2. Giallo
Giallo is Italian for Yellow. The term when applied to film derives from the paperback crime books with yellow covers that were very popular reading in Italy. The films which are termed Gialli are mystery crime thrillers, like their book counterparts, but they include lashings of violence, oodles of sleaze and a veritable avalanche of sex. I would pin point the Giallo inception with Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace in 1963. A story of a killer knocking off beautiful models in a fashion house, Blood and Black Lace formulated many key motifs of the Gialli that were to follow it. This includes the masked killer who is dressed in leather - black leather gloves are a motif that occurs again and again in Giallo, usually clutching a large knife. Beautiful women are a chief attraction of Gialli with actresses such as Suzy Kendall, Barbara Bouchet, Tina Aumont and Edwige Fenech taking centre stage with their intoxicating beauty and violent deaths. There is much attention paid to death scenes in Gialli. They are very carefully staged for maximum brutality and stylishness. Dario Argento is probably the most famous and innovative director that Gialli produced, in the 1970s and 1980s, he made several key Gialli that were wildly popular and very influential. Probably his zenith as a Gialli Director is Profondo Rosso (Deep Red) a tight murder mystery with an intricate plot, gory death sequences and a pounding score by Goblin. Gialli and Italian horror had died out in Italy by 1990 and there has never been a revival. Argento's recent films stink and there doesn't seem to be any heirs to the Gialli tradition. Gialli that I would highly recommend include Fulci's Don't Torture a Duckling. This film is unique in that it is little boys who are being murdered instead of grown women. The denouement is shocking and Fulci has an anti-clerical agenda, plus it also contains the most spectacular death by falling of a cliff scene that I have ever witnessed in cinema. What Have You Done to Solange? is a stellar Giallo directed by the ever capable Massimo Dallamano. The subject matter - the killing of schoolgirls - is a potentially very lurid concept but Dallamano handles the sleazy material with great aplomb - building a real atmosphere of dread and mystery. The film also boasts one of Ennio Morricone's best scores. Phantom of Death: Off Balance is a later Giallo, directed by Ruggero 'Cannibal Holocaust' Deodato. It boasts a fabulous cast - Edwige Fenech, Michael York and Donald Pleasance - and an interesting plot. Michael York's character is afflicted with a disease that rapidly prematurely ages him. He vents his frustration about this by killing women. Donald Pleasance is the cop on his trail and there is a great scene in which he stumbles out on the streets of Venice shouting "Where are you, you murdering bastard! I'll kill you! I'll kill you! " If you are in the dark as to what Gialli to watch, search out Shameless Screen Entertainment's selection of Classic Gialli and you won't go wrong. The DVDs even come in lurid yellow packaging!