I had to produce a video in defense of one of my favorite giallo films (...with one of the hardest titles to speak about in public...) STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER ( Nude per l'assassino ) from 1975. A wild ride I really enjoy PACKED with giallo goodness and J&B! And....the lovely giallo Queen Edwige Fenech.
GIALLOctober continues with THE KILLER RESERVED NINE SEATS from 1974
A fantastic WHO DONE IT giallo mystery.
Sadly, due to a few real life situations, GIALLOctober wasn't as big as I thought tit was going to be. I still have a few videos in mind to take on, but I'm not going to be able to do the lineup I had originally wanted. Ah, life. :)
And...as a special bonus...a silly little BEHIND THE SCENES vid! :)
DEATH LAID AN EGG has to be one of the most odd of the gialli films. There's a special level for some of these films. They have all the aspects you'd expect to see in a giallo film, but they also have a few extra bits and bobs that push things into a very strange space. That's Death Laid an Egg for sure.
We have a group working on a sort of...super chicken project. They are trying to create the perfect chicken on this high tech chicken farm. We have the husband, Marco (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and wife, Anna (Gina Lollobrigida) - scientists working on the project. And they have a lovely little beauty staying with them - the alluring Gabrielle played by Ewa Aulin. Of course, a love triangle forms and things go off the rails rather quickly. However, there are other aspects of the film that come up that are just...bonkers. Chicken talk turns to wild ramblings about chickens in smoking jackets. The "perfect chicken" is created at one point, but it's a headless, legless, living chicken mass that's a mutant. Very odd. The music is odder still - discordant and grating. It really helps to create a on-edge atmosphere.
All the odd chicken madness aside, it's actually a rather interesting little mystery with a lot to offer. Big thanks to the DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS PODCAST for their coverage of the film in their three part, art giallo series FOOTPRINTS IN DELIRIUM: Exploring the Art Giallo! If you have not heard it, you owe it to yourself to check it out. It's fantastic. (linked above)
What an odd little movie this is. I think I liked it, but it's odd.
Running very much like a play with four actors, we meet Franca and Antonio and the titular yellow carpet. The two are trying to sell the massive carpet and they have someone coming to look it over. Antonio runs off to do something leaving Franca home by herself when the man in need of a carpet arrives. And then...things go sideways. I'll say no more about it.
Like I said, it runs like a three act play. There are only four characters in the whole of it and it takes place in an apartment that is rather small, so there's a claustrophobic feeling throughout the film that adds to the tension. It's a slow burn, but I really liked it.
All four actors are grand. Erland Josephson, Béatrice Romand, Vittorio Mezzogiorno, and Milena Vukotic were all super solid in their roles. That really needed to be the case here. If one or two of them failed, the whole film would fall to pieces.
Carlo Lizzani's direction is grand here as well. The man has 73 director credits and another 48 writing credits. I'd love to see more of his work.
If you are looking for a giallo style mystery with less blood and guts and more story and acting, you'll want to check out The House of the Yellow Carpet! It's a great watch.
I'm so sorry about the keying quality. It turns out my new green screen location is not going to be so great. I have this episode and one more in the can already, but afterwards I'll be back in better form with less flickering on me!
Now this was a fun little giallo for sure! I'm not going to say a whole lot about this one for fear of spoiling it.
EYE OF THE LABYRINTH is the tale of Julie (played by the enchanting Rosemary Dexter) and her search for her missing husband. She follows a series of clues and the guiding hand of Frank (the awesomeAdolfo Celi of Bond villain fame) that eventually leads her to a lovely beach house occupied by an odd little cast of characters including the curvy Sybil Danning (billed as Sybil Dunning) and SUSPIRIA's Alida Valli.
The film is a complex "who-done-it" that worked really well for me. Poor Rosemary Dexter is really put through the ringer on her hunt - slaps and unwanted affections abound. The story zips along and things unfold in a fun way. Trope upon trope is piled on to wonderful effect. Characters interact with each other in nasty and fun ways as the tensions build to the thrilling conclusion.
