Part actioner, part crime mystery, the energized and enjoyable What Have They Done to Your Daughters? is director Massimo Dallamano's semi-followup to his 1972 seminal giallo What Have You Done to Solange?.

While it may be true that elements of the police procedural subgenre occasionally threaten to dominate the bulk of Daughters, both the sleazy schoolgirl atmosphere and enough giallo conventions remain ensure that followers of black-gloved slashings will receive their necessary dose of chills.

A fifteen year old girl is found nude and hanged in her secret rented room, the obvious signs point to suicide. But something is amiss...if the young girl killed herself, why would she have undressed beforehand? Why are there pages ripped out of her school notebooks? And what about the anonymous phone call that tipped off the police? New to the job, female assistant district attorney Stori (Ralli) surveys the events, questions swirling in her mind...

After her photo is published in the newspapers, the dead girl is soon identified as Silvia Polvesi. When police video footage from a public protest inadvertently reveals Silvia contained in a different location at the time of her death, D.A. Stori vows the girl's death a murder...the killer must have murdered the girl then moved her body to her sublet apartment.

With the case now transferred to homicide, detective Silvestri (Cassinelli) assumes the reigns. Interviewing Silvia's parents, Silvestri discovers that not only had the girl been seeing a psychologist but also that her mother had hired a detective to track her promiscuous daughter.

However, when Silvia's detective is found hacked and dismembered inside the trunk of his own car, Silvestri turns to the PI's secretary...could he somehow have been responsible for Silvia's death?

But no sooner does Silvestri turn to Rosa for answers than a motorbike rider clad all in black (think the killer of Night School) and wielding a shiny meat cleaver begins to silence all those with whom the police would talk. What silence does the killer want to ensure? And who is he protecting...?

Notable highlights include the murderer's rampage through the hospital hallways en route to deliver a little warning to secretary Rosa. Clearly possessing minimal respect for the sick and infirm, our cleaver-wielding killer decides to add a little more to the pile by cleanly lopping off the hand of an ensuing detective.

One of the real highlights of Daughters is the killer's extended chase of district attorney Stori through the darkened underground parking lot of her apartment building. Suspenseful and well-shot, the sequence ends with the poor D.A. cornered in an elevator and nice shock as everyone's favorite rider shatters the lift door...

The musical score by Stelvio Cipriani nicely complements the action, the relaxed choir-like "lah lahs" of the opening credits underscoring the assumed innocence of teenage schoolgirls while the nervous, rapid low tones during the suspense sequences are right on as well.

What Have They Done to Your Daughters? is alternately known as The Police Want Help and also The Coed Murders. Italian title: La Polizia cheide aiuto.