NOTHING UNDERNEATH (1985)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

I have the general sense that by the time NOTHING UNDERNEATH was released in the mid eighties, the bloom was off the rose for the giallo subgenre. UNDERNEATH also seems to be the only work of the film's Italian director/co-writer Carlo Vanzina to be released to American venues. It's an interesting work, sharing some of the features of the better Argento movies, though it falls short of reaching those heights.

The plot is predicated on a species of psychic phenomena I deem so limited as to fit the domain of the uncanny: psychic intuitions between twins. It begins, atypically for a giallo, with an American viewpoint character, Park Ranger Bob Crane (Tom Schanley) of Wyoming. Bob's twin sister Jessica (Nicola Perring) is no longer in the States, but in Italy, where she's made a successful career as a model. However, one day Bob has an overwhelmingly vivid vision of someone stalking Jessica with a pair of big scissors. He's unable to contact his sister by phone, so in no time he flies to Milan to look for the missing sibling.

One thing I notice about the English dub of UNDERNEATH is that the various characters Bob encounters have an Italian tonality to their dialogue, but not in such a way as to be distracting. When Bob finds a friendly ear in a Milanese police commissioner (Donald "I'm the only big name here" Pleasance), the top cop routinely calls the American "Wyoming." Bob also makes the acquaintance of a beautiful model, one Barbara, in his quest to locate Jessica, and some of Barbara's lines also have that Italian flavor ("I only notice men who don't notice me.") She also has an incomprehensible line about Porky Pig, but I guess you can't have total clarity.

Bob doesn't find Jessica, but two other models are murdered with scissors, so Bob finds himself working with the cops on the case. The movie's title is supplied by a sarcastic designer who tells Bob that all the models are entirely superficial, that they have "nothing underneath." If Vanzina had any intentions of satirizing the Italian fashion industry, he fails in that objective, Still, it's a very well made thriller with a bracing climax and a good solution to the mystery, though the gore aspect of the murders is somewhat downplayed.