The look of the film is grand. We're treated some some lovely vistas and a fabulous beach house that I'd love to visit. The actors and actresses chew the scenery and move through the story in a highly entertaining way. All in all it's one of my favorite mystery heavy giallo films.
I definitely have EYE IN THE LABYRINTH on my re-watch list. It was a fun one.
Worth a viddy! Check it out!
Trailer does have some spoiler elements in it - be warned!
THE HORROR SHOW presents The GIALLOctober Video Series!
You can video the video here, on YouTube, or on VIMEO. Please leave a comment! :)
In this series, we'll be covering some of our gialli favorites. Every week, we'll be releasing one or two videos giving a high level overview of a group of giallo film favorites with a given theme.
The Themes
The themes will be rather broad and we'll try to keep them spoiler free, but we'll give fair warning if a spoiler or two creep in around the edges. The planned themes are:
THE STRANGE THE VIOLENT CRIMES AND KILLERS THE CULT OF EDWIGE FENECH MY FAVORITES TO DATE MODERN TAKES ON THE GIALLO GENRE
We'd love to here from you! Please leave a comment on the video or here on the blog!
Well, EYE OF THE CAT is not really horror - despite it's tag line of "Terror that takes you beyond any you've ever known!" ((not true at all)) , but I had so much fun watching it that I thought I'd include it here on the blog anyway! :::grin:: Plus, it was written by Joseph Stefano of PSYCHO, PSYCHO IV, THE OUTTER LIMITS, and the SWAMP THING TV series, so he's in the family. Thank you to Agent Dee for the recommend!
EYE OF THE CAT tells the story of Wylie (Michael Sarrazin), a pretty boy drifter/hippy type that happily humps around with various ladies and crashes with them at their places until something better comes along. The something better here is Kassia Lancaster (Gayle Hunnicutt) who has a plan to use Wylie to get his rich and sickly Aunt Danny's (Eleanor Parker) money and estate. Wylie's brother Luke (Tim Henry) takes loving care of the Aunt, but Wylie was always her favorite. Much TOO favorite...really. :::cringe:::: And Kassia is just evil, saying that after Wylie gets his Aunt to change the will, she'll simply killer her, then they can live happily ever after. What could possibly go wrong?
Wylie's deathly afraid of cats and his Aunt has about twenty of them! hehehehe
The film is a fantastic product of it's time. It's a fun time capsule of 1960's San Francisco. As a former resident, it was fun to see the old City and Sausalito in the year I was born.
Eleanor Parker as Aunt Danny
It's a fun character study as well. Sarrazin is a ton of fun as this drifter hippy cool guy and this whole attitude towards the situation reflects the way he goes through life as well. Hunnicutt is fun as the vampy, evil mastermind behind the plan. It's fun stuff for sure. But, I was really mesmerized by Eleanor Parker. She was stunning! She was 47 when this film was made and I believe she overshadowed the lovely, 26 year old Hunnicutt, though she was enchanting as well.
Gayle Hunnicutt
I had forgotten that Hunnicutt was in another favorite of mine, THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE in 1973.
The story plays like a Hitchcock story and it's very engaging for being so simple. I was thinking that it might be able to slip onto my GIALLO list, but it's really pretty far away from that particular sub-genre, though there are some themes at play that....hell...I'm going to go ahead and add it to the list! This has enough giallo elements to consider it one of the fringe giallo style films for sure.
If you like story based, character study films, you'll want to check out EYE OF THE CAT for sure!
There's gourmet chocolate. It's refined and delicious. It melts in your mouth bursting with wondrous flavor combinations and sensations. Think SUSPIRIA or BLOOD AND BLACK LACE or DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING.
Then there's A Virgin Among the Living Dead - the M&Ms brand of chocolate that's not magical or expensive, but still tastes pretty darn good and makes you happy.
A young woman's relative is ill, so she pays a visit to her estranged family at their villa in the country to see her before she passes away. She makes it just in time to say her goodbye and gets a sinister warning. "Run. Run far away!"
