Enigma rosso (1978) poster
1978 · giallo · schoolgirls · thriller

Enigma rosso

Directed by Alberto Negrin1h 25m1978
ElsewhereIMDb5.6842TMDB5.329
  • sombre
  • brisk
  • intense
  • bleak
  • cold
Movie DNA

Sombre, kinetic, measured giallo / schoolgirls, inventive in texture. Nihilistic, mid-stakes, cold, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

Angela Russo, a sixteen-year-old girl, is found dead in a river, having been fatally violated with a large blunt instrument. Inspector Di Salvo is assigned to the case and focuses his investigations on St. Theresa's, the exclusive school where Angela boarded. Three of the murdered girl's classmates, Franca, Paola and Virginia (who call themselves "The Inseparables"), receive threatening poems from an individual using the name "Nemesis." Bizarre "accidents" start to befall the girls: Franca is injured when someone causes her horse to bolt and Virginia nearly breaks her neck on marbles left at the top of a staircase. But Di Salvo is determined to find the killer, even if it means using unorthodox methods. He is aided by Angela Russo's little sister Emily, whose helpful clues lead to a boutique owned by a dubious character and a vice ring where "rich influential men pay well for teenage favours..."

Our read · Enigma rosso (1978) reads as a sombre, kinetic, inventive giallo · schoolgirls · thriller entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, cold in temperature, nihilistic in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Video previewNo trailer available for this one.
Where the cast leads
Fingerprint

The shape of Enigma rosso

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want a lurid Italian giallo mystery with schoolgirls and a determined detective.

ends unsettlingit leaves you shakena rollercoastergrips by minute 5attention 3/5breezes bysubtitles: full
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upnuditygraphic violencesexual violencesuicide theme

Skip it tonightSkip if sleazy 70s thrillers, explicit content or brutal murders disturb you.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
Your take
Rate it
star-clip-1-0star-clip-2-0star-clip-3-0star-clip-4-0star-clip-5-0
React
Discussion

Discussion

cmd enter to post

What does your Movie DNA look like?

Rate a few films you've seen. We map your taste across the same twelve axes and find the films you'll actually want to watch tonight.

Calibrate yourself