giallo

There's a new generation of giallo filmmakers who are continuing to expand upon the genre's presence, in Italy and beyond. Giallo is ever growing and evolving but has always been a hybrid of genres, most notably, horror, thriller and detective story. Stylish and seductive, giallo is an elaborate and symbolic exploration into a world of dreams and nightmares and one filmmaker, Davide Melini, hopes to carry on the genre's tradition in his own unique way with his latest film, The Sweet Hand of the White Rose. This project comes not long after a successful short, The Puzzle. There's more on that after the jump.

"You Cannot Run from Fate," reads the tagline on the new one sheet for White Rose and from the look of things so far it doesn't seem like I'd want to. The film was written, directed and produced by Melini over the course of about a year and stars Carlos Bahos, Natasha Machuca and Leocricia Sabán. When Mark (Bahos) and his girlfriend (Sabán) get into a heated argument he takes off in his car not realizing that he will soon make a mistake that will change his life forever. The former Assistant Director for giallo legend, Dario Argento, shot the 16 minute film in Spain on a budget of only 2000 Euros (about $2,700).

Hit the jump for The Sweet Hand of the White Rose trailer, the full length short film The Puzzle, and my review.

Every time a new clip or trailer arrives for Amer, it's like Christmas for me. Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cattet's neo-giallo flim will make its US debut at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas in March. In the meantime, watch the brand new, final theatrical trailer after the jump and start praying that the film gets a US theatrical release very soon.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if I could make out with a movie, I'd be all over Amer. This description should explain why:

"Ana is confronted to Body and Desire at three key moments of her life. Her carnal search sways between reality and colored fantasies becoming more and more oppressive. A black laced hand prevents her from screaming. The wind lifts her dress and caresses her thighs. A razor blade brushes her skin, where will this chaotic and carnivorous journey leave her?"

Fellow Horror Squad writer Mike Bracken and I were discussing the familiarity of the trailer's score and that's when I realized it sounded like the score to the Italian airline thriller Affare concorde (Concord Affaire '79), directed by Cannibal Holocaust helmer Ruggero Deodato. The score was composed by Stelvio Cipriani, whose score for La polizia sta a guardare was featured in Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof. I'm guessing this is what the Amer trailer score is referencing due to its popularity. Then again, most of Cipriani's work sounds similar so take your pick.

You can find the latest clips for the movie here and here. Hit the jump for the trailer pronto!

A new still and the first official trailer for Gabriele Albanesi's In the Mouth of Ubaldo Terzani has been released. You can check out the trailer after the jump, which features special effects by the Italian 'Wizard of Gore' Sergio Stivaletti.

Giuseppe Soleri stars as Alessio Rinaldi, a director who is overcome by a nightmarish obsession with nefarious horror novelist, Ubaldo Terzani, played by Paolo Sassanelli. Laura Gigante plays Sara, Alessio's girlfriend. Rinaldi is a young director who gets the charge from a producer to write the script of his first movie with Ubaldo Terzani, a well-known horror novelist. Alessio quickly becomes psychological dependent on the writer after he moves into his house to work on their collaboration. Their strange relationship quickly turns into a living nightmare and Terzani's dark side is unveiled.

I have yet to see Albanesi's The Last House in the Woods but fellow fans of Italian horror have accused it of being a cheap imitation of the 70's greats, with bad gore and lazy stylings. Regardless, Albanesi definitely has my curiosity peaked with this new trailer, so check it out after the break and let me know what you think.

By the look of the new clip from Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cattet's neo-giallo flick, Amer, it's no coincidence that I am eager to see this film. Most of you probably know how giallo obsessed I am. Hell, my everyday winter gloves are elbow-length and black leather, if that's any indication of my fixation. In preparation for a French theatrical release, the studio has been releasing clips to French television stations and the third one has finally arrived. You can check it out after the jump.

In Amer, "Ana is confronted to Body and Desire at three key moments of her life. Her carnal search sways between reality and colored fantasies becoming more and more oppressive. A black laced hand prevents her from screaming. The wind lifts her dress and caresses her thighs. A razor blade brushes her skin, where will this chaotic and carnivorous journey leave her?"

Best film description you'll read today. If you need to catch up, you can find two other clips here and here. Don't forget to watch the trailer over here. Now jump...

If you're familiar with my giallo column, then I probably don't need to tell you how ridiculously excited I am for the French neo-giallo film, Amer. Director team Bruno Forzani and Helene Cattet had a successful festival run, winning five awards, and are releasing three clips from the film for French TV to promote the theatrical release. The first clip was premiered exclusively by Bloody-Disgusting and you can watch it here after the jump. I'm desperate to find out more about a US theatrical date but that info seems to be hiding as soundly as the killer in Amer's clip.

Stylistic associations between Amer and the Italian thrillers of the 70's are obvious so far: lurid lighting, a nefarious black-gloved figure, wicked score and intense cuts focusing on the eyes. This particular clip is reminiscent of a wonderful scene in Dario Argento's Suspiria, which is sadly being remade by David Gordon Green and set to start shooting this year. In Argento's film, a young American ballet dancer, Suzy Banyon (Jessica Harper), arrives at a prestigious European dance academy and eventually discovers that the school is merely a front for something far more sinister. Suzy befriends fellow dancer Sara (Stefania Casini) who becomes hunted by a killer. Sara tries to escape and locks herself in a room and is tormented by the slow reveal of a gleaming knife blade through the crack in the door as it methodically toys with the latch to open it. The scene is slow, deliberate and terrifying--only to be followed by Sara escaping the room through a small window and landing in a mass of razor wire. The film teeters on dream and reality and it looks like Amer may be following suit. If a creepy, taxidermied paw-like thing reaching through a door to open it doesn't jostle you, then you have no soul.

