Death Carries A Cane (1973)

APRIL 17, 2024

GENRE: GIALLO
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

I picked up Forgotten Gialli Vol 6 at this year's Overlook, as Vinegar Syndrome had a table set up outside the box office all weekend and I wanted a "souvenir" from my trip (it might stun you to learn I'm not much of a knick-knack collector). But I was also delighted by this particular volume because it was only the 2nd time that it included a film I had actually seen before: The Bloodstained Shadow. I don't remember much about the film beyond the title, but according to my review it sounds like a pretty good "level 1" giallo: nothing special, but easy enough to follow and featuring enough of the genre's hallmarks to let a newcomer know if they should keep seeking other titles. Amusingly, I can say the same thing about Death Carries A Cane, so now I'm curious if the third movie on the set (Naked You Die) is the same way.

In fact the most disappointing part of the movie is the title. While Death Carries A Cane is certainly in line with any number of other entries produced at the time, the Italian title (Passi di danza su una lama di rasoio) translates to "Dance Steps on a Razor Blade", which is way more awesome. Why would they give it this comparatively bland one? Didn't they know that fifty years later we'd have easy access to online translators that could tell us what the on-screen Italian title actually meant in English? Fools.

At least it actually refers to something in the movie, for the killer does indeed carry a cane for his limp. I don't know if it's intentional, especially with the different language, but I applauded this plot point at the end when the motive is explained, because the killer also faked being impotent, which is (at least here/now) referred to as having a limp d**k. So he has two fake limps! I dunno, it amused me anyway.

Anyway, the plot is fairly basic: someone witnesses a murder and the cops are suspicious of their story, but eventually they partner up to find the real killer. The initial murder is one for the ages, because our heroine (the stunning Nieves Navarro, who has appeared in a few other gialli) accidentally sees it while looking through a coin operated telescope in the park, and the time runs out at a crucial moment. So she scrambles to get another coin in, by which time the killer has escaped but she can see that he clearly tumbled with a street vendor as he ran. She also can see the house number but not the street name, and I guess we just have to assume that she's unable to track a straight line from the telescope to wherever it's pointing to, because they can't even find a body at first. How powerful was this telescope and why were they wasting it on tourists?

Sure enough, the street vendor also ends up dead, as does someone else who witnessed the killer's panicked run from the murder scene, so he's covering his tracks and thus that puts Navarro in danger. It's a pretty good setup, I think; the "we can't find the street" thing doesn't entirely make sense but the frenzy of the scene sort of covers it up. And the murder scenes are well done and fairly suspenseful, checking the boxes at an even clip (the J&B bottle appears just past the half hour mark, for the record) while also adding in more skin/sex than average. Not in a sleazy way like Strip Nude For Your Killer (unwanted a**l sex is not played for laughs here!), though Navarro's boyfriend tells her to either get back in bed or he will slap her around, which is a weird choice.

(She chooses the former, thankfully. And he's quite gentle with her!)

It's also got enough of the weird little things that seemingly only happen in these movies and never stop amusing me, like the cop is always sharpening pencils. There's also a part where a guy has some info for the reporter, but forgets a detail and asks to use her phone to call his girlfriend who'd remember. He gets what he needs, but then keeps talking to her about what to make for dinner. It's so charming! I also had to laugh that their big plan to trap the killer involved having Navarro dress as a hooker and sport the bag the killer knows a witness had, but when a car pulls up and the driver has a cane, it turns out to just be the police captain who was, you know, just looking for a hooker. Whoopsie!

The ending is kind of a letdown though, as it's one of those ones where the culprit is shot down before they're even unmasked, and then someone else just explains everything real quick. The historians actually talk about this as a sort of "feature, not a bug" of the genre, and while they're probably right (they're the historians, I'm the guy listening at home while eating Little Debbies), I feel that the best ones don't do that and thus it shouldn't be something to shrug off as an unwritten rule. At least it involves the line "He pretended to have become impotent to protect me from his mental illness, which would have forced him to kill me," so there's something. The rest of the track is the usual bios and such, though there is one really weird part where one historian (who is recorded separately from the other two) is talking and then suddenly they edit in the other two over him, so for twenty seconds you're listening to DUAL AUDIO COMMENTARIES! Very Spielbergian. The only other extra is an interview with the editor, and it's in Italian and he covers his whole career so I can't say it held my interest. Looks like he has a nice house though, good to know editors make bank over there.

