27 of 31 Horror Films I've Never Seen 2016: A Blade In The Dark (1983)

The tough thing about Giallo's, as with Spaghetti Western's, is they were so mass produced that many of the stories ended up being regurgitated again and again by other directors.  It got to the point where filmmakers shamelessly stole from one another, almost always claiming they were the originals.  The budget's got smaller, the acting got worse, and the gore went up, up, and up.  While Dario Argento may hold the claim as the "Italian Hitchcock" he was not alone in his mastery of the genre.  The first Giallo (according to most film historians) was Mario Bava's The Girl Who Knew Too Much.  His son, Lamberto Bava would become a well known name following collaborations with Argento on Demons and Demons 2, but his breakthrough film as a Director was Macabre in 1980.  A very good psycho thriller in it's own right, his second feature is unfortunately a bit of a let down, and that film (if you hadn't already guessed) is A Blade In The Dark.

A composer, Bruno (Andrea Occhipinti), is hired to produce a score to an upcoming horror film and has been put up in a small villa where he can work in privacy.  Or so he thinks.  It seems that people have a bit of a knack for sneaking into the villa and two girls both appear and disappear under mysterious circumstances.  Bruno is certain (and the audience knows) that they have been murdered, but he can't find the proof and as the story plays out, the body count grows.  Can he solve the mystery before he becomes another victim?

The premise is not uninteresting, the film is lit and shot evenly, and the score is enjoyable; all things that are expected of a Giallo.  The problem is that the acting completely lacks expression.  Compared to his freshman work, Macabre, which has explosive performances, the actors in A Blade In The Dark can do little more than look surprised or scared which makes them pretty boring to watch.  I'm not sure where the slip up was coming from, and while most Gialli are about as equally strange to watch in Italian as they are in English, the English dubbing track for this one is really a bad one.  Not "Ha ha" funny bad, but "Oh god, I don't care anymore, I'll read subtitles" (I personally have no problem with subtitles) bad.

The standout moments of the film are the kill sequences which all owe a great deal to the Argento school of the off camera knife wielding hand, but they're still great fun to watch.  Unless that sort of thing really disturbs you, in which case you shouldn't be watching Giallo's in the first place.  The climactic ending kill and reveal sequences are also probably the best part of the film, which unfortunately is very telling about the playing of the mystery.  It felt like you could have called it, McGuffin: The Movie after a while because there are so many different points at which Bava tries to misdirect the audience to the identity of the killer.  However, by the second to last kill it is incredibly obvious who the killer is which makes the reveal and wrap up anticlimactic.  Definitely a misstep, but Bava lands back on his feet two years later so it's interesting to see his roots.

Blackaria (2010): Number 3 in a Series of Reviews of Neo-Giallo Films

If I've learned anything from my forays into exploitation cinema it is a simple fact that along the way to those nuggets of gold, I'm going to come across a lot of garbage.  That is not to say that some of the trash doesn't have it's moments, but on the whole, a bad film is still a bad film.  Among the incredible amount of Giallo films there are quite a number of film that fall short.  It makes sense then that among the resurgence of the genre there will be a number of entries that fail to hit the mark.  Unfortunately that is the case of Francois Gaillard and Christophe Robin's Blackaria.

The plot is centered on Angela, who is having strangely erotic and violent dreams about her neighbor Anna Maria.  After hearing strange noises from Anna Maria's apartment, Angela goes to check on her, only to find Anna Maria dead.  Accidentally smashing Anna Maria's crystal ball reveals that glass has an actual power, allowing Angela to see an incredibly violent future in which she is murdered by Anna Maria's killer, a deranged Woman in Red.

Does this sound convoluted enough yet?  That's okay, really, because some of the best Gialli have similarly convoluted plots that come together in a spectacular fashion by the close of the film.  The bad news is that Blackaria is amateurish at best and more focused on lighting and gore than acting, writing, and plot.  While we're lead to believe the story is primarily about Angela, the focus inexplicably shifts to that of the Woman in Red who goes on a murderous rampage after failing to find Angela at her apartment.  The attention is so much more focused to this section than the rest of the movie, leading one to believe that the beginning and end were added to book end the middle and give it an actual feature length run time.

That said, the lighting and gore effects are definitely the highlight of the film, recalling Lucio Fulci's The New York Ripper.  The bad news is that it isn't inventive enough to distract from Clara Vallet's Angela and most of the other cast's atrociously blank acting.  The only actor who really feels believable is Aurelie Godefroy as the psychopathic murderer in red, who's visage is incredibly reminiscent of Clara Calamai in Dario Argento's Deep Red.

