This film contains graphic violence and Nudity. The story follows a fashion house full of models who are being pursued and picked off by a mystery assailant. In fact the entire slasher genre that dominated 1980’s horror originated as an offshoot of Giallo films. But film audiences abroad adopted it as the name for a peculiarly Italian sub-genre of thriller cinema that had its heyday in the 1970s. Also, long drawn out murder sequences that indulge the killer’s voyeuristic tendencies are a hallmark of the sub-genre. 3 - Kindle edition by Howart, Troy. Shot in beautiful, moody black and white, you get to see why this man was a master filmmaker in any style. The Giallo Film is a predominantly Italian sub-genre of film basically involving horror/thrillers and mystery done in a highly stylized fashion. It's a fairly obscure type of Italian movie that starts to drift pretty much into slasher-film territory, even though they aren't strictly slashers. The Girl Who Knew Too Much is considered by many to be the very first Giallo film ever to hit theaters, and it was the beginning of a very lucrative career in the genre for filmmaker Mario Bava, who to this day is known as one of the most respected Giallo directors in history. Far and away the best erotic thriller of the early 1990’s, Basic Instinct utilizes a classic trope, the femme fatale. While there's a certain amount of sex-appeal that goes into every Giallo film since that's apparently an important part of what makes a Giallo film a Giallo film, this movie just kind of commits to that and sets it in an all-girl Catholic school. This is a list of North American films, mostly “whodunit” thrillers, whose plots and style are informed by the influential film movement known as Giallo. Eyes are recurring motif in this film and Giallo films in general. The slasher film genre of the late 70s-early 80s (Halloween, Friday The 13th, My Bloody Valentine etc) was directly influenced by them. There isn’t much to say about this influential slasher film that hasn’t been said before. Rewritten several times and originally intended to be a star vehicle for Barbara Streisand, Eyes of Laura Mars is one of those rare films where too many cooks in the kitchen did not ruin the final product. Giallo is a genre that not even a lot of people who would consider themselves horror aficionados are familiar with. A film by one of the masters of Giallo Dario Argento, The Bird With The Crystal Plumage came out in 1970,  to make double the cost of its production in the box office at 1,000,000 USD. The story is iconic. The film was released in 1963, which may come as a shock to anyone familiar with Giallo who somehow hasn't seen this film. Some are intentionally influenced by the genres stylistic flourishes while others are more coincidental or unconscious. While I don’t believe William Friedkin is homophobic, I simply believe he was misguided and struggled to craft a movie around a community he didn’t really understand. There's a huge emphasis in this film on graphic violence, more so than in many Giallo films, and it's widely considered to be Bava's most violent. Other notable directors who worked within the genre include Lucio Fulci (Gates of Hell Trilogy, Don’t Torture a Duckling), Sergio Martino (Torso, Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key), and Umberto Lenzi (Spasmo). These waking nightmares seem to foreshadow the real life acts of a sadistic serial killer. It really does capture the isolation of the wilderness and the pace is patient. It offers both victim’s-eye-view and killer’s-eye-view shots. ), by the way, and one of his best. Argento’s film was unlike anything cinemagoers were being fed at the time – a stylistic, psychosexual, hyper-violent thriller – traits which would go on to define the giallo genre in a nutshell (for those unaware, the English translation of giallo simply means yellow, giallo films were tagged with this name since they … One important thing to get out of the way before talking about this film is that it's graphic. As with most prototypical slasher films, teens who engage in sex or take drugs are vilified. It deals with extremely graphic subject matter, and if you have any psychological triggers due to trauma, this film should probably be avoided. Dripping with sweat and lit by neon street marquees, Cruising is a time capsule of a New York long gone. Not the one that came out in 2018, which even if it did stray from the basic framework Argento put in place, was an incredible film, but no, Suspiria from 1977. Argento’s first major non-Giallo directing job doesn’t stray too far from the style he established in his previous film Deep Red, but Suspiria’s overall charm resides in its technical triumphs and visual style, and not so much its story or surprise twists. This is similar to Tenebrae, a Dario Argento film where an author is seemingly framed for murders inspired by his work. It wasn’t long before Italy left their own stamp on these stories and a pattern for the genre began to emerge. While the unapologetic sexuality of the film might not be in everyone's wheelhouse, it's still worth a watch. However, it is impossible to see Francesca as much more than a passion project, because its mimicry leaves very little to be enjoyed or uncovered. Jane is worried about a nightmare that she's been having. A central focus on the psychological damage the killer inflicts on the characters differentiates these stories from the typical potboiler detective story. The film plays with what’s objectively real because certain scenes are ambiguous and dreamlike. 