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FTP: The Wax Mask (1997)

DECEMBER 16, 2023

GENRE: GIALLO, MAD SCIENTIST
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

There’s kind of a heartbreaking moment on the bonus features for The Wax Mask (Italian: Maschera di cera), where Sergio Stivaletti notes that the movie never got a fair shake from horror fans. Not a direct quote because I don’t have the patience to go back and find where he says it (more on that soon) but the gist is “It was never seen as the exciting debut movie from a FX artist they liked – it was always the movie Lucio Fulci was going to make and I replaced him when he died.” And he’s right; you’d be hard-pressed to find a single review or article about the film from the past 25 years that doesn’t practically lead with “This was supposed to be a Fulci comeback movie,” which is unfair to Stivaletti (for those not privy to the history: Fulci died weeks before production was set to begin). The closest equivalent I can think of would be A.I. being directed by Spielberg instead of Kubrick, but it’s not like the ‘berg was making his debut, you know? We trusted him.

But one thing that’s not mentioned as much is, you know, it’s very likely the movie wouldn’t have been very good with Fulci calling the shots, either. At that point he hadn’t made a good flick in over a decade, and the Italian film industry’s decreased interest in horror (Stivaletti notes it may have been the only major Italian horror film being produced at that time, saying they were more interested in distributing American disaster movies of the era) meant that they weren’t afforded the same resources they had access to in the early 80s. With the story being a period piece, I feel it always would have come off as underwhelming at best, and (ironically) some of the film’s only real memorable moments were apparently things Stivaletti added that wouldn’t have been in Fulci’s version anyway.

I mean don’t get me wrong, the movie’s not terrible – at times it’s actually fairly entertaining. It’s just one of those things where the names you see in the credits (in addition to Fulci, who wrote the majority of the script, it was also co-written and produced by Dario Argento) elevate expectations. If you snipped off the opening titles and showed it to someone without context, they’d probably walk away thinking it was a decent enough spin on House of Wax, where a reporter and the museum’s new employee work together to solve the mystery of why those wax figures look so darn realistic and if it has anything to do with a string of disappearances. There are a few gory murders, some goofy mid-90s CGI shots that I find charming now (man did they love their morphing FX back then!), frequent sex scenes with actual nudity (also charming since such things don’t exist anymore), and a fiery climax that gave off low-key Hammer vibes. Nothing too exciting or memorable, but, you know, it’s fine!

That said, it never really looks all that well, which kept me at arm’s length. Cinematographer Sergio Salvati was Fulci’s DP for a number of his classics, but sadly it looks more like Salvati’s later work with Full Moon (including the OG Puppet Master), where everything is over lit and soap opera-ish. Honestly if it wasn’t for the time discrepancy I’d swear it was shot on video, so again I can’t help but think if Fulci had survived I’d have the same issues with it that I do under Stivaletti’s watch, and if anything I give him a little more benefit of the doubt since he’s a first timer whereas Fulci would have no excuse for it to look this phony (with the fact that it’s supposed to be 1912 even harder to buy when it looks like they shot it with something they bought at Circuit City). And as I mentioned, one of the best things in the movie is an out of nowhere Terminator-esque scene where the villain, revealed to basically be a robot wearing human skin, is melted down to his exoskeleton and chases the heroes for a bit as the fire rages behind them all. It’s delightfully batshit, offering the movie the sort of energy that it could have used throughout in order to offset its deficiencies.