Another major issue is the camera.  Good Gialli are known for an almost hyper stylized use of the camera and while Blackaria certainly tries, it doesn't quite succeed.  Shot in some sort of digital format (which is not uncommon in low budget film making) it looks much like an 80s TV movie with a soft lens filter on every single shot.  At first I thought, from the opening, that this was to create a hallucinogenic dreamlike look, which made sense assuming that it would eventually shift visually.  This was not the case.  Instead, there is a soft look to every single shot which further marks the film in the realms of amateur.  The score, a strange sounding 80s synth score, has trouble fitting in the body of the story, but worked as well as could be expected most of the time.

On the whole, Blackaria means well, but could probably do with a better budget or at least better actors and a more focused story.  For the Giallo obsessed and the gore hounds, but probably not for many others. 

Masks (2011): Number 2 in a Series of Reviews of Neo-Giallo Films

Where does one draw the line between inspiration and theft?  Better yet, where does one perceive said line?  If you're a film goer you have probably heard every opinion in the world about Quentin Tarantino, between people calling him a thieving hack, or a tributary genius.  Personally, I find it peculiar that so much attention is focused on anyone's originality, or lack thereof, in an industry that is chiefly focused on getting money out of your pocket by way of entertaining you.  I'll grant the fact that some films are such obvious ripoffs that they may as well be "theme porn," but I can't really fault anyone for taking their inspiration and pushing it as far as they can go.  Masks, a German Neo-Giallo, has been described as a Suspiria ripoff by commentators on the imdb boards, but I think that's far too simple of a dismissal of a film who's third act literally punches the viewer right in the gut.

While the focus of this is not about comparison, there are a few that need to be addressed so we can get down to business.  Like Suspiria, Masks is about a female protagonist who enrolls at a strange Academy in the countryside.  Transpose Dance to Drama and voila!  Aside from a similar use to theatrical lighting in certain segments, this is the only real similarity to Dario Argento's supernatural horror story.  The lead of the story, Stella (debut performance by Susan Ermich), goes to the Matteusz Gdula School after rejection from almost every other acting Academy in town.  Though clunky at first, the teacher's see a spark in here and accept her to the school.  Unfortunately, the school, and Gdula's method, have a dark and unsettling past.  Eager to become a great actress, Stella is drawn into the darkness like a moth to the flame, with some rather unsettling consequences.

This film, is a Giallo through and through.  The acting, while not bad, isn't the greatest thing on Earth, but the characters and story are interesting enough to enjoy the more banal parts of the exposition until it gets to the delightfully fucked up meat that make up the second half of the film.  The title of the film only has one literal reference (though there is a masked killer in the story) and is linked metaphorically to Stella.  Everyone is wearing a mask shaped by their experiences and to truly break free of themselves and become their characters they need to strip this mask off.  The idea of being artistically reborn is even literally placed into the context of Gdula's acting method, which involves a cornucopia of strange and unsettling drills, including hallucinogenic drug use, hypnotic suggestion, physical abuse, and other torments to bring the pure emotions of fear and rage out of the actors.

Writer, Director, Editor Andreas Marschall knows his stuff, in this case, and employs many satisfying methods to fit Masks into the Giallo canon.  The thudding bass and piercing guitar driven score by Sebastian Levermann recalls Bruno Nicolai's intro theme to Sergio Martino's The Case Of The Scorpion's Tail.  The creeping camera and beautiful lighting of Sven Jakob also add to the atmosphere of impending dread.  The sound design could probably have used a bit more of a punch, but the other elements made up for it's lack, though I noticed a couple of familiar canned screams that almost made me burst out with laughter at their inappropriate placement.

At 112 minutes runtime, Masks is definitely more of a slow burn that, even when it gives itself away, packs a few surprises and a rather ambiguous, albeit, bloody finale that is worth the wait.

The Hideout (2007): Number 1 of a Series of Reviews of Neo-Giallo Films.

As I have displayed in a few reviews here; I am an unabashed fan of the Giallo film genre.  In the past I would call it a guilty pleasure because, in fact, there are many things about the genre as a whole to feel guilty about.  Frequently, the films in the genre involve fetishism of extreme violence towards women, earning many of them the label of misogynist and to be fair this descriptor is quite well deserved, but to write off the entire genre because of the more truly exploitative aspects of 50% of the films isn't really quite fair.  There are films in the genre that stand quite well upon their own legs without adopting the more mean spirited violent approach, focusing more on the mystery/thriller aspect, without the fetishistic violence.

In recent years there has been a renewed interest in the genre, which all but died out in the 90s, as the filmmakers who grew up loving these strange little murder mysteries have adapted the form into something new while maintaining many of the genre's tropes.  What makes The Hideout (Il Nascondiglio) interesting, in this context, is that it is directed by a veteran of the genre, Pupi Avati, who's The House With Laughing Windows is considered among the greats of the mid 70s Giallo heyday.

