Abstract

The essay examines the scenic space in a number of crime films set in Rome in 1976, a year in which this genre, aimed at transposing crime news stories almost with a live coverage approach, begins to promote new forms of spectacularization and aestheticization of violence. For instance, the compulsive transposition of the events that took place in September 1975, and which went down in history as the «Circeo Massacre». In these films, which are tied to practices and atmospheres of generic areas such as sexploitation and shoxploitation, horror and nazi films, the spaces populated by the characters inevitably become critical spaces dedicated to exceptionally brutal actions, showcased through extreme and sensationalist reproductions of sadism. Around them, a gloomy Rome reflects the squalor and degradation that run through it