Tag Archives: Giallo

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CAPSULE: DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT (1972)

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La morte accarezza a mezzanotte

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DIRECTED BY: Luciano Ercoli

FEATURING: (AKA Susan Scott), , Pietro Martellanza (AKA Peter Martell), Carlo Gentili, Claudie Lange, Ivano Staccioli

PLOT: Valentina, a model, takes a hallucinogen for a newspaper story and sees a murder in an apartment directly opposite her building—except it seems it was committed weeks ago.

COMMENTS: I can’t call myself an aficionado or even a fan of giallo. I’ve generally overlooked the genre in the past, probably due to associating it with its early 80s cousin, the “slasher,” which tends to be shoddier and lower class than the more cosmopolitan giallo. But a little education over the years, via DVD and Blu-ray, goes a long way. I can now make the distinction between “giallo” and “giallo-adjacent”; more importantly, I can now appreciate films like Death Walks at Midnight.

It’s a follow-up to the director’s previous giallo, Death Walks in High Heels, in that Midnight uses most of the same cast; but unlike the seriousness of Heels, Midnight takes a lighter tone amidst the intrigue and murders. It’s directly influenced by (The Girl Who Knew Too Much, Blood and Black Lace), and in turn would influence later works like ‘s Dressed to Kill.

Navarro’s performance as Valentina makes this one memorable. She’s a very proactive heroine, whether fight-flirting with semi-sleazy journalist/love interest Gio (Andreu) or fending off the prospective killer and potential van rapists. The rest of the cast is also good, from the (somewhat ineffectual, of course) cops to the actors portraying red herrings.

Death Walks at Midnight was released by Arrow Video with both Italian and English soundtracks and audio commentary by Tim Lucas, along with featurettes with screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi and an extended television cut. It was re-released as part of Arrow’s “Giallo Essentials” series; the “Blue” box, which includes the two other Ercoli/Navarro giallo collaborations, Death Wears High Heels and The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion. If you’re new to and/or undernourished on giallo, Arrows five “Giallo Essentials” Collections—color-coded Red, Yellow, Black, White and Blue—are excellent entries into the genre.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“As in many gialli, the bizarre trappings – weird weaponry, hallucinations, masked heavy-breathers, burbling lounge music, fabulously garish fashions and decors, bursts of ultra-violence – litter plots which turn out to be indecently fixated on money rather than mania.”–Pam Jahn, Electric Sheep (reviewing the “Death Walks Twice” Blu-ray set of Death Wears High Heels and Death Walks at Midnight)

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HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN: RARITIES COLLECTION

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Recommended

Severin Films 5-disc set.

I’ve sung Kier-la Janisse’s praises earlier here about the “All the Haunts Be Ours” folk-horror boxset that she curated for Severin Films. I assume a good many of the people reading this are familiar with Janisse already from her book “House of Psychotic Women,” published in 2012. 2022, the book’s 10-year anniversary, saw the publication of an updated edition (new films appear in the book’s appendix) and this boxset of four movies. Though much smaller, this release is equal in quality to “Haunts,” if perhaps more niche-focused: all of the films featured could fall under the heading of “Eurocult.” This is the first American Blu-ray release of each.

Identikit (1974), directed by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi and based on Muriel Spark’s novel “The Driver’s Seat,” stars as Lise, a somewhat prickly woman on a trip from London to Rome on her way to meet up with a man. The film jumps around in time as Lise is apparently being pursued by the police, and we see the reactions of people who have encountered her and their interrogations. With incidents of terrorist activity in the background, it seems that Lise is on a mission that will end up in dire consequences—which indeed it does, but not all how one might expect.

Identikit comes at the end of what has been referred to as Taylor’s career decline, a period that included offbeat projects like Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), Boom! (1968), Secret Ceremony (1968), and Night Watch (1973), all of which were thoroughly roasted by critics at the time and no more successful with audiences. Those films are being reevaluated and are now considered to be among some of Taylor’s best work. Identikit stands proudly amongst that body of work. Lise is abrasive and disagreeable to most she encounters: service people; airport security (note that the movie was shot one year after airport security measures were put into place, which look quaint and lax compared to current times); and toxic men like Bill (Ian Bannen), a buffoon who thinks he’s just her type, and Carlo (Guido Mannari), a mechanic who gives her a ride to a hotel and attempts to rape her. But Lise shows some wistful vulnerability with an older woman () with whom she goes shopping, a man she thinks might be the person she’s looking for ( in a cameo), and the man who is the one she’s searching for. As the movie skips around in time, Lise proves to be a totally enigmatic character, even as she achieves her goal.

The audio commentary by Millie De Chirico (late of TCM Continue reading HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN: RARITIES COLLECTION →

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CAPSULE: THE STENDHAL SYNDROME (1996)

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 La sindrome di Stendhal

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , Marco Leonardi, Paolo Bonacelli,

PLOT: A female detective investigating a serial rapist finds herself stalked by her quarry, while intermittently experiencing hallucinations when she looks at works of fine art.

