Witnessing new lows for onscreen bad guys is always queasy fun, from the rat-tossing nastiness of the tormenters in Straw Dogs to the take-no-child-prisoners ethics of the thugs in A History of Violence.

But some kind of twisted imagination had to come up with the anti-hero in Umberto Lenzi’s 1974 Italian killing-spree cop movie Almost Human, freshly out on DVD. Actor Tomas Milian plays Giulio, a rancid piece of work who rapes his girlfriend (though she seems to get off on it), knifes anyone who gets in his way, double-crosses his Mafioso clients and straps his semi-nude victims (several at a time) to spinning chandeliers!

Apparently taking a page from Dirty Harry (1971), this film has an ideological bent: Giulio speaks like a socialist, keenly aware of Italy’s class divide, insisting to his thug buddies (and even they are a bit taken aback by his mean-fightin’-mad tactics) that if it weren’t for crime, he’d never get ahead.

But the most evil moment comes when Giulio traps a well-heeled group in a mansion, insisting they all get on their knees to perform fellatio on him and his merry band of nasties. He saves the worst part for the horrified het master of the house. Giulio insists this guy go down on him—making it clear that not only is Giulio a raging lefty criminal, he’s bisexual as well. Horrors!

Giulio’s master plan is to kidnap the wealthy heiress of one of Italy’s richest entrepreneurs. Kinks in the plan arise when one of the kidnappers starts to fall for the heiress. Henry Silva is also on board as the crusading inspector, intent on getting Giulio, despite the murderer’s uncanny ability to line up alibis.

Need I warn people about the various sites that have arisen in purported tribute to the horror genre? Slasherpool.com calls the feature film Five Across the Eyes “brilliant… one of the best horror movies ever!” Which is utterly unbelievable, when one looks at this inept feature, now out on DVD. Someone actually found this scary?