Amer (2009)
Giallo Homage
An exquisitely directed homage to giallo cinema – a fascinating work that has been stripped of almost all dialogue that takes place on a purely visual level of sensation and body movement
Giallo Films
Giallo is a sub-genre of the Psycho-Thriller made in Italy. Giallo is the Italian word for yellow and is named after Il Giallo Mondadori, a series of books from the Italian publishing house Mondadori Publishing that issued translated copies of English-language thrillers with distinctive yellow covers.
Since then, giallo has evolved into a term applied to a series of extravagant sado-sexual films that started in the 1960s. The genre was not begun by but was shaped by director Mario Bava. Giallo built on the psycho-thriller established by Alfred Hitchcock in Psycho (1960). Bava’s addition involved a greater focus on eroticism, extravagant murder set-pieces, garishly coloured lighting schemes and improbably contrived plots revealing the identity of the killer.
The genre was popular during the 1960s and 1970s tapering off in the 1980s. Noted directors to work in the genre include Lamberto Bava, Alberto de Martino, Lucio Fulci, Umberto Lenzi, Antonio Margheriti, Sergio Martino and Michele Soavi while the star of the genre became Dario Argento. In the 2010s, there have been several films homaging the style of the giallo film.
Berberian Sound Studio (2012)
Sound Engineer's Paranoia
Imagine Brian De Palma’s Blow Out by way of Barton Fink. Set around the sound recording of a giallo horror, this mounts an impressive spiral down into claustrophobia and paranoia, even if it is never quite the horror film it keeps trying to be
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)
Giallo Psycho-Thriller
Italy’s Dario Argento laid out the essence of the style – the arty murder set-pieces; flamboyant camerawork; the stylish music scores; and the psycho-thriller plots – in his first giallo film here
The Black Cat (1990)
Witch's Ghost/Italian Horror
This has next-to-nothing to do with Edgar Allan Poe. Instead, Luigi Cozzi makes a giallo thriller that makes claims to be the unofficial third chapter of Dario Argento’s at that point unfinished Three Mothers trilogy.
Black Glasses (2022)
Giallo Thriller
Dario Argento makes a highly anticipated return to the director’s chair after a decade’s silence, once again revisiting the giallo film, but the results are a major letdown
Blood and Black Lace (1964)
Giallo Psycho-Thriller
The film that formulated giallo cinema. Drawing inspiration from the success of Psycho, Mario Bava strips the psycho-thriller down to a parade of killings amid extravagantly arty surroundings and with a gorgeous colour palette
Bloody Pit of Horror (1965)
Giallo Film/Mad Aristocrat Tortures Guests
Not a Marquis de Sade adaptation as this was sold as but an Italian giallo film. Mickey Hargitay (aka Mr Jayne Mansfield) has a ball as a mad bodybuilder aristocrat in red tights devising entertainingly lurid tortures.
Body Puzzle (1992)
Giallo Film
A giallo from Lamberto Bava, whose father Mario formulated the essentials of the genre. Joanna Pacula finds a killer leaving body parts in her home, along with notes signed by her dead husband
The Card Player (2004)
Giallo Psycho-Thriller
A disappointingly tame giallo thriller from Dario Argento about a poker-playing serial killer. Disappointingly, Argento has cut back on all his customary extravagantly arty and sadistic murder set-pieces
The Cat O’Nine Tails (1971)
Giallo Psycho-Thriller
Dario Argento’s third film as director sees him firmly in giallo thriller territory, delivering a series of extravagantly arty and sadistic set-pieces as James Franciscus tries to find clues to a killer’s identity
The Crimes of the Black Cat (1972)
Giallo Thriller
From the heyday of the giallo film, an extravagantly colourful psycho-thriller involving the killing of models by a killer with a black cat. This works all the tropes of the genre with considerable style
Dario Argento Panico (2023)
Genre Director Documentary
A documentary that interviews Dario Argento, now in his early eighties, along with his family and those around him, where he discusses his life, films and career
Deep Red (1976)
Giallo Psycho-Thriller
Another of the giallo psycho-thrillers from Dario Argento in his heyday as David Hemmings is witness to a murder and tries to find the killer. As with Argento’s films of this period, focused around a series of stylish and sadistic dispatches
Delirium (1987)
Giallo Film
The great Mario Bava was the man who essentially created the giallo film. Here his son Lamberto makes an entry, which rehashes much of Mario’s seminal Blood and Black Lace, albeit more crudely
Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972)
Child Killings
One of the early films from Lucio Fulci – the film that he always insisted was his best – concerning a series of child killings in a small town. Quite different to the sort of film Fulci became known for
The Editor (2014)
Giallo Parody
A witty parody of the giallo film from members of Canada’s Astron-6 collective who are proving themselves the masters of a certain type of movie spoof
The Embalmer (1965)
Giallo Thriller
Early variation on the giallo film with a frogman abducting people from the canals of Venice and then preserving their bodies as statues
Eyeball (1975)
Giallo Film
A giallo film from Umberto Lenzi, best known for creating the Italian cannibal film but Lenzi’s direction is crude and lacking style in comparison to the others working in this genre
Giallo (2009)
Italian Psycho-Thriller
Dario Argento makes a disappointing return to the giallo thriller where he made his name. With Argento’s characteristic murder set-pieces having been toned down, the results are nothing special
Hatchet for the Honeymoon (1970)
Giallo Thriller