Still from The Stendhal Syndrome (1996)

COMMENTS: A little over halfway through The Stendhal Syndrome, Anna announces (slight spoiler) that she’s overcome the Stendhal Syndrome. She’s not kidding; she doesn’t hallucinate again (although her psychological struggles are far from over). Argento had used the Syndrome, a fanciful and dubious affliction in which viewers supposedly swoon into a fugue state when confronted with great works of art, as an excuse to stage a handful of hallucination sequences which, it turns out, were inessential to the plot.

The fact that syndrome supplying both the film’s title and its high concept would basically serve as a red herring indicates either a certain sloppiness, or an admirable disregard for conventional plotting by an auteur who’s always favored atmosphere over storytelling, depending on your point-of-view. Combined with the script’s predictable final twist and a number of superfluous scenes, I lean towards the confused execution opinion. There are other missteps, such as some clumsy and unnecessary CGI (pills down a throat, a bullet passing through a head), which comes across as the director playing with a new toy rather than as an element enhancing the story. All of which is not to say that The Stendhal Syndrome is a failure. It borders on the psychologically profound: Anna’s shifting identities and a recurring theme of gender confusion reflect a sympathetic, believable, and engaging view of a rape victim’s trauma. As always, Argento sniffs out poetic camera shots, e.g. Anna’s reflection trembling in a blood-red glass of wine. And the movie’s opening—a dialogue-free seven minute sequence of Anna wandering through Florence’s Uffizi, scored to Ennio Morricone’s deceptively simple, increasingly ominous theme, and ending with the heroine passing through the canvas surface of Bruegel’s “The Fall of Icarus,” then the diving under its painted water, where she eventually locks lips with a bulbous fish—is one of this director’s best standalone sequences. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie can’t live up to the mysterious promise here. The Stendhal Syndrome not quite the resurrection of the classic giallo form it might have been, but Argento fans will find enough spooky psychodrama to savor to make it worth a watch.

It’s awfully creepy to reflect on Dario directing his daughter Asia through the brutal rape scenes (though to be fair, she was only cast after a couple of other actresses, Bridget Fonda and , withdrew from the project). Asia’s acting here gets mixed reviews, but she has a classic beauty in three incarnations—regular Anna, tomboy Anna, and glamorous blonde Anna—and indulges in enough B-movie histrionics to carry the film. She positively shines compared to the rest of the blandly European cast. The English dubbing is atrocious, almost perfunctory like in a bottom-shelf vintage 1970s giallo, and the Italian soundtrack is recommended.

Blue Underground’s 2022 Blu-ray release is identical to their 2017 three disc limited edition, minus the DVD. Originally, this set shipped in a substandard video transfer; that issue was rectified and should not be a problem anymore. This version restores an additional two minutes of dialogue that were missing from previous U.S. releases.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…as fans of the Italian horror director may have guessed, [the syndrome is] little more than a suitably arcane jumping-off point for another of the filmmaker’s bizarre examinations of madness, obsession, and bloodshed.”–Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle (1999 US release)

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CAPSULE: KILLER NUN (1979)

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Suor Omicidi

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DIRECTED BY: Giulio Berutti

FEATURING: Anita Ekberg, Paola Morra, , Lou Castel, Alida Valli

PLOT: Sister Gertrude, fresh off cancer surgery and crippled by  morphine addiction, experiences a crisis of faith as she finds herself entertaining impure thoughts and harboring murderous feelings.

COMMENTS: What a wonderfully depraved world we live in that could not only be a thing but be so plentiful that it would merit its own Wikipedia entry. The calling carries with it such a rich combination of power and repression, of mystery and denial, of sex and frustration, that it was probably inevitable that it would become a cinematic fetish object. So, now that we’ve got it, what do we do with it?

Killer Nun never comes up with a particularly satisfying answer to that question. Which is odd, because all the pieces seem to be in place. We’ve got grisly murders. We’ve got deliciously nasty Bible readings. We’ve got Paola Morra ready to walk around the room completely starkers for no particular reason. Heck, look at that title. It sure feels like we’ve got all the elements in place for a delightfully smutty evening at the movies. And yet it never clears that very low bar.

Ultimately, the filmmakers aren’t willing to get down in the mud, which would be fine if they didn’t spend so much time showing off their rich and bountiful mud fields. Consider a scene where the central character, a nun with a history of drug addiction, goes into town, swaps out her habit for a dress, scopes out a local bar, and picks up a man for a no-strings-attached assignation. What a bold sacrilege this presents. Is this a swipe at the restrictive morals of the Church? A signifier of a mind resolutely on the road to madness? No, it’s just something to do, a scene that any self-respecting giallo is supposed to have, and it never comes up again. And that’s Killer Nun’s problem in a nutshell. It’s brought all the accoutrements of trash, but it’s not willing to do the work. I mean, for crying out loud, to cast Joe Dallesandro in your movie as a straight-laced model of propriety without a trace of irony is some kind of malpractice.

