from the later Polizi films; but retains enough of the common Giallo to still be considered a part of the genre. Aside from offering up a plot that includes murder and a detective story, the director has also seen fit to lampoon the film-making process...with largely mixed results. We focus on the production of some trashy horror movie helmed by a hack director. Things go awry when one of the actresses turns up dead and things get even more awry when things go wrong with the production and even more people end up dead. The police begin to suspect Richard; a man sacked from the production, and mounts an investigation into the crimes.
The film actually gets off to a fairly intriguing start; the first murder comes fairly early on and although the director leads us to believe that the film is going to be bloodless; it does at least promise a possibly entertaining mystery plot. Things heat up a bit after the first murder and the film appears to be keeping a good pace; until about the half hour mark when the focus shifts more towards the police investigation, and then things quickly become less interesting as the pace slows down. There are a few murder scenes in the film; although as mentioned they are mostly bloodless and that is a shame. The movie set is actually a fairly good place for it all to take place and while the parody doesn't exactly hit the mark, the film does at least provide some interesting characters. It all boils down to a 'showpiece' ending that gathers up most of the surviving cast and provides a nice conclusion to the mystery. Overall, this is decent enough for a single watch; but I'd only really recommend it to seasoned Giallo enthusiasts.