Mario Bava essentially created the giallo film. Here he returns to the genre with an entry about an man obsessed with killing brides that comes filled with exquisitely stylish surroundings and directorial set-pieces
The House That Screamed (1969)
Girl's Boarding School Psycho-Thriller
From the almost unknown Narciso Ibañez Serrador, this is essentially a giallo thriller made with the lush sensibilities of a Hammer film. Set in a girl’s boarding school, this substantially prefigures Suspiria
Lisa and the Devil (1972)
Italian Psycho-Thriller/Haunted House Film
The last great film from Mario Bava, an exquisitely dreamy giallo/haunted house film that had the ignomity of being butchered and made into an Exorcist copy when it came out
Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (1971)
Giallo Psycho-Thriller
Giallo thriller from Lucio Fulci who gained a cult following in the 1980s for his gore-drenched films. This comes with more style than all of Fulci’s other unadulterated hackwork put together
Murder in an Etruscan Cemetery (1982)
Giallo Film
A giallo film with occult overtones centred around the discovery of an Etruscan tomb. As a series of murders occur, the heroine may be the reincarnation of an ancient high priestess
The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (1971)
Giallo Film
A giallo film with Anthony Steffen as an aristocrat who likes to pick up red-haired girls and kill them in the dungeon in his villa, who then becomes haunted by the ghost of his late wife
Nothing Underneath (1985)
Giallo Film
A superior example of the giallo film. Not quite up with the works of Dario Argento, this still has considerable stylishness, along with a plot that borrows from Eyes of Laura Mars
Opera (1987)
Giallo Psycho-Thriller
This may well be the finest of Dario Argento’s giallo thrillers. Set around the production of an opera, this offers a series of murder set-pieces staged with an artistry that is as extraordinary as their sadism
Phenomena (1985)
Giallo Thriller/Insect Telepathy
Another of Dario Argento’s giallo thrillers filled with all his trademark artily extravagant deaths. At the centre of the film is a teenage Jennifer Connelly who can psychically communicate with insects
A Quiet Place in the Country (1968)
Artist’s Hallucinations and Reality Blurrings
Strange, artistically stylised almost giallo film with Franco Nero as a frustrated artist blurring into visions from the past
The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972)
Giallo Film
A giallo film where a family curse about the vengeance of a red queen starts being enacted with a mystery figure bumping off relatives following the reading of a will
The Sadistic Baron Von Klaus (1962)
Psycho Film
An early film from prolific exploitation director Jess Franco, one that comes with some beautifully Gothic photography in its tale of a hooded killer
Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972)
Giallo Film
A not bad giallo film from Umberto Lenzi, the director who created the notorious Italian cannibal film. Antonio Sabato [Sr] tries to trace the identity of a killer in black who leaves a silver pendant at each murder
The Slasher … Is the Sex Maniac! (1972)
Giallo Film
A giallo film about a killer who is murdering adulterous women. Standard material but some of the film’s dated sexual attitudes cause quite a double take today
Sleepless (2001)
Giallo Psycho-Thriller
One of the more routine of Dario Argento’s giallo psycho-thrillers. The artily stylistic set-pieces are disappointingly average and even the plot relatively straightforward
The Spider Labyrinth (1988)
Spider Cult
Italian giallo with a professor in Budapest investigating a cult of spider worshippers
StageFright – Aquarius (1987)
Giallo Psycho-Thriller
A Giallo thriller about a series of murders that take place during the rehearsal for a play. Michele Soavi directs a series of vivid suspense set-pieces
The Stendhal Syndrome (1996)
Giallo Psycho-Thriller
One of the less effective films in the oeuvre of Dario Argento. Another giallo thriller, this has the same flourishes of style in sporadic moments but the plot is even more confusing than usual
The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears (2013)
Giallo Homage
Intended as a homage to giallo cinema, this strips everything else away until the film exists as only a series of fragmentary images and sensations designs to provoke and tease
Strip Nude for Your Killer (1975)
Giallo Film
A giallo film about a masked man killing models. This comes with an attention-grabbing title that proves more sensational than most of what happens in the film
Tenebrae (1982)
Giallo Psycho-Thriller
Another of Dario Argento’s giallo psycho-thrillers with all the stylistically wild and over-the-top deaths one expects as a horror writer finds people being murdered with pages from his books in their mouths
Trauma (1993)
Giallo Psycho-Thriller
Another giallo thriller from Dario Argento filled with all the wild bursts of imagination, bizarre plot twists and set-pieces we have come to expect from him
Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971)
Giallo Psycho-Thriller
A giallo thriller from Mario Bava that is often regarded as the prototype of the slasher film. The film borrows from Agatha Christie with people isolated on an island being killed amid Bava’s artily extravagant set-ups
The Valley of the Rats (2016)
Giallo Homage in a Limousine
There is considerable conceptual ambition to this – a giallo homage, most of which takes place inside a limo. Charitably, you call it is a micro-budgeted collision between Cosmopolis and The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears, alas the film lets narrative fragment into incoherence in the latter half
What Have You Done to Solange? (1972)
Giallo Film
One of the standout entries in the giallo film and certainly one of the best plotted of the genre, concerning a series of murders at a Catholic girls school