Before watching this, "Murder in a Blue World" had been described to me as a Spanish "Clockwork Orange". While its not a complete ripoff of the film, many plot elements are lifted directly from that classic. In particular, Chris Mitchum's character seems to have the exact same background as Alex DeLarge. The film lacks the wit or intelligence of "A Clockwork Orange", but the one area where it does outdo that film is bizarreness. "Murder in a Blue World" is one of the strangest European trash films I've seen from the left-field pop-culture references (Flash Gordan, Mohammad Ali, Valdimir Nobokov), the awkwardly executed social satire, and the incredibly close-minded view of homosexuality. None of this makes a lick of sense, but there are some unintentional laughs to be found. Ultimately it comes across as "A Clockwork Giallo".

The acting is pretty lousy, including Sue Lyon (whose career went straight downhill after appearing in Kubrick's "Lolita"), the always wooden Chris Mitchum (son of Robert), and familiar face Jean Sorel ("Lizard In a Woman's Skin"). The direction by Eloy de la Iglesia is reasonably stylish but dull and uninspired. The man has no idea how to keep the film moving at a quick pace. Even though its a bit dull, the film is saved by the moronic dialog which offers plenty of unintentional laughs and the overall strangeness of the product. Recommended mostly to die hard fans of 70s European trash. (3/10)