Stivaletti, Argento, producer Giuseppe Colombo, and a couple others (none of the lead actors, alas) are on hand for a retrospective documentary that is annoyingly broken into several different featurettes, despite having the same people in all of them. Like I get that they want to pad the bonus features menu (indeed, I was kind of overwhelmed when I first loaded it up), but why not just have each interview separate? They obviously put together a 80ish minute doc and then cut it all up – next time make that “we need more bonus features” call before wasting the time of the editor who saw their work split into chunks. Especially since you kind of have to watch all of them anyway to get the context of what they’re talking about; like one just discusses the cast and even a child could be able to detect that it’s lacking a proper intro and stops suddenly. Also they’re all in Italian with non-burned in subtitles, so you can’t even cheat and fast forward at 2x (while reading fast) to get through them all. There’s a solid interview with Alan Jones about some of the project’s history and reputation, and a vintage featurette of Argento on the set, where it seems there was some Spielberg/Hooper/Poltergeist kinda stuff going on re: who was actually directing at times. And there’s a commentary, which is fine – I was most engaged by the Italian Stivaletti speaking English and occasionally asking moderator/Severin guru David Gregory to translate (“It’s a… word joke?” Stivaletti questions, with Gregory deciphering what he meant: “Play on words”). It’s cute! Oh and somewhere in there (again, if it wasn’t all broken up I might be able to find it again easier) Argento tells a delightful story about the lead actor Robert Hossein hooking up with one of the film’s actresses, only for her husband to catch them. But Hossein, thinking fast, told them they were just rehearsing their love scene and she was naked so she could start getting used to being undressed on camera. Hahahah, what a legend.

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Your Vice Is A Locked Room And Only I Have The Key (1972)

JULY 31, 2023

GENRE: GIALLO
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Despite being one of the all time most giallo-y giallo titles ever assembled, Your Vice Is A Locked Room And Only I Have The Key (Italian: Il tuo vizio è una stanza chiusa e solo io ne ho la chiave) is utterly meaningless to the story. It’s actually just an in-joke to a note seen in the earlier The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, which shares director Sergio Martino and star Edwige Fenech. Making it even more puzzling is that it’s actually a bit of a loose adaptation of Poe’s The Black Cat, so they coulda beat Fulci to the punch by nearly a decade. Silly!

But regardless of the title, this is a top notch giallo, and my favorite of the ones from Martino I have seen, or at least tied with Torso. Like Argento, he did a few decent ones before really nailing it, and I think this one was his Deep Red (making Torso his Tenebre, if you want to keep going with the comparison). It’s nowhere near as convoluted as Mrs. Wardh (which hilariously had the villains explaining the plot to each other at one point) or as unfocused as All The Colors of the Dark, but it’s still more involving than the usual “trying to get the inheritance and/or jewels” plot (though fear not, it still has one of those shoehorned in near the end; maybe it’s as obligatory as the J&B bottle and has to be in there somewhere?). What’s fun is that it starts off with a seemingly obvious story of a (married) man who just murdered his young lover, only for a second victim to come along and prove his innocence – but only to us, as the cops (and his wife) suspect him of both murders.

Here's the thing though: the culprit is caught with plenty of the movie left, giving you a “OK, where is this going from here?” feeling that is often lacking from these things. I mean don’t get me wrong, I enjoy most that I see, but they definitely get a bit samey, which along with the meaningless titles makes it hard to remember which ones I've seen and which I haven't. Here, Martino takes a few of the standard elements (like the aforementioned jewel stuff) but mixes and matches in a way that keeps it from feeling like a rerun. In fact when I put it on I thought I might have seen it before, only for a few things to assure me I would have remembered it, such as the fact that Fenech’s character seduces her aunt AND uncle in the narrative. Also, the cat is pretty hilarious; its name is Satan and it spends most of the movie tormenting the lady of the house, prompting her to carry out several unsuccessful attempts to kill it. And at the end of the movie it actually helps the police identify the murderer! So good.

Now, I have to warn it’s not all fun and games. The husband is an awful jerk even by the standards of these things, groping his Black servant (and encouraging his party guests to do the same) and sexually assaulting his wife more than once, plus slapping her around every now and then. I mean yeah he gets what’s coming to him, and I feel anyone watching a giallo should be prepared for such material, but there’s just more of it than average. The stuff with the cat and some other goofy touches (one of the all time best/worst “let’s throw a doll off a cliff and hope people believe it’s the human victim” shots, for example) more than makes up for the unpleasantness in my opinion, but your mileage will obviously vary. Maybe it isn't great that I usually shrug off these moments in older movies, because they are gross to be sure, but I feel it's a better attitude than the folks who will try to "cancel" an older film on these grounds. To me, it's a reminder that at least some things have improved, and thus it doesn't feel as childish to be optimistic that other things can someday be better as well.