It took me a while, but I'm a big Jess Franco fan now. I kinda get him. He loved horror. He loved women. He loved film making. He just went up to 11 on everything. Nude women romping through horrific situations as his wild camera followed them kinetically. They are so much fun. And this "Old Dark House" style film delivers all of the above and more as the mystery unfolds. And of course, Jess is right in there as one of the family members, so that's fun too.
And the film as some fantastic, Franco dialogue as well as his wild storyline and convenient situations.
"Poor soul! Beyond words! You must get away from here. You'll fry in your own hell, believe me. Ask me no questions, just get away from here."
"Run! Get out of the valley! Can you see everything here is dead?! Get out of here!" "Come on. You're not going to believe a crazy old man." "Come and try it. There's nothing like the taste of blood. Try it. Try it, Christina. hahahahahahah"
It's a warm blanket of a film that delivers up some crazy characters, giggles, lot and lots and lots of camera zooms, and....yeah...a lot of nudity. The film does have a great, shadow filled look to it that makes me happy. Everything is lit by candles and dim, but then you'll enter a room and it's bright as day in the middle of the night! heheheh I love it.
Seventies horror lovers need to check this one out for sure. I don't know what else to say here. Is it a good movie? Well, it's very entertaining and fun, so I'd say yes. But, it's not good in that "good" way. It's good in a "what the hell am I watching here?!" sort of way that I love. You watch things unfold and giggle as you mutter little quips and jokes as the film plays on. I dare you to give this a go!
I think I might have to snag a Franco box set. His films are so strange and interesting.
Ok...this is not one of my favorite giallo films. Not by a long shot. It's ponderous, super slow, all over the place....but the ending is somewhat comical and amusing, so it MAY be worth a watch for some of you true genre fans.
The plot is rather straight forward. A movie star named Michael Stanford goes back to his home with some movie folks and his girlfriend to spend the weekend at the family villa. But, of course things can't just be simple, right? He doesn't want his mother to know about his girlfriend, so he has her pretend to be his assistant. Odd, right? People start dying - that's never good. And...there was something else. OH! Michael stabbed his Father to death! That's it! :)
Some of the standout items in this fun little romp are the way Michael and his mother interact - cringe inducing for sure. He's talking to his mother and she's nearly falling out of her shirt all the time. :::cringe::: The beautiful Laura Gemser is mesmerizing. And then there's the other star of the film - Stefano Patrizi's FUCKING MUSTACHE! HOLY COW is it distracting! heheheheh It's like that thing some folks do to look older, but in this case he just ends up looking like a five year old boy with a mustache. heheheheh
The film stumbles and limps along, but does manage to ramp things up to 11 for the thrilling climax. I had to really make an effort to push through this one, starting and stopping it a few times over the course of a month or so. However, it hit a stride at one point and I was able to make it through. And boy was I happy that I did. hehehe. What a nutty flick.
And we're into another Sergio Martino classic with All the Colors of the Dark starring the :::heavy sigh and swoon::: wondrous Edwige Fenech. So lovely. Those eyes. :::sigh::: AHEM! Uh....
A CLASSIC....that's where I was. :)
Edwige plays Jane Harrison who has lost her unborn child after a car accident. She is having SUPER strange nightmares and is really slipping into a state of depression and madness. Her husband pushes her meds on her, but her sister Barbara (the awesome Nieves Navarro) wants her to try some less medicinal ways of dealing with her loss by talking to a Dr. and leaving the pills behind. But, who is the mysterious man (Ivan Rassimov) that is following her around town...and peeking at her? Is her neighbor really trying to be her friend...or is she involved in some other way herself?
We have a lot of Martino goodness in here as well. Handheld, kinetic camera movements and dramatic shots with great lighting make this a great giallo sampling, though it's not one to start with if you're new to the genre. It's pace and sometimes confused storyline may turn off those that are not obsessed with gialli.
This film is wacky for sure, but it has some fun moments. And...you know...I'll stare at Edwige on the screen no matter what she's up to! heheheh. The film runs off the tracks a few times, but manages to stay on course for a fun and diabolical ending.
