Great change of setting from the typical giallo, but unforgivably dull. My ★★ review of Tropic of Cancer (1972) on Letterboxd:
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A ★★ review of Tropic of Cancer (1972)
Giallo January had to deliver me a dog at some point this year and woof, here we go. I appreciate the attempt by writer Anthony Steffen to do something different here; Tropic of Cancer sets the action in Haiti, and the setting certainly allows the film to stand out from its contemporaries. Marcello Masciocchi gorgeously captures the island, and Steffen's script gets to throw in elements that aren't often seen in this subgenre. But man oh man, does this thing meander like no one's business. The plot revolves haphazardly around Steffen's Doctor Williams and his hallucinogenic wonder drug, which everyone
It has the unfortunate status of being the lesser Venice-set thriller about a child's death from the early 1970s. My ★★★ review of Who Saw Her Die? (1972) on Letterboxd:
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A ★★★ review of Who Saw Her Die? (1972)
As unfair as it is, Who Saw Her Die? suffers from comparison to the far superior Don't Look Now. Not that it's a bad thing to be lesser to that stone cold classic of a grief-based thriller; the bar is set impossibly high. What's more, Aldo Lado's film released over a year before Don't Look Now. Still, it's hard to look back at this film and not draw comparisons to the way the death of a girl leads to her parents running through Venice seeking an easing of their pain. If you can set the comparisons aside, Who Saw Her
A surprisingly good late-stage Argento film, one that thankfully means Dracula 3D won't never his last film. My ★★★½ review of Dark Glasses (2022) on Letterboxd:
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A ★★★½ review of Dark Glasses (2022)
I remember hearing word that Dark Glasses was another misstep for Dario Argento, but I rather enjoyed it. Let's not get it twisted; in no way does this rank near the best of Argento's filmography. But following the Italian horror master's downward spiral of Mother of Tears, Giallo, and especially Dracula 3D, this was a sharp return to form for him. Argento is doing fine work behind the camera in helming this tale of a blinded sex worker who is stalked by a killer as she tries to care for a Chinese boy who she accidentally orphaned. He lacks his
Sleazy as fuck in that enjoyable giallo way and deeply pessimistic, with a little bit more under the hood to give it some surprising depth. My ★★★½ review of What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (1974) on Letterboxd:
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A ★★★½ review of What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (1974)
My first Giallo January watch, Naked You Die, took it easy on the sleaze. My second, What Have They Done to Your Daughters?, had enough for both films combined. Massimo Dallamano's mystery film is full of unseemly situations – dead teenage sex workers, a cleaver-wielding biker, roofies, you name it. And yet for all its sleaze, What Have They Done approaches its topics more responsibly than you might expect. It's lurid as all hell, but there is some social commentary in this deeply pessimistic film. The story takes aim at institutions of power and doesn't hold back. I found myself
Not the greatest of giallos, but it's generally solid across the board. My ★★★ review of Naked You Die (1968) on Letterboxd:
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A ★★★ review of Naked You Die (1968)
There's not a lot of nakedness in Naked You Die, Antonio Margheriti's 1968 giallo. But frankly, I'm more than okay with that. (I prefer the US title The Young, the Evil and the Savage anyway.) Margheriti's film is set at a boarding school where a killer is stalking young girls for an unknown reason, and while it's probably far tamer than people looking for sleazy 1960s Italian horror might expect there's still a lot to enjoy. We have a solid enough cast here, led by Eleonora Brown as a girl at the school who quickly seems to be the primary
An absolute all-timer of a giallo, even among by Lucio Fulci standards. My ★★★★ review of Don't Torture a Duckling (1972) on Letterboxd:
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A ★★★★ review of Don't Torture a Duckling (1972)
There's a good reason that Luci Fulci's Don’t Torture a Duckling is considered one of the highwater marks of giallo. This film takes a while for its investigation plot to gain traction, but Fulci is doing some masterful work in the meantime setting the tone. The plot deliberately takes its time, with the mysterious killer dispatching children while we get a real sense for the small village in which it is set. That lets the characters really pop -- most notably an effervescent Barbara Bouchet as the cosmopolitan Patrizia but also Florinda Bolkan as the local witch and Tomas Milian
No film with a title and poster as good as this one should feel this rote. My ★★½ review of The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (1971) on Letterboxd:
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A ★★½ review of The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (1971)
It wouldn't be fair to call The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave a bad movie. As giallos go, it's a perfectly acceptable film that generally gives you want you're going to want from the genre -- sex, murder, psychosexual maniacs, plot twists, colorful settings and equally colorful characters. And yet, it didn't grab me like many of its contemporaries did. Emilio Miraglia does fine work here, but he's just following the genre's playbook and his story (co-written with Massimo Felisatti and Fabio Pittorru) just fell a little flat to me. There's some fun stuff around our fucked up
A sort of mix between giallo and noir, which makes it fully my jam. My ★★★½ review of The Possessed (1965) on Letterboxd:
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A ★★★½ review of The Possessed (1965)
The second of my Luigi Bazzoni double shot, The Possessed is a black and white visual treat of a film. Bazzoni makes a meal out of a story where there’s not much there. Ironically, while The Fifth Cord has too much plot there doesn’t seem to be enough here and the screenplay from Bazzoni, Franco Rosselini, Giovanni Comisso and Ernesto Gastaldi is stretching to fit the 90-minute runtime. But honestly, it’s hard to be too critical of that when there’s so much good stuff going on in the space between the plot. Peter Baldwin, Salvo Randone, Valentina Cortese and Pia
10 gallons of plot in a 5 gallon hat, but it's a fun story and Franco Nero is fantastic. My ★★★½ review of The Fifth Cord (1971) on Letterboxd:
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A ★★★½ review of The Fifth Cord (1971)
The Fifth Cord is one of two Luigi Bazzoni giallos that I saw for Giallo January, and it just so happens I ended up watching them one after the other on the same day. Between the two, this is my favorite though they’re both pretty great and make me wish Bazzoni had directed more of them. Fifth Cord kicks off a strong opening where the killer stalks our a group of friends and acquaintances through a party, allowing us to get our first looks at the targets-to-be. While we then go through the typical narrative devices of the giallo, the
It shouldn't annoy me this much that Stendhal Syndrome doesn't play much of a factor in the plot, but it does. My ★★½ review of The Stendhal Syndrome (1996) on Letterboxd:
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A ★★½ review of The Stendhal Syndrome (1996)
The Stendhal Syndrome starts in classic Dario Argento style and ends strong, but it’s a bit of a slog in between. Asia Argento is decent enough as Anna, a police officer who becomes a victim of the serial killer/rapist that she is sent to track down; she goes big at most opportunities but that is fitting to the elder Argento’s style. The aspects of Anna’s emotional health are the best parts of this and while it’s a decently plotted arc, it’s jarring when juxtaposed with the graphic and extended scenes of sexual violence. Exploitation elements and sleaze are part and
Jeremy Thomas