Unusual for an Arrow release, there is no commentary track, something I was so confused by I actually checked every menu to see if it was just misplaced, and confirmed with a couple of reviews. However, there are five supplements, kicking off with an interview with Martino and backed up by a longer retrospective where he is joined by Fenech and Ernesto Gastaldi, who wrote the film. Some stuff is repeated, but they all enjoy talking about the film, with Fenech in particular being refreshingly open-minded about her work, as opposed to being apologetic for it despite a few decades' worth of changed attitudes in between. Then there are a pair of video essays, one on Martino's work and the other on Fenech's, and finally an interview with Eli Roth, who cast her in Hostel II (which I now realize was probably the first time I ever saw her in anything) and has some strong insight on her work and her placement in the giallo hall of fame, as it were. So while there's no traditional commentary, there's certainly enough here to give a fan a sense of the film's origins and making, plus its legacy in general. I continue to have the same petty annoyance with Arrow's subtitled interviews on these English language discs: they should be burned in as opposed to something you toggle on/off, so us speed readers can play them on double speed and still read everything (most players don't display the subtitles when on fast-forward unless, of course, they are permanently part of the image). Martino's interview runs 35 minutes, but he's not exactly a motor mouth, so it'd be nice to get through it in half the time without missing a thing, as other blu-ray companies have thankfully done. Not a dealbreaker of course, but still, I sigh.

Arrow has put out a series of "Giallo Essentials" sets (a new volume was released last month, I just learned - I'm slipping!), one of which houses Torso, but this one appears with two others from Martino: The Case of the Scorpion's Tail and The Suspicious Death of a Minor, the latter of which I believe is the last of his gialli for me to see. Hopefully someday I'll splurge on it since I don't own Scorpion and enjoyed this one enough to not mind a double dip. Honestly, of the four of his films I've seen the only one I'm not super high on is All The Colors of the Dark, as its more supernatural/cult elements (seemingly inspired by Rosemary's Baby) aren't as interesting to me and don't mesh well with the giallo stuff. So I have little doubt I'd enjoy Minor as well, but I'd like to save it for a rainy day, as it were, as I feel at this point it's going to be harder and harder to find little gems that stick out like this one (Vinegar Syndrome's "Forgotten Gialli" sets produce the occasional winner, but for the most part... well, there's a reason theirs are called "Forgotten" and Arrow's are "Essential"). Still, I'm glad they are preserving these films and putting them together in attractive packages, as they are obviously more niche than a traditional slasher and probably don't sell as well as the likes of junk like Madman (which both Vinegar and Arrow have released), which is why I like to keep buying them. One gem like this is worth a few forgettable entries if the alternative is never being able to properly/legally see any at all.

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Dark Glasses (2022)

SEPTEMBER 30, 2022

GENRE: GIALLO
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (BEYOND FEST)

After Opera, the output of Dario Argento became... let’s just say "spotty" and kindly leave it at that. But it also saw him largely working away from the straightforward giallo type fare that put him on our radars all those years ago, so it was exciting to hear that Dark Glasses (Italian: Occhiali neri) was a back to basics attempt, with no supernatural elements whatsoever. Plus, after a few projects have fallen apart over the past decade, it’s just nice to have ANY new Argento fare, as this is his first film since Dracula 3D all the way back in 2012. The only Master of Horror who is still around that’s made us wait longer is John Carpenter, who isn’t exactly trying to do anything else anyway.

