The
 Final
  Scoop

Italy, 1993  

Sex. Ambiguity. Mystery.

*** 1/2

aka BUGIE ROSSE / RED LIES

Directed by: Pierfrancesco Campanella 

Starring:  Tomas Arana, Gianfranco Jannuzzo, Gioia Scola, Alida Valli, Lorenzo Flaherty, Natasha Hovey, Barbara Scoppa, Carolyn Spence, Paolo Calissano, Gianna Paola Scaffidi

Choice dialogue:  “I didn’t imagine I would stumble on a homicide straight away.”  

Slasher Trash with Panache?

Review: JA Kerswell

Roberto uses his influence to deflect any suspicion with the police for Marco. However, the journalist neglects to identify Mauricio from photographs as he suspects the thief may have been the only person to have seen the killer and wants to question him directly. Finding a card for a swingers club near the site of the murder, Marco visits to investigate further and meets a handsome bisexual gigolo, Andrea (Lorenzo Flaherty). To grill him for information, Marco takes Andrea back to his apartment, where, again, he passes on the opportunity to have sex. However, later, Andrea creeps into his bed, and it is suggested he performs oral sex on him whilst Marco pretends to be asleep.
 
Confused about his own sexuality, Marco must navigate an increasingly sleazy and dangerous world to unmask the killer who continues to murder those close to the case …
 
THE FINAL SCOOP (the Italian title translates as RED LIES) has an ambiguous but not overly hostile attitude towards homosexuality—although the film ​unsurprisingly attracted the condemnation of a number of gay groups in Italy at the time of its release. Sure, most of the gay characters are shown to either be kinky, murderous, tragic (or a combination of all those things)—and willing to put themselves in mortal danger for casual sex. And even though the commissioner calls them “sexually deviated”. It is, however, at least an improvement on the way gay men were portrayed in earlier Gialli (outside of Dario Argento’s surprisingly progressive films) as ‘freaks’ or ‘fairies’ to be laughed at. Not a great deal of improvement, but at least some. Andrea is a largely sympathetic character—although that doesn’t mean he is safe from the killer’s wrath. Whilst the attitudes to homosexuality may have changed, the film only allows itself to coyly hint at gay sex itself. Given that this is an early 90s giallo made at the height of the popularity of erotic thrillers, there is plenty of stylised straight sex and nudity between Marco and his wife and other women. However, the film ends on a questionable coda with Adria dressed in male drag to ape the look of Andrea, suggesting that Marco’s dabble in homosexuality was simply a fetish. The director has said that the film and his intentions were misjudged and that due to the controversy from various quarters, he didn’t leave the house for a month due to his embarrassment.
 
An obvious comparison and probable inspiration would be William Friedkin’s CRUISING (1980), where Al Pacino’s undercover cop is on the tail of a serial killer targeting gay men—and whose straight identity is tested the more he immerses himself in that world. In THE FINAL SCOOP, Marco’s investigation goes to ever more ludicrous lengths, including being propositioned by an elderly straight couple in a sex cinema and having a plastic bag forcibly put over his head by a would-be lover who tells him that auto-asphyxiation is like yoga!  

BODY COUNT 6: 
Female 0 / Male 6

  1. Male has his head repeatedly hit with a mallet
  2. Male is stabbed with a blade on an umbrella
  3. Male is hit over the head with a shovel
  4. Male has his throat cut
  5. Male shoots himself



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THE FINAL SCOOP Italian trailer

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