Click on to read the film's description and watch the trailer.

Paolo Cavara is best remembered for working alongside Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi in 1962's seminal exploitation shock-doc Mondo Cane. The film went on to spawn an entire genre without Cavara and even drew a number of titles latching on to the Mondo name for sensationalistic purposes, despite unrelated subject matter. It was Cavara's 1971 giallo Black Belly of the Tarantula (La tarantola dal ventre nero) that put him on the map as a serious director. Boasting an interesting cast with as many redheads as red herrings, Marcello Danon's story leads us into a world of blackmail conspiracy, drug trafficking and a black-clad revenge murderer.

The film opens with a languid and sensual Maria (Barbara Bouchet) receiving a nude massage to the tune of a feminine sigh (Edda Dell'Orso) interspersed with sumptuous horn arrangements; simply voluptuous and courtesy of Italian maestro Ennio Morricone. Afterward, we are witness to a fight with Maria's estranged husband (Silvano Tranquilli) who has been sent some illicit photographs of his wife in flagrante delicto. Soon after the quarrel she is attacked by an unidentified assailant who pierces her with a wicked needle and slices her belly open--two phalluses for the life of one. Inspector Tellini, played by the forever brooding Giancarlo Giannini, is called to investigate the murder but the evidence doesn't add up and before he can determine why, another woman is murdered the same way.

I'm always saying "if there's one thing the world needs, it's more giallo films." Apparently, Cory Callahan heard me and took my lament to heart. He's shared a new short trailer for a project he's calling Yellow Future with our friends over at Quiet Earth (a great site if you're into post-apocalyptic cinema and other oddities) . Our very own Alison Nastasi scored exclusive plot details over at her Screamstress blog. Here's the breakdown from Callahan:


The clip is interesting--it's got everything you'd expect from your standard Italian thriller circa 1970 (gloved killers, freaky score, violent death, etc.) but it flips the script a bit by setting the tale in some distant future. This merging of sci-fi and giallo could either be a really interesting new take on the form or an epically bad idea. So far, I'm cool with it--news of this and Amer have me excited that we might be about to experience a giallo renaissance. Jump past the break to have a peek at the trailer and see what you think.

And if that's not enough murderous Italian mayhem for you, be sure to check out Alison's excellent There's Always Room For Giallo series here at Horror Squad.

If you're like me, and you miss the heyday of the Italian giallo film, then this new trailer for Bruno Forzani and Helene Cattet's Amer should have you as giddy as a razor-wielding maniac who just scored his very first pair of black leather gloves. It's been far too long since we've been treated to a stylish and sexy foreign thriller filled with lurid lighting, but if this new clip is any indication, the giallo drought may be ending--at least temporarily.

Our friends at Twitch scored this new exclusive clip. It's only 48 seconds long (meaning it left me wanting more...), but what's there is certainly something that should give fans flashbacks to the days when filmmakers like Argento, Sergio Martino, and Mario Bava where churning out one beautifully stylized thriller after another. Add in the fantastic poster art (another throwback to a bygone era that I look back on with great nostalgia) and it's easy to see why Amer is one of the films I'm eagerly anticipating in 2010. If it had been made in Italy, you could almost convince me it was a movie that sat in some film vault for the past three decades...

The oddly worded description (which you can find alongside the trailer after the jump) makes me wonder if this is going to be a full-fledged giallo film or an art film with Italian thriller inspirations, but until we learn otherwise, I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best.

Click past the jump for more details.

Massimo Dallamano's 1975 giallo, What Have They Done to Solange, takes its influence from the German crime genre known as krimi. German film producers had been adapting the novels of British author Edgar Wallace since the 20's but it was the Danish company, Rialto Film, who acquired exclusive rights to most of Wallace's novels in the early 60's. The original krimis were black and white but Rialto introduced color to the genre and and opted for stylish over substantial reimaginings of the Wallace novels. Rialto ignored the actual narrative of his stories and decided to hone in on the motives behind the murder mysteries. This explains the reason why Dallamano's film doesn't quite connect with Wallace's novel, The Secret of the Green Pin, also known as The Clue of the New Pin or Das Geheimnis der grünen Stecknadel. Solange was released under this title as well in the US and West Germany but the book and film have little in common aside from a few details, most notably the mention of a green stick pin. As the quality of the Rialto films took a nose dive in the late 60's, the company reached out to Italian producers to form four co-production companies to keep their costs low. Thus began one of the initial influences for giallo, aside from the yellow paperbacks where the genre gets its name. Similarly, the krimi films were also an influence on the Italian tough-cop genre know as polizotteschi. Shared traits between the three include uber violence, corruption and the investigation/investigator as a main focal point.

Clips of seventies era go-go psychedelia juxtaposed with a naked, beating heart. Our swingin' hero, Roberto, is stalked by a mysterious figure in dark glasses. Within minutes of the opening, Roberto accidentally murders him. From on high, in some decaying theater, a masked predator captures it all on film. Before long, Roberto is wandering through a lazy miasma of sex, blood, and blackmail in the slow motion nightmare of Dario Argento's Four Flies on Grey Velvet.

This is indeed 180 proof, distilled giallo. I have to admit, my education in the genre is lacking. I've seen a handful, but far from most, of the big hitters - Twitch of the Death Nerve, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, etc. If you'll allow me a bit of heresy - something that may well get me excommunicated from Horrorsquad - I've never really appreciated them. Giallo just hasn't done it for me. Much of it seems like a thriller without the thrills, specifically with Argento. Sure, there are all manner of horrible murders and spooky goings-on, but it never has really grabbed me. While Four Flies... may not be the best of the breed, it certainly is a manifestation of everything I've come to expect from Italy circa 1971.