Well I wouldn’t say it was worth the wait, but it’s certainly an enjoyable way to spend 90 minutes, which is all I can ask of a guy in his eighties stepping back into the ring after such a long absence. The plot is vintage giallo: a woman named Diana (Ilenia Pastorelli) is blinded after a car accident, and as she tries to readjust to life she realizes that she is still being followed by the serial killer who caused the accident in the first place. And that’s basically it; given the title (which refers to not only her post-accident reliance on sunglasses, but also the ones you use to watch an eclipse unless you’re a hapless moron) I thought there might be some psychic vision or the reveal that the killer was also blind or something, but nah – it’s actually so simple that it almost becomes weightless.

For starters, the killer reveal is a total nothingburger; the movie only has one suspect of note and he’s barely in it anyway. It’s one of those movies where a character needs to say something awkward just to help the audience remember who he was in case they had forgotten, which believe it or not is less preferable than the type where the killer wasn't even in it at all (like the OG Friday the 13th, for example). There’s also almost no police involvement; a pair of cops who do some routine investigation stuff pop up early on, but they are basically phased out of the movie after (spoiler) some other cops are killed, which is odd – wouldn’t that intensify their actions? And there aren’t even a lot of death scenes for Argento to do his thing; a gory throat slashing in its opening minutes seems to be him announcing “I’m back, baby!” but after that there’s relatively little violence at all.

Instead, it’s a surprisingly character driven thriller, focusing on Diana as well as Chin, a young boy who was orphaned in the car accident. Feeling somewhat guilty (she was fleeing the killer and rammed into Chin’s parents’ car) she visits him at the orphanage and tries to make amends by giving him a video game, but as he is bullied there Chin decides she can make it up to him by letting him just stay with her. So the two of them, along with her recently acquired seeing eye dog, become a little makeshift family – and it’s super endearing! I can’t apply the word “sweet” to a lot of stuff in Argento’s movies, but it’s how I felt here – with the added bonus of giving me flashbacks to Cat O Nine Tails’ lovable Karl Malden character.

It’s also easy to like Diana. Unlike some other protagonists who lose a sense, she never seems too angry or stubborn about her predicament – she quickly puts all her effort into having the same life she did. Asia Argento (supposedly meant to play the lead at one point) plays a social worker of sorts who helps her get the dog, shows her how to use a cell phone for the blind, how to use the sounds of the crosswalk meters, etc – and Diana takes to it all eagerly and appreciatively, instead of being bratty and pulling those kind of “This is pointless, I WILL SEE AGAIN!” theatrics we’ve seen in other movies. And she remains somewhat vain about her appearance; at one point she loses her glasses and has Chin pick out a new pair, with the only instruction to make sure they are cute.

So it’s kind of a mixed bag; there’s nothing particularly BAD about the movie, but it’s also a little too straightforward for its own good. Throughout the film I kept thinking “OK yeah but there’s gonna be a weird left field turn right about...” only for that “now!” to never come. At one point Asia takes Diana to a retreat where some other blind folks are, and you’ll probably think that this will produce some suspense highlights (the killer making his way around people who can’t see him, perhaps) but nothing is really done with it. Maybe the budget got trimmed or something and they had to make concessions, but whatever the reason it just feels a bit too stripped down, without the weirdness and wacky plot points that made his “Animal Trilogy” (not to mention Deep Red) so memorable. There’s a scene where Diana and Chin are wading through a little pond and find themselves attacked by snakes – the movie needed more of that energy! But that said, it’s entertaining enough and far from being hateable, so the folks who called for his head (or at least retirement) after Mother of Tears and Dracula (neither of which I minded much, I should note) should be happy to know he’s still able to make something that, while slight, is worthy of his filmography.

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Tropic of Cancer (1972)

SEPTEMBER 7, 2022

GENRE: GIALLO
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

I knew it was unlikely that either of the other films on Forgotten Giallo v5 could measure up to my beloved Nine Guests for a Crime, so I wish I had started with Tropic of Cancer (Italian: Al tropico del cancro) as it’s a perfectly enjoyable giallo on its own but lacked that je ne sais quoi that made the other one such a delight, giving it a bit of an unfair shake. However, what it lacked in sociopathic (read: hilarious) characters and applause worthy reveals, it made up for in relative novelty and – for reasons both good and bad – a mystery that wasn’t too easy to figure out.

