There basically only exist 3 groups of people in this world. The first group considers "The Girl in Room 2A" to be a giallo and the second group doesn't. The third group has never even heard about "The Girl in Room 2A" and thus couldn't care less whether it's a giallo or not. This last group covers about 99,5% of the world's population, but of course we'll completely disregard them in this review.
Yours truly homes in the second group. Somehow, the American born smut director William Rose (previously responsible for duds like "Rent-A-Girl" and "50,000 B.C.") found some financers and collaborators in Italy. Good for him, but just because a film is released in 1974 and the title contains keywords like "casa" and "paura", it doesn't necessarily make it a giallo. Admittedly, certain trademarks are present, like beautiful and innocent young women being slaughtered by a masked assailant, the boarding house type of setting and the brother of a former victim independently investigating the case. But it's made clear rather early in the film that the girls are being targeted by a perverse satanic cult rather than by a perverse lone killer and, moreover, "The Girl in Room 2A" doesn't feature any stylistic giallo trademark like imaginative camerawork or a dazzling soundtrack. Margaret Bradley is a young woman just released from prison and, just like many girls before her, the friendly and caring parole officer Alice Songbird sends her to the boarding house of the elderly Mrs. Grant where she can quietly build up her life again. During the pre-opening credits scene (basically the only good part of the entire film) we already witnessed how the tenants of this house are kidnapped, tortured, killed and thrown off a cliff. After some strange occurrences, Margaret hooks up with a handsome young stranger who's looking for his sister that went missing. The biggest default of "The Girl in Room 2A" is the miserable script. Everything that happens seems so random and meaningless. Who are these cult members? Why and to whom are they sacrificing the girls? The answers are quite simple, in fact: William Rose is a completely untalented writer/director and his entire repertoire proves that he isn't interested in atmosphere, tension-building or consistent storytelling. He likes to film young girls in various states of nakedness and suffering. And then still he's not very good at it, since ravishing cult sirens like Rosalba Neri and Karin Schubert are dramatically wasted. There are a few notably grisly death sequences, but (again) popping up randomly. Perhaps in the hands of a REAL contemporary Italian giallo-director, this could potentially have been a modest classic. In the hands of this guy, it's nothing but a daft and forgettable non-giallo.
Yours truly homes in the second group. Somehow, the American born smut director William Rose (previously responsible for duds like "Rent-A-Girl" and "50,000 B.C.") found some financers and collaborators in Italy. Good for him, but just because a film is released in 1974 and the title contains keywords like "casa" and "paura", it doesn't necessarily make it a giallo. Admittedly, certain trademarks are present, like beautiful and innocent young women being slaughtered by a masked assailant, the boarding house type of setting and the brother of a former victim independently investigating the case. But it's made clear rather early in the film that the girls are being targeted by a perverse satanic cult rather than by a perverse lone killer and, moreover, "The Girl in Room 2A" doesn't feature any stylistic giallo trademark like imaginative camerawork or a dazzling soundtrack. Margaret Bradley is a young woman just released from prison and, just like many girls before her, the friendly and caring parole officer Alice Songbird sends her to the boarding house of the elderly Mrs. Grant where she can quietly build up her life again. During the pre-opening credits scene (basically the only good part of the entire film) we already witnessed how the tenants of this house are kidnapped, tortured, killed and thrown off a cliff. After some strange occurrences, Margaret hooks up with a handsome young stranger who's looking for his sister that went missing. The biggest default of "The Girl in Room 2A" is the miserable script. Everything that happens seems so random and meaningless. Who are these cult members? Why and to whom are they sacrificing the girls? The answers are quite simple, in fact: William Rose is a completely untalented writer/director and his entire repertoire proves that he isn't interested in atmosphere, tension-building or consistent storytelling. He likes to film young girls in various states of nakedness and suffering. And then still he's not very good at it, since ravishing cult sirens like Rosalba Neri and Karin Schubert are dramatically wasted. There are a few notably grisly death sequences, but (again) popping up randomly. Perhaps in the hands of a REAL contemporary Italian giallo-director, this could potentially have been a modest classic. In the hands of this guy, it's nothing but a daft and forgettable non-giallo.