Martino’s fifth giallo, the film centers on a string of brutal murders of young female students at an international college in Perugia.

Franz parts from the group, and Dani rejects Stefano's advances and rejoins Jane and their friends, including Carol and couple Katia and Ursula.

After learning that Stefano left his apartment without explanation, Jane drives to the villa and leaves her car to be washed overnight at a service station.

That night, the killer returns and is revealed to be Franz, who became a psychopathic misogynist after the childhood trauma of witnessing his brother fall to his death while fetching a girl's doll.

[3] Joseph Brenner Associates later distributed a recut and rescored dubbed version as Torso in the US and the film became a success there on the drive-in and grindhouse circuits, often as a double feature with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974).

[6] George Anderson of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette deemed the film "another display of softcore sex and seamy violence that might better have been kept abroad.

"[7] Joe Baltake of the Philadelphia Daily News wrote: "Blood flows freely and limbs detach easily, in Sergio Martino's Torso, a disagreeable Italian import with—not surprisingly—little to recommend it.

"[8] The Los Angeles Times's Linda Gross wrote that the film was a "lazy suspense movie" with a "disjointed and loose" screenplay.

[12] PopMatters gave it a 7 out of 10 rating,[13] while Slant Magazine said it "pales next to director Sergio Martino's more inventive sleaze-thrillers (The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, All the Colors of the Dark)".