So thank heavens for Anita Ekberg, who is the only thing in the film that works on either side of the line. With her piercing blue eyes surrounded by ninja-star lashes, her Sister Gertrude cuts an imposing figure as she marches through the halls and practically bullies the strange variety of patients into every morning salutation and evening vespers. This lends potency to her own loss of control, because she knows that’s all that’s keeping her from being purely cruel. When she’s on the screen, accompanied by Alessandro Alessandroni’s hyperactive score with its wailing theremin and sinister plucked strings summoning bad vibes, Killer Nun flirts with the kind of low art it promises.

The Mother Superior’s declaration that “It’s a nun’s vocation to suffer” is as much a mission statement as the movie has. But it also regrets putting its heroine through that suffering, and that split personality makes Killer Nun a misguided and dull watch. Get thee to a more interesting nunnery.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…one doesn’t really watch KILLER NUN for its wrenching drama. No, the true pleasures to be found here are gleefully grotesque and often hilariously cruel…. A remarkable, macabre and truly mad movie…”–Chris Alexander, Alexander on Film (Blu-ray)

(This movie was nominated for review by Phoenix, who argued ” I found it to be surprisingly disturbing and effective. Some of its themes are sexual repression and lesbianism. And it’s hilarious. But weird.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

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CAPSULE: BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO (2012)

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DIRECTED BY: Peter Strickland

FEATURING: Toby Jones, Cosimo Fusco, Fatma Mohamed, Antonio Mancino

PLOT: Gilderoy, an English foley artist, takes on a job at an Italian studio to work on a horror film, and his mind begins unspooling.

COMMENTS: My dear Mr Strickland—I so very much wish that you could keep focused! Having now seen half of his feature-length output, it is clear that he’s a man with many, many ideas. Too many, perhaps? More likely, he suffers from too little discipline. Berberian Sound Studio is a fascinating movie, with a creepy vibe that fills like a soap bubble slowly ballooning until it pops two-thirds the way through, leaving a splattered mess of shiny viscosity on the eyes (and ears) of the viewer. Ground this film all you like with a shy, affable performance from Toby Jones; the moment you turn him into a sadistic Italian, all bets are off.

Gilderoy (Toby Jones) is an awkward Englishman with an awkward name who arrives at an Italian sound studio both ready to work and to receive compensation for his flight expenses. The work ahead of him is ample; the reimbursement, less so. Never mind; under the alternately conciliatory and remonstrative guidance of producer Francesco Coraggio, Gilderoy dives into the project. The brainchild of giallo director Giancarlo Santini, The Equestrian Vortex is, from the sound of it, a hyper-violent, hyper-stylized film involving a witch’s academy, featuring plenty of flashes back to horrible (and “historically accurate”) interrogations of suspected witches. Gilderoy finds the on-screen violence increasingly hard to handle.

The “on-screen violence” is never actually displayed. In fact, other than the opening credits for The Equestrian Vortex (its score composed by a “Goblin”-esque band called “Hymenoptera”), we see none of Santini’s opus. But we hear so very much. The droning introduction of the scenes for post-production dubbing almost always involves the phrase “flashback to witch’s interrogation.” Countless fruits and vegetables, both large (chopped watermelon) and small (plucked radish stems), act as the aural stand-ins for violent stabbings, hair-tearing, and everything in between. (The sound effect method for red-hot poker inserted vaginally is almost comically mundane.) Gilderoy’s practical effects team, two gents by the name of Massimo and Massimo, perform their slices, bubble-blowing, and wrenchings with deadpan professionalism.

The “behind the curtains” view of foley in the 1970s is by far the most interesting aspect of Berberian Sound Studio. There are plenty of sinisterly odd characters: aside from Massimo and Massimo, there’s the secretary from hell, the creepily congenial director, and the tragi-cryptic leading lady. But while this homage to giallo and sound becomes rather confusing, this never translates into weird—the sudden onset of head-scratchers undermines the atmosphere at the same time as it blasts a hole in the plot’s coherence.

As in his latest movie, In Fabric, Strickland (who also wrote both films) cannot keep himself from branching out to the point of muddying otherwise compelling experiences. These captivating messes are done with some kind of precision, I have no doubt, but I wish he could turn down the background noise.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…utterly distinctive and all but unclassifiable, a musique concrète nightmare, a psycho-metaphysical implosion of anxiety, with strange-tasting traces of black comedy and movie-buff riffs. It is seriously weird and seriously good.”–Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian (contemporaneous)