For starters, it’s the only one of these things I’ve ever seen that was shot in Haiti, a rather novel location for any film but truly inspired for what boils down to the usual stuff (black gloved killer, red herrings, infidelity, booze. etc). And it’s not just the unique scenery – the island’s history of voodoo factors into the plot. While the movie is ostensibly about an unhappily married couple (Anita Strindberg and Gabriele Tinti) who visit the island and get caught up in the murders, the real main character is Anthony Steffen (who I thought resembled Franco Nero a bit, only to amusingly learn that Steffen was his successor for the Django movies) as a doctor named Williams, who has come up with a new wonder drug using some of the voodoo-centric drugs that are available there. Naturally given the kind of movie we’re dealing with, people start turning up dead and they all have a connection to the formula – Williams’ assistant, a would-be buyer, etc.

Alas, the script (co-written by Steffen himself) neglects to really tie Tinti and Strindberg’s characters into the story, making them inconsequential to the whole thing until Tinti tries to sell the formula himself near the very end. So there will be scenes of Williams investigating this or that, or a murder, or someone scheming to get the formula, and then… this bitter couple going shopping or something. I recently watched that movie where Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston get caught in a murder mystery while on a late-coming honeymoon, and couldn’t help but think that if this movie was the serious version (I can’t say “less funny” since I probably laughed as much here as I did in that tepid junk) of that one it might have worked better, with the two of them playing detective and also maybe fixing their marriage in the process. Instead Tinti just gets more abrasive and Strindberg, surprising no one, ultimately beds Steffen, which barely fazes her husband anyway. Ultimately, like 90% of the plot would play out the same if they weren’t even there, which makes it hard to stay fully engaged by the proceedings.

That said, there’s still enough “oh, that’s new” kinda stuff to keep it fun. Starting with, well, male junk! A lot of it! I’m all in favor of equality, but when it comes to nudity there is certainly a huge imbalance as you maybe see one penis for every hundred shots of breasts. Here, I didn’t exactly grab a stopwatch but I swear we see more nude males than females, so good on them for trying to level the playing field. There’s a scene where a stoned Strindberg makes her way through a hallway of naked men (she herself is covered up) that is almost certainly the sort of hallucinatory thing that has likely burned into the memory of a younger viewer and has no idea what movie it’s from – hopefully this release unlocks the mystery for those folks. There’s also a flamboyantly gay man that no one ridicules or oppresses in any way, so the movie really feels like it’s progressive and a real standout in a genre that’s commonly more misogynist than not.

I should warn you though, there is some random (and unnecessary to everything) footage of a slaughterhouse at one point, with our “heroes” visiting a plant and Strindberg being rightfully disgusted by the sight of an animal having its throat slit. I know we shouldn’t be ignorant about these practices (especially if we consume meat, as I do) but there’s a time and place, you know? That it’s yet another scene of these characters doing something that has little to do with the plot makes it seem even more extraneous. Otherwise it’s pretty light with the violence; one of the showstopper kills is actually essentially off screen, as the victim is trapped in a paper mill of some sort and presumably suffocates, so it’s weird (though perhaps part of the point) that the most gruesome image in the film is that of a (presumably) legit death of an animal.

As for bonus features, there’s another essay by Rachel Nisbet, though as with the one on Nine Guests it plays out over a still shot of the title card, so I couldn’t really concentrate on it as my eyes needed to focus on something else after a while and, naturally, I merely got more interested in that. It’s important to play these things over photos or appropriate footage, even if it takes a little more work! There’s a lengthy interview with director Giampaolo Lomi that’s pretty good; he discusses his cast (there’s a pretty funny anecdote about how he tried to avoid showing that Strindberg’s breasts were fake but couldn’t; another first for me) and also Haiti, including a rather long discussion of its history of dictators – a rare history lesson on a giallo supplement!