8. The film was released in 1963, which may … While some people will say that this film isn't exactly Giallo since it's supernatural, it's the first thought for a lot of people and should definitely be looked into. Suspiria, his 1977 crossover hit in America, brought supernatural elements into the genre. Giallo films — a 20th-century Italian thriller or horror genre of films. However, the film has been cited as “defining Ercoli’s style”, featuring the recurring theme of “the nightmare of being threatened by one’s own sexual partner” and … While Dario Argento, Mario Bava, and Lucio Fulci are the most well-known directors who have dipped into this style, there's lots of giallo to love, and for very good … His intense, complicated use of shadow and light to create tension and narrative play can only be described as genius. Menu. Often with highly stylized titles to go along with it! Many horror directors of the New Hollywood era such as George Romero, John Carpenter, and Tobe Hooper were fans of the genre and Dario Argento. Divorced from the rest of the series, it really does function as a classic “whodunit”. Taste of Cinema 2019. A mentally disabled boy is said to have drowned there. This is the film that started the Giallo style. Though Mario Bava is credited with directing the first giallo film, 1963’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much, Argento is the man who took the deepest, furthest, and most popularized stab at it. Giallo films are essentially mystery-thrillers that incorporate elements of the crime procedural. The film implies that the media plays a part in glamorizing criminals, inspiring those seeking validation. The style IS the content so you can resist it or you can simply succumb to this assault on your senses and enjoy the perverse pleasures of Italian giallo … 10. It also put Dario Argento on the map. While the subsequent sequels would rely on hockey masked killer Jason Voorhees killing teenagers through creative means, the original is a far moodier affair. It also takes a lot of elements from gothic horror author Edgar Allen Poe's short story The Black Cat. The film is in a way a reworking of Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film “Blow Up” (it even features the same lead actor) and was intended as Argento’s final giallo before he focused on supernatural thrillers like the film he is … Dark Red stars your normal Giallo killer clad in black gloves, only this time he's being investigated by a medium and a piano player. The murders mirror events in her own writing. Gay rights activists had more than enough reasons to be angry with the way it presents their group as dangerous, where relationships and sex are purely transactional. The makeup effects by Tom Savini are a treat and The last 15 minutes are wrought with tension as the killer is revealed and the final showdown ensues. She's speaking of disappearances and witches and some sort of grand conspiracy so she decides to investigate. In Italy, ‘un giallo’ (plural ‘gialli’) can be of any nationality. By far the most infamous film on this list, Cruising was directed by William Friedkin, who defined the 1970’s era with films The Exorcist and the French Connection. Laura’s occupation plays a role as well as she begins to incorporate imagery from her visions into her work. Warning! More famous for its infamous cover art than anything contained within the film itself, Happy Birthday to Me is an early slasher film that came out in the post Friday the 13th boom. Giallo-style is a type of horror film that is a mix of a slasher and crime film. The book begins with a nice intro by Giallo screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi on what constitutes a Gialo film, an excellent chapter by writer Roberto Curti (who is releasing a book on the Italian Gothic Horror Film this summer) on the Giallo from the pages of the paperback novellas to the screen, and a chapter of Giallo prototypes and … During the scenes at night, the characters are enveloped by the shadows and darkness. Of course, Sam gets caught up in the investigation and begins to receive threatening phone calls. Written by John Carpenter and directed by Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner, Eyes of Laura Mars is a supernatural take on typical Giallo fare. In fact, the word Giallo itself is the Italian word for "yellow", which is the color of the paperbacks that were commonly sold that served as the inspiration for these movies, sometimes specifically being adapted into Giallo films. It tells the story of a young dancer who visits a dancing academy after hearing that it's one of the most prestigious places of learning for dancers in the world. Giallo-style films as listed in “So Deadly, So Perverse: Giallo-Style Films from Around the World, Volume Three” (Midnight Marquee Press, 2019), by author Troy Howarth. 3. She's had a hard life, and saw her mother die. Many Hollywood directors have been influenced by giallo cinema. The Case of the Bloody Iris perfectly showcases why the giallo film is synonymous with style and outlandish seventies fashion. But it was his 1964 film Blood and Black Lace that cemented the rules of the genre. It is also a term used to describe the Italian subgenre murder-mystery films that became popular in the late 60s and early 70s. The Eyes of Laura Mars (Irvin Kershner, 1978). The process of getting this film made was torturous. The designated final girl Ginny fears that her repressed memories and childhood trauma could be causing her to commit the murders herself. Rupturing zooms, chromatic lighting and soundtracks with … French cult actress/singer Jane Birkin … When she dreams that she commits a murder, she wakes up to find out that there's been an investigation opened into the murder of her recently deceased neighbor. A Bay Of Blood, a film by Mario Bava (that's known by entirely too many names such as Twitch Of The Death Nerve, Carnage, or Blood Bath) was released in 1971. The film tells us about a detective who's investigating a rash of child murders in an extremely superstitious town, and is the first of important Italian director Lucio Fulci's films to start experimenting with gore. The ante for how much violence and sexual imagery could be crammed into these films was raised by Dario Argento. Even directors who claim not to be overly familiar with the sub-genre such as Brian DePalma have directed several films that bear Giallo elements in spades. Now, while Giallo films are all known for having quite a psychedelic, hallucinogenic type of feel to them, this movie takes it to the extreme, eventually completely blurring the line between fantasy and reality. Directed by satirist Paul Verhoeven, Basic Instinct is about Nick Curran (Michael Douglas), a detective investigating the murder of a rockstar. Like Halloween, they are murdered by an unseen killer through a point of view shot. Therapy? Other common traits include bold colors, unique architecture, and a focus on imagery involving eyes. The film definitely has some problematic aspects in how it portrays the LGBTQ community at the time.