The film starts out in the 1950s at a boarding house in Davenport, Minnesota.  We learn of a dilemma faced by two girls at the hands of the Nuns who run the house before we are abruptly brought to the present day and the perspective shifts.  The film is now firmly centered on Francesca (played with anxious curiosity by Laura Morante) who has recently been discharged from a psychiatric facility and plans to get back on her feet by opening an Italian Restaurant in Davenport.  The kicker is that the house she rents to stage the restaurant is also the house from the beginning of the film and that a bizarre murder that took place 50 years ago.  Intrigued by the hushed manner amongst the locals, she delves into the mystery only to find that what she begins to unravel will not only test her resolve, but her sanity.

The visual atmosphere of the film is the centerpiece here.  The large Gothic looking house has a looming presence, even in the daylight, and in the darkness it's just downright creepy.  Francesca's anxieties are well amplified by the shadowy Gothic lighting and set design of the house's oppressiveness.  The story itself, is slightly convoluted, though not in an unnecessary way, as a mystery is never supposed to be completely straightforward.  We're not quite sure who is part of the presumed conspiracy and who is not until the last 10 minutes of the film, which I thought worked to the film's advantage.  The pacing is deliberately slow to enhance this feeling and while it's not always successful in tension building, the successes outweigh the failures.

The ending, while I hesitate to use the word "twist," was indeed twist-ed and left me feeling quite shaken.  Thought it was generally ravaged by critics upon its release, The Hideout is well worth a watch to the Giallo aficionado, and certainly has more substance than anything I've seen coming out of Hollywood in the last few years.

Unfortunately there is no trailer of the English dubbed version, nor is their a trailer with subtitles available.

Discopath: 24 of 31 Horror Movies I've Never Seen

If you've been reading any of my reviews in the past you'll know that I'm a hopeless fan of the Giallo genre.  That sleazy exploitation of sex and death, stylized by music and camera genre.  It appears I'm not alone in this strange attraction as there have been a number of films in the recent years that pay loving homage to it.  Between Berberian Sound Studio, The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears, and The Editor it seems that us Giallo fanatics are coming out of hiding.  Unfortunately, like many Giallo's from the 70s and 80s, they're not all good and 2013's Discopath is a prime example of one of the unfortunate lesser films of the genre.

Set in New York and Montreal, the film follows a twisted killer named Duane Lewis, played by newcomer Jeremie Earp-Lavergne, who suffers from psychotic breaks at the sound of music.  Set in the 70s while Disco is the rage, Duane is brought by a girl to a discotheque where he loses his mind, never to regain his sanity.  While Earp-Lavergne is quite good at making the stereotypical psycho face, his performance in this piece was blandly straightforward as "the bad guy."  Don't get me started on the "cops" of the story.  It's like writer/director Renaud Gauthier just couldn't be bothered to do any actual research, writing the characters completely off of other Giallo films.  This would work if it were intentionally funny, but the actors didn't seem to be in on the joke, if there was one intended in the first place.

Most Giallo's don't let you know who the villain is until the end, in an Agatha Christie whodunit way, but there have been a few notable exceptions like Hatchet for the Honeymoon and The Stendhal Syndrome.  With that the experience then becomes about how is the killer going to get caught?  The audience already knows who he is, but the characters do not necessarily which adds to the tension.  At least, it's supposed to if done properly, but Discopath unfortunately fails at this.  The key problem of the film is that the characters are all flat and there is no real focus to them.  This is an issue in most lesser Giallo's, the focus becomes all about the camera style, lighting, music, and the kill sequences and the story and acting takes a tremendous back seat.

The film is indeed shot quite well and the lighting is quite superb, especially in the discotheque club sequences.  The music is a plethora of disco and synth, including an often used disco rendition of Flight of the Bumblebee.  The gore is indeed inventive, I've never thought of someone sticking a body full of broken LPs and they certainly don't scrimp on the blood.  The problem, of course, is that just focusing on these details does not the save the movie from bad acting and bad writing.  Were it not for the incredible embellishment to all the other details I'd probably have just turned it off and called it a loss, but I stuck through it regardless.  This is another one that belongs in the MST3K category.  Watch it with friends, an ample amount of alcohol, and take the piss out of it.

2 out of 5 skulls.

Berberian Sound Studio: 13 of 31 Horror Movies I Have Never Seen

The great thing about the Horror Genre is that it's more of a benchmark for a bunch of tiny other genres.  Thrillers, Gore, Ghost, Monster, Slasher, Murder Mystery: all are considered Horror movies.  It's we, the viewers who determine our own taste and what WE consider a Horror movie.  For the most part, I have always been one to look for a certain amount of gore thrown about in the mix, so I always find it interesting when I'm impressed by something that has a severe lack of gore.  Enter the Psychological Thriller (or PsychoThriller as I like to call it) into the fray.  Often times, this little sub-genre is still tied pretty closely to other sub-genres in the overarching multitude of Horror tropes.  However, sometimes I come across a film that is thoroughly rooted in just one.  Peter Strickland's Berberian Sound Studio is one of those.

