By the nineties, the Giallo subgenre had almost completely dried up, and only a handful were released in this time; The Strange Story of Olga O being one of them. The film takes a lot of influence from it's seventies counterparts, and director Antonio Bonifacio has just about succeeded in making the film work something like a tribute to the earlier films. The Strange Story of Olga O features a number of Giallo staples; things such as a black gloved killer, a razor blade and a black leather-clad biker to name a few; but somehow, the film doesn't manage to come together as a 'proper' Giallo. The story was written by Giallo ace Ernesto Gastaldi, and takes influence more from the 'slower' side of Giallo (films like Short Night of the Glass Dolls and Orgasmo) and features a distressed former dancer at its centre, who as you would expect is called Olga. She is tortured by a dream in which she finds her mother covered in blood and shoots her father in the face. It later transpires that her father committed suicide and Olga blames herself for it. Her past continues to haunt her when she moves back to her old town; and that isn't the only thing haunting her, as she begins to receive threatening phone calls...
The film stars Serena Grandi as in the title role, and while she fit the lead actress bill perfectly in Lamberto Bava's Delrium eight years previously; she looks like she's getting on a bit here, and as one of my favourite things about the Giallo sub-genre is the women; this wasn't too pleasing. The rest of the cast are all decent enough, but nobody particularly stands out in the same way that the stars of the seventies did. There are a fair few sex scenes in this movie, but none are particularly graphic and there's not a great deal of nudity to speak of full stop. There's also very little blood, as the director seems more keen to focus on the implications of the plot and fragility of the lead character - which is a shame if you ask me. The story really isn't all that fascinating as the acting isn't 'heavyweight' enough to make it so, and the film largely feels empty because of that. Most things are explained by the end, although I have to say that I wasn't really bothered who the culprit was by then. Overall, The Strange Story of Olga O is a difficult film to find; and unfortunately, it's not really worth checking out.
