Luca (Fabio Testi) and his brother Mickey (Giulio Fanese) are smuggling cigarettes into Naples. Trouble comes knocking when big bad mobster Frenchman Jacois (Marcel Bozzuffi) want to use their route and their network for harder drugs and has Mickey killed in slo-mo. Luca is not interested in doing any such dirty business however, and before you can say The Godfather all of Naples' mafia leaders are also killed one after another. But Luca is a hard nut, he wants revenge for his brother, and eventually it all ends with everyone gather in a blind alley and starts shooting at each other.

Make-up wizard Franco Di Girolamo must have worked overtime here, as The Naples Conncetion is almost as bloody violent as Zombi 2, only when a guy is killed here he definitely don't stand up a walk again. People are blown-up in their appartments, heads are exploding, skulls are crashed, people are sodomized and a young girl have her face blow-torched in grossing detail, all dragged-out and framed for maximum sadism by a frenzied Fulci in peak-form. Production wise the film is very uneven, though. There's some very classy shots and frames by Fulci regular Sergio Salvati, but there's also some very horrible zooming and editing, especially the soundtrack is messily put together even though the score by Fabio Frizzi is okey, all suggesting that the film was done very quickly and shipped out fast. It's helped a lot, though, by a good story and good actors. Pretty boy Fabio Testi is clearly the brightest shining star here, but Marcel Bozzuffi is wicked also as the Frenchman. Bozzuffi, of course, played the French assassin so memorable in The French Connection (a role here occupied by Romano Puppo) and he meets a similar fate here as well, shot down in cold blood with his arms in the air. A tribute to a classic movie scene or an unashamed theft, it doesn't matter. Because while Lucio Fulci may not be William Friedkin, he hits just as hard in the stomach.

© The Inzomniac's Movie Madness Review.