Set in the 1970s it stars veteran character actor Toby Jones as Gilderoy, a gifted to the point of genius sound engineer who arrives in Italy to work on a film with a renowned director only to discover the film is a graphic Giallo Horror film.  Nonetheless he goes to work and as each day goes on he begins to become more and more detached from reality until the lines between fact and fiction begin to tear themselves apart at the seams and we are no longer sure if we're watching a film or a film within a film or a film within a film within a film.

The film is not only a PsychoThriller about confrontation, but it is also a love letter to the sound department.  Every trick of the trade is plied here, to the extent of using vegetables and fruits for Foley (sound effects), the lengths of which actors may be pushed for ADR (automatic dialogue replacement), and a myriad of effects applied in post to create what accompanies the image.  You can almost close your eyes and just listen to this film rather than watch it, but then you would lose a bit of the psychological aspect.

Jones was expertly cast as the out of his depth Brit surrounded by some of the most rude and chauvinistic Italian men you will ever have see portrayed on screen.  It's easy to empathize with his plight as he slowly sinks from polite professionalism to the level of an animal, even manipulating outcomes via sound torture at one point.  By the end of the film, we're left wondering what is real and who is the monster?

It's no secret that I have a strange obsession to the Giallo genre.  I'll admit, many of them are utter garbage but there is something seductive about the sleaziness involved in those films.  There's something real among the utter absurdity in the portrayal of typical every day citizens being caught up in outrageous murder mysteries.  They definitely had their Hayday between 1969 and 1978 with the 80s trading in most of the hip style for cheap thrills, sex and gore.  This film gives us a glimpse, perhaps, of what was going on in the background of those strange and seductive films.  Expertly shot, beautifully edited, and the sound mix delivers above and beyond expectation.

4 out of 5 skulls.

What I Mean When I Say "GIALLO!"

For the last few days I've been avoiding watching new films, probably in a subconscious effort to sabotage this blog, which seems ludicrous and is just like me.  To circumvent my own stupidity I submit to you this film from 1973 by Italian director Antonio Margheriti (here credited as Anthony M. Dawson), the name used by Eli Roth's character in the final scenes of Inglourious Basterds.  If you know anything about this period of Italian Cinema, you know it was dominated by a genre of pulpy, murder/mystery, exploitation films called Giallo.  The name comes from the little pulp paperbacks that many of the films are based on which were printed rather cheaply with yellow covers.  Giallo is also the Italian world for Yellow, as it were, so the name just stuck.  Enough history, let's get into Six Deaths In The Cat's Eye.

The story is set in a small Scottish village and follows a series of murders taking place near a castle and the MacGrieff family who dwell in it.  According to legend (in context of the story) when a MacGrieff kills one of his kin the deceased will become a vampire.  All of the murders seem to be witnessed by the family cat which lurks around the film letting the audience question whether or not it is somewhat of an ethereal being itself.

Corringa (played by Jane Birken, mother of Charlotte Gainsbourg), the niece of Lady Mary MacGrieff, is the principal lead of the story.  She arrives at Castle Dragonston where her Aunt and Mother are arguing about the future of the castle.  A dinner scene introduces the rest of the characters, a Priest, a seductive French Teacher, a secretive Doctor, and Lord James MacGrieff (played by Hiram Keller), the supposedly 'Mad' son of Mary.  Motive is set almost immediately for murder but as is a staple of good Giallos, we are constantly made to guess until the climax of the film.  That being said, the film is in no way a typical Giallo, instead having a very Gothic horror feel to it similar to the Hammer Studios pictures of the same era.

One of the things I really like about the film is the atmosphere.  The film makes great use of shadow and motivated light sources.  One light source in particular is an oil lamp with a multicolored hood that throws out an array of red, green, yellow, and blue at a few crucially creepy moments thereby emphasizing the terror (and sometimes eroticism) portrayed by the actors.

Many Giallo's are well known for the exploitative look at sex and violence.  As the years progressed and the technology progressed many of them got gorier and some practically devolved into hardcore pornography.  That is not the case of this film.  While the blood does certainly flow, it is not without a macabre sense of taste.  The weapon of choice in the film is a straight razor to the jugular and unlike a Fulci film the emphasis is not on the tearing open of the neck, but of the blood flying from the wound.  Whether this was due to makeup or time constraints is debatable, but it was quite effective regardless.

While many Giallo's suffer from censorship and long term neglect, this film has been preserved quite well and can be found on DVD in both English and Italian languages.  The English dubbing is particularly interesting because many of the side characters, who were dubbed over, have thick Scottish accents including slang.  One such appearance is of Birken's partner, the late the Serge Gainsbourg, as a Scotland Yard inspector.