'Like Rabid Dogs' (1976) – Mario Imperoli.

Forcefully endowed with no less of a feral bite than Sergio Grieco's maniacal 'Mad Dog Killer', and maestro Umberto Lenzi's sociopathic Poliziotteschi 'Almost Human', supremely versatile film-maker Mario Imperoli's frequently ferocious, politically enraged 70s crime thriller remains a dazzling example of a much-maligned genre. Opening with a thrilling, especially bravura heist at a packed football stadium, the unrepentantly brutal Euro-crime classic 'Like Rabid Dogs' relentlessly plunges the increasingly hypertensive viewer into the arbitrarily cruel murder machinations of three middle-class thrill killers, callously led by pretty stone-faced psychopath Tony (Cesare Barro), the terminally twisted trio's orgiastic murder spree very soon becoming the greatly tormenting obsession of stolid cop Commissario Muzi(Jean-Pierre Sabagh), and courageously aided by the breathtakingly beauteous Policewoman Germana (Paola Senatore), the talented director Imperoli grittily orchestrates a violent, bullet-casing tight agitprop crime thriller that succeeds not only as an unflinchingly visceral Poliziotteschi, but makes for a fascinating document exposing the turbulent socio-political unrest of Italy in the 1970s. A meticulously constructed film that certainly rewards repeat viewing, and the resolutely cool, objective way Imperoli documents the gang's wanton sadism recalls Michael Haneke at his glacial best. For those cult film fans only familiar with Mario Imperoli's playful, Gloria Guido-starring, snugly denim-clad sensation 'Blue Jeans' (1975) are in for a shock, since 'Like Rabid Dogs' is clearly an entirely more viciously distempered, tarmac-shredding, balaclava-blasting beast, and the inspired, rump-humpingly groovy score by maestro Mario Molino is an extraordinarily strident, skin-pricklingly perky delight!