L'assassino ha riservato nove poltrone

This is a surprisingly entertaining Italian giallo that resembles a lot of later American slasher movies more than it does the earlier or contemporary Italian thrillers. As in slasher films like "Stage Fright" (both versions), "Popcorn", and "Clown at Midnight" this film is basically about nine people who attend a showing at a mysteriously deserted theater and find themselves trapped inside and picked off one-by-one by a mysterious masked killer, who may be motivated by revenge. Really though the plot here is pretty inconsequential. This movie is much closer to the stylish gialli than amateurish slasher movies in quality, and instead of having a cast of adolescent American nitwits, the cast is made up of sumptuous European beauties who spend much of the movie in various states of undress--oh yeah, and the male lead from "South Pacific".

The most recognizable actress might be the Swedish Janet Agren who later appeared in Fulci's "City of the Living Dead", but she (and her obvious body double) are only in the movie briefly. The lead actresses are Paola Senatore (who later appeared in Italian porn movies) and Lucretia Love (who might as well have). Neither are great actresses but they easily fulfill the requirements of their roles here. (Senatore and Agren would appear together again later in Umberto Lenzi's cannibalism opus "Eaten Alive" where hilariously the blonde Aryan Swede and the swarthy Italian were supposed to be sisters). You may wonder what Rosanno "South Pacific" Brazzi is doing in a movie like this, but this is actually a step up from his previous appearance in "Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks" (and personally I'd rather watch either of these again than "South Pacific").

You might wait for this to be legitimately released on DVD, but unlike a lot of obscure gialli there are good-looking copies of it floating around out there.

The Killer Reserved Nine Seats apparently takes influence from Agatha Christie's classic novel 'Ten Little Indians'. Unfortunately I've not got round to reading Christie's story yet, although I'm guessing that in her writing, all the women weren't so keen on taking their clothes off, the murders weren't so grisly and there wasn't such an emphasis on sleaze! While The Killer Reserved Nine Seats can't be described as the nastiest Giallo to come out of Italy, it certainly has its moments and one scene in particular is likely to please any fan of this sort of film! The plot focuses on an old theatre where an entire family were killed for reasons unknown. The rich aristocratic owner invites nine people there, but it's not long before they start being picked off by an incognito assailant in a sinister mask. Naturally, every one of the guests has a motive; and since the doors are locked, it's obvious that the murderer is one of the guests. And not only that, but just when you thought things couldn't get any more complicated, it turns out the theatre is under the power of some ancient family curse!

I would like to state clearly that this film is heavily flawed...but I'm such a big fan of this stuff that things such as the poor narrative, questionable character actions and the needless and silly supernatural sub-plot really didn't bother me too much. The film certainly has a lot of plus points, and the claustrophobic setting is one of them, as director Giuseppe Bennati does well at ensuring the atmosphere is always sinister and unsettling. There's plenty of action between the central characters, and a particularly pleasing element is the fact that the women aren't too shy when it comes to getting undressed, and getting off with the other female characters! As you might expect since the title promises a possible nine murders, the film isn't short of people being killed. Many of the murder scenes are underdone and not memorable, but one will stand out as an unlucky lady is slashed, stabbed in the nether regions and eventually has her hands nailed to the wall! It all boils down to a daft conclusion, but it sort of works as the sickness increases and the motive for murder is a lot better worked than the motives in some similar films. Overall, this is hardly the greatest Giallo you're ever likely to see; but if Gothic atmosphere, lesbians and grisly murders are what you like; there's lots of fun to be had here!

This rather rare giallo traps nine adults who are connected with each other in a particular way (e.g. by blood, intrigue or rivalry) in an abandoned theatre. Needless to say that one by one falls victim to a masked killer who seems to have staged their unplanned meeting in the old building, where 100 years before terrible murders had happened. The real problem is that supernatural forces are also involved in the events that haunt the nine victims-to-be. Is the killer human or something beyond?

The setting of a spooky old theatre is ideal to unfold an intense, haunting atmosphere. Therefore it's no surprise that there are some genuinely creepy scenes here. Unfortunately, the movie is overall too talky to keep the suspense, and the well staged murder scenes just don't really fulfill their immense potentials (they are still nasty, though).

All in all, the interesting, claustrophobic story sadly becomes mediocre through the slow direction, but this film is still recommended for all those who admire gialli - there are many thrillers that are by far inferior.