This is another fantastic gem of a giallo. Another OLD DARK HOUSE like situation here with a family up to no good. Twists and turns after twists and turns.
I have to admit, I was confused - happily - through most of the film. Long and the short is there is a family with a secret. A dark and sad secret. It looks like the Father was a bit handsy with the daughter, so the daughter killed him. Mom goes and buries him, but....yes, bare with me....and escaped convict sees her bury the body. He's caught, but keeps the place in mind for future endeavors.
Everything slips into normalcy and 13 years go by. But, something isn't right with the daughter, Mom seems a bit off as well, and old brother seems to keep forgetting sister is sister and not girlfriend.
It all keeps getting more and more insane as we have the return of the escaped convict from the beginning, wild police goings on, murders all over the place, and twist after twist as we watch things play out.
I had a fantastic time with this madness. The screenplay by the films director Sergio Bergonzelli is all over the place crazy and I love the idea supplied by Mario Caiano and Fabio De Agostini. If you are fond of madness and mystery with a bit of the holocaust slipped in for good measure, you'll want to check out this wild ride.
DEATH LAID AN EGG has to be one of the most odd of the gialli films. There's a special level for some of these films. They have all the aspects you'd expect to see in a giallo film, but they also have a few extra bits and bobs that push things into a very strange space. That's Death Laid an Egg for sure.
The film is a complex "who-done-it" that worked really well for me. Poor Rosemary Dexter is really put through the ringer on her hunt - slaps and unwanted affections abound. The story zips along and things unfold in a fun way. Trope upon trope is piled on to wonderful effect. Characters interact with each other in nasty and fun ways as the tensions build to the thrilling conclusion.
EYE OF THE CAT tells the story of Wylie (Michael Sarrazin), a pretty boy drifter/hippy type that happily humps around with various ladies and crashes with them at their places until something better comes along. The something better here is Kassia Lancaster (Gayle Hunnicutt) who has a plan to use Wylie to get his rich and sickly Aunt Danny's (Eleanor Parker) money and estate. Wylie's brother Luke (Tim Henry) takes loving care of the Aunt, but Wylie was always her favorite. Much TOO favorite...really. :::cringe:::: And Kassia is just evil, saying that after Wylie gets his Aunt to change the will, she'll simply killer her, then they can live happily ever after. What could possibly go wrong?
It took me a while, but I'm a big Jess Franco fan now. I kinda get him. He loved horror. He loved women. He loved film making. He just went up to 11 on everything. Nude women romping through horrific situations as his wild camera followed them kinetically. They are so much fun. And this "Old Dark House" style film delivers all of the above and more as the mystery unfolds. And of course, Jess is right in there as one of the family members, so that's fun too.
"Poor soul! Beyond words! You must get away from here. You'll fry in your own hell, believe me. Ask me no questions, just get away from here."
Ok...this is not one of my favorite giallo films. Not by a long shot. It's ponderous, super slow, all over the place....but the ending is somewhat comical and amusing, so it MAY be worth a watch for some of you true genre fans.
Some of the standout items in this fun little romp are the way Michael and his mother interact - cringe inducing for sure. He's talking to his mother and she's nearly falling out of her shirt all the time. :::cringe::: The beautiful Laura Gemser is mesmerizing. And then there's the other star of the film - Stefano Patrizi's FUCKING MUSTACHE! HOLY COW is it distracting! heheheheh It's like that thing some folks do to look older, but in this case he just ends up looking like a five year old boy with a mustache. heheheheh
Edwige plays Jane Harrison who has lost her unborn child after a car accident. She is having SUPER strange nightmares and is really slipping into a state of depression and madness. Her husband pushes her meds on her, but her sister Barbara (the awesome Nieves Navarro) wants her to try some less medicinal ways of dealing with her loss by talking to a Dr. and leaving the pills behind. But, who is the mysterious man (Ivan Rassimov) that is following her around town...and peeking at her? Is her neighbor really trying to be her friend...or is she involved in some other way herself?
Oh my goodness. Lordy.
