While saddled with a meaningless title that could be grafted to any ol’ thriller, Italian or otherwise, Cold Eyes of Fear stands above the fray from the start. Its beginning bears the kind of fake-out sequence that Brian De Palma soon would use as his bread and butter, yet it’s hardly the only cinematic trick director Enzo G. Castellari (The Inglorious Bastards) has in store.

Late one night, solicitor Peter Flower (Gianni Garko, Devil Fish) brings home a hot-to-trot woman (Giovanna Ralli, Sex with a Smile) for some sure-thing sex. The swanky pad really belongs to his uncle (Fernando Rey, The French Connection), but the elderly judge is stuck at courthouse working on a big case, giving Peter the privacy to put his, well, peter to use.

Unfortunately, Peter is doomed to spend the night blue-balled, because having a corpse fall beside you tends to throw water on the fire of ladies’ loins. Knife extended, a leather-clad killer is skulking about the house, seeking a file from the judge’s past. It’s all part of a plot to blow the man up with explosives.

A couple of twists are worked into the story, but I was more surprised by Castellari’s playtime with lighting and editing, which livens up both acts of violence and more routine stretches. For example, in one scene, he pushes the camera forward in fits timed with punches Peter takes to the stomach. Late in the film, Castellari dabbles in hallucinatory imagery; while it is out of place, it excites.

Ennio Morricone’s terrific-as-usual score ranges from playful (during an early arcade montage, shot handheld) to disturbing. The latter does most of the heavy lifting in building anxiety, as Cold Eyes of Fear is not particularly graphic. The blood in this one looks like smeared lipstick after a rather passionate make-out session — the one poor Peter never gets to complete. —Rod Lott

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In the mid-1990s, when erotic thrillers were all the rage, Playboy’s production group made a handful of direct-to-video movies to get in on summadat milky-white-behind action. First out of the gate from the House That Hugh Built was Cover Me. For coming from a nudie mag, it has far too much Elliott Gould.

Devilshly cute Courtney Taylor, who most notably vamped it up in Prom Night III: The Last Kiss, plays Holly, a gorgeous female cop who goes undercover as a centerfold model (and then, logically, a stripper) to snare Dimitri (soap regular Stephen Nichols), a serial killer who has cottoned to murdering gatefolds. Stranger than that, Dimitri seduces and then offs these torso-stapled beauts while he’s dressed in drag, replete with dripping makeup and bubbly voice.

Dimitri commits such acts because, as we are shown in grainy flashbacks, his momma used to force him into girls’ clothing as a child. Meanwhile, Holly won’t quit stripping because, as we are shown in slow-motion dance sequences, she realizes she actually likes having a wad of dirty dollar bills shoved into her panties by the hands of greasy strangers, dammit.

Directed by Michael Schroeder (Cyborg 2 and Cyborg 3), Cover Me is as laughable as Taylor is perky and scorching. Ironically, the film often garners its biggest inadvertent chuckles during its sex scenes, which feature intricate light shows, rear-projection images (not the anatomic kind of rear, mind you) and, when Schroeder feels like it, booby.

The Terminator’s Rick Rossovich was the lucky man who nabbed the role of Bobby, Holly’s cop boyfriend. Plumpy Paul Sorvino (Goodfellas) yuks it up as Bobby’s partner until he gets strangled while sitting in his car. Corbin Bernsen (The Dentist) plays a porno king, and thoroughly convinced me of his oily nature. But it’s Taylor who rules the show, making it worth the watch. (Well, okay, just parts of it.) Whatever happened to her? —Rod Lott

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