"L'Assassino ha riservato nove poltrone"(The killer reserved nine seats) is one of those films that stayed with me.

I've seen a copy with Greek subtitles. According to IMDb, the film has a running time of 99 minutes and this copy I've ordered runs around 92 minutes. So 7 minutes were cut out from the original film and now maybe the cut footage is lost forever. The DVD was visibly taken from a VHS tape and even if the colors are a bit drab and the images sometimes a bit jittery, the film is still quite watchable. Anyway it would be wonderful to see the film in a restored and remastered edition (uncut if possible).

The film drew inspiration from Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians" – Ten people are invited to an abandoned theater in an out-of-the-way place. The theater looms gigantic in the night when they arrive. A sense of foreboding underlined by the soundtrack creeps in. These people know each other and are linked by love/hate relationships – greed, love, sex, bitterness are their companions. The camera shows the chandeliers, the pictures on the wall show faces were luxury and greed meet, the decors.... Everything takes us back to a glorious past – lust, grandeur, suffering, intrigues ... – all gone now....

The killings begin. Where is the killer hiding? Long corridors, dressing rooms, the backstage, the imposing stairs that lead to upper floors.... Is He or She one of them? Later on we get to know that there's a family curse hanging over the theater. Are supernatural forces at work? This is a very atmospheric thriller in which the camera and the soundtrack work well together. The story somehow doesn't make much sense. The behavior of the characters (like other reviewers already pointed out) is far from logical. They wander alone in badly lit corridors, enter dark rooms, almost like they were inviting the killer to take care of them. And the killer is very, very sadistic.

The action of the "The killer reserved nine seats" takes place during the night. It's a "long night's journey into day", but it's a day that maybe no one will reach alive (as one of the characters dejectedly says). The film is tense and claustrophobic, but also lighthearted and ironical, like all good gialli. There are also the moments of sleaze, something very good to release the tension – the women undress themselves whenever they can, and there's also a lesbian couple among the lot: Rosanna Schiaffino, Paola Senatore, Lucretia Love, Eva Czemerys, Janet Agren – take your pick. There's a moment of surrealistic sleaze that would have made even Buñuel take his hat off – many people had already been knocked off and what Paola Senatore does? She puts on some music, takes off her clothes, and dances semi-naked in front of a mirror. What?! Well, anyway I enjoyed the scene a lot. Thanks, Paola!

Something that I want to stress again is the atmosphere conveyed by the film – the characters and decors, underlined by the imaginative soundtrack, seem to join their hands to paint a picture of lust, desire, decadence and tired joie-de-vivre. One can go back to the time when some Italian renaissance masters were able to portray luxury and ambiguity living together with virtue (whatever that means:).

"The killer reserved nine seats" is an interesting film that deserves more recognition and to be presented to the public in a restored and remastered edition. It's creative, bizarre and intriguing. It's certainly not a run-of-the-mill giallo. It's a worthy film to check out.

Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians serves as the basis for giallo The Killer Reserved Nine Seats, which sees a group of bickering friends, relatives and acquaintances, all of whom have complex relationships and serious character flaws, assemble at a deserted theatre where they find themselves locked in and killed off one-by-one by a masked assailant. Is the murderer flesh and blood or a malevolent spirit driven by a centuries old curse?

If the film had stuck to a simple murder-by-numbers plot, it could have been a very effective thriller— after all, the same basic set-up served Michele Soavi well for his excellent '80s slasher Stagefright (1987)—but the supernatural element makes The Killer Reserved Nine Seats way too bewildering for its own good, with a frustrating finale that fails to make matters clear. Thank heavens, then, for those mainstays of the giallo, violence and nudity…

With such a collection of disagreeable characters, there are plenty of well deserved deaths, although they are less graphic than I had expected: some reviews have remarked on the nastiness of the murders, but barring the nailing of one woman's arm to a wooden beam (an effect that uses a hilarious plastic-looking fake hand), the violence seemed rather tame to me (I definitely didn't see any crotch stabbing), leading me to wonder whether the version I watched was shorn of some gore.

Thankfully, all of the nudity seemed intact, with virtually all of the female characters getting nekkid at some point, either willingly, or by having their clothes torn off by the killer before being brutally dispatched. This certainly helps to make the film more entertaining, especially the scene in which one woman takes time out amidst all the murder to dance topless to some funky music.