Giallo film  

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Giallo films are a genre of Italian cinema that came out of giallo novels. Films known abroad as "gialli" are called thrilling or simply "thriller" in Italy, the first term usually referring to Italian 1970s classics by directors like Dario Argento or Mario Bava.

Overview

Giallo films are Italian-made slasher films that focus both on the cruel deaths committed by the killers and the subsequent search of detectives for the said killers. They are named for the Italian word for yellow, "Giallo", the color of which was the background of the pulp novels these movies were initially adapted from or inspired by. The progenitor of this genre was La ragazza che sapeva troppo (The Girl Who Knew Too Much). Other examples of Giallo films include 4 mosche di velluto grigio (Four Flies on Grey Velvet), Il gatto a nove code (The Cat o' Nine Tails), L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage), La coda dello scorpione (The Case of the Scorpion's Tail), La tarantola dal ventre nero (Black Belly of the Tarantula), Lo strano vizio della Signora Wardh (The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh/Blade of the Ripper), Sei donne per l'assassino (Blood and Black Lace) and Tenebrae. Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci and Mario Bava were the most proficient directors of this genre.

Characteristics

"Giallo" films are characterized by extended murder sequences featuring excessive bloodletting, stylish camerawork and unusual musical arrangements. The literary whodunit element is retained, but combined with modern slasher horror, while being filtered through Italy's longstanding tradition of opera and staged grand guignol drama. They also generally include liberal amounts of nudity and sex.

Gialli typically introduce strong psychological themes of madness, alienation, and paranoia. For example, Sergio Martino's Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key was explicitly based on Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Black Cat".

They remain notable in part for their expressive use of music, most notably by Dario Argento's collaborations with Ennio Morricone and his musical director Bruno Nicolai, and later with the band Goblin.

Development

As well as the literary giallo tradition, the films were also initially influenced by the German "Krimi" phenomenon - originally black and white films of the 1960s that were based on Edgar Wallace stories.

The first film that created the giallo as a cinema genre is La ragazza che sapeva troppo (The Girl Who Knew Too Much) (1963), from Mario Bava. Its title referred to Alfred Hitchcock's famous The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), again establishing strong links with Anglo-American culture. In Mario Bava's 1964 film, Blood and Black Lace, the emblematic element of the giallo was introduced: the masked murderer with a shiny weapon in his black leather gloved hand.

Soon the giallo became a genre of its own, with its own rules and with a typical Italian flavour: adding additional layers of intense colour and style. The term giallo finally became synonymous with a heavy, theatrical, and stylised visual element.

The genre had its heyday in the 1970s, with dozens of Italian giallo films released. The most notable directors who worked in the genre were Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, Aldo Lado, Sergio Martino, Umberto Lenzi, and Pupi Avati.

Notable giallo films

• The Girl Who Knew Too Much (Mario Bava, 1963, also known as The Evil Eye)
• Blood and Black Lace (Mario Bava, 1964, also known as Fashion House of Death, Six Women for the Murderer)
• The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (Dario Argento, 1970, also known as Phantom of Terror, Point of Terror, The Gallery Murders)
• Five Dolls for an August Moon (Mario Bava, 1970, also known as Island of Terror)
• Lizard in a Woman's Skin (Lucio Fulci, 1971, also known as Schizoid)
• The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (Sergio Martino, 1971, also known as Blade of the Killer, The Next Victim, Next!)
• Black Belly of the Tarantula, (Paolo Cavara, 1971)
• The Cat o' Nine Tails (Dario Argento, 1971)
• Four Flies on Grey Velvet (Dario Argento, 1971)
• Short Night of the Glass Dolls (Aldo Lado, 1971, also known as Paralyzed)
• Twitch of the Death Nerve (Mario Bava, 1971, also known as Bay of Blood)
• The Case of the Bloody Iris (Giuliano Carnimeo, 1972, also known as What Are Those Strange Drops of Blood Doing On Jennifer's Body?)
• Don't Torture a Duckling, starring Barbara Bouchet, (Lucio Fulci, 1972)
• Who Saw Her Die? (Aldo Lado, 1972, also known as The Child)
• Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (Sergio Martino, 1972, based on Poe's "The Black Cat" and also known as Eye of the Black Cat)
• What Have You Done to Solange? (Massimo Dallamano, 1972, music by Ennio Morricone)
• Knife of Ice (Umberto Lenzi, 1972, also known as Silent Horror)
• They're Coming to Get You (Sergio Martino, 1972, also known as All the Colors of the Dark, Day of the Maniac, Demons of the Dead)
• Torso (Sergio Martino, 1973)
• Eyeball (Umberto Lenzi, 1974, also known as The Devil's Eye, The Eye, The Secret Killer, Wide-Eyed in the Dark)
• A Dragonfly for Each Corpse (León Klimovsky, 1974, also known as Red Killer)
• Deep Red (Dario Argento, 1975, also known as Profondo Rosso, The Hatchet Murders, The Sabre Tooth Tiger)
• Strip Nude for Your Killer (Andrea Bianchi, 1975)
• The House with Laughing Windows (Pupi Avati, 1976, also known as La casa dalle finestre che ridono)
• The Psychic (Lucio Fulci, 1977, also known as Murder to the Tune of the Seven Black Notes, Seven Notes in Black)
• The Blood Stained Shadow (Antonio Bido, 1978, also known as Solamente nero)
• Tenebrae (Dario Argento, 1982, also known as Unsane or Under the Eyes of the Assassin)
• The New York Ripper (Lucio Fulci, 1982)
• Camping del terrore (Ruggero Deodato, 1987)
• Deliria (Michele Soavi, 1987)
• Opera (Dario Argento, 1988, also known as Terror at the Opera)
• Knight Moves (Carl Schenkel, 1992)
• Sleepless (Dario Argento, 2001)

See

• Giallo
• Giallo novel