The other film on the set was A White Dress For Mariale, which gets points for weirdness (the movie it most reminded me of was Gothic, of all things) but the lethargic pace and unfinished mystery left me cold for the most part. There’s a pretty funny scene where a guy is mauled by dogs (where they cut between the actor pretending to be attacked by the dogs that are clearly not doing anything to harm him, and the dogs tearing up the world’s least passable dummy) and an all timer version of the “a young child sees one of their parents being unfaithful” motif that finds its way into every third giallo film, but the fleeting moments weren’t enough to keep me invested. Luckily I watched that one after Nine Guests, so Tropic of Cancer was a step back in the right direction. Still, the ideal order if you're thinking of picking it up would would be Mariale, Tropic, then Guests.

Overall I’d say Nine Guests alone was worth the cost of the box, but Tropic of Cancer (and even Mariale) both offered some variety to their time honored body count traditions, making this an overall satisfying set and, perhaps needless to say, enough to make me hope that there’s a volume 6 (and 7, 8…). Even if the movies are hit or miss, the sheer variety they offer within the genre, plus the basic fact that they’re being rescued from disappearing entirely, make it a worthwhile endeavor every time. Plus it reminded me that I still haven’t gone through volume 4 (which I bought myself, they didn’t send it for review or otherwise I would have gotten to it sooner), so perhaps there’s another Nine Guests-level delight already sitting on my shelf. Hurrah!

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Nine Guests For A Crime (1977)

AUGUST 22, 2022

GENRE: GIALLO
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

For the past couple years, Vinegar Syndrome has been releasing three-film sets of "Forgotten Gialli", offering a spotlight to the ones that fell beneath the cracks for one reason or another (rights issues and, occasionally, the quality of the films themselves being the primary culprits). They're on the 5th volume now, and while I haven't watched every film on the previous sets, I'm comfortable saying that Nine Guests For A Crime (Italian: Nove ospiti per un delitto) may be my absolute favorite discovery on these sets thus far. If they could find a movie this fun on even *every other* volume, it'd be worth picking them up and keeping the series going until they run out of options.

Like The Killer Is One Of Thirteen, which appeared on an earlier set, the film is loosely based on Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None (aka... well, you can look it up. Oof), concerning a group of folks on a secluded island who all seem to have reason to be the killer that keeps whittling down their number. This particular group is a family comprised of patriarch Uberto (Arthur Kennedy) and his three children (two sons, one daughter) and their respective spouses, as well as his sister and his new, much younger bride. And the movie hilariously introduces them all by piling up the red herrings/potential motives: one of them asks if she brought her guns, Kennedy's wife and one of the sons' wives trade barbs about their respective infidelities, the two brothers don't get along, etc. We're also informed about how the boat is the only way to get off the island, and even when they arrive they're still adding more foreshadowing elements ("Where is my underwater breather?" someone muses, forty minutes before someone "drowns"). With so many gialli overloading their final ten minutes with exposition to explain everything, I was completely charmed that this one seemed to be trying to get everything out of the way quickly instead.

(Amusingly, one thing we see when they arrive is a giant cannon but it plays no part in the proceedings. Chekov must be weeping into his gun.)

It's also a supremely horny entry in the sub-genre, which you wouldn't think would be the case considering it's only a family unit (the one non family member, Kennedy's assistant, is the first to die). They're on the island for about twenty minutes before one woman is sleeping with her brother-in-law, and another son is also shacking up with his father's new bride (so, his own stepmother) in plain sight of the old man! And (spoiler for 45 year old movie ahead) while he dies before realizing it, it turns out his wife is actually his first cousin. You get the idea that if there wasn't a standard killer, these folks might end up just killing each other out of jealous rage over everyone being cuckolded by their own family members.

As for the killer plot, it's a pretty decent one, though the math is a little fuzzy when all the pieces are in place (too complicated to explain here, but basically the killer should appear younger than they do). Also it's a little hard to track how everyone is related; I had to laugh that the IMDb actually lists the genealogy next to the character's names ("Lorenzo / Uberto's son") but even they screw it up, listing someone as a daughter of a character they are actually older than. After I finished I rewatched the introductory scene, both to giggle at the foreshadowing (which was apparent even the first time around, but now 100% clear) and just to recontextualize everyone's interactions now that I knew how they actually related to each other. It's not impossible like some movies (looking at you, Home Sweet Home), but definitely takes a little bit of sorting out in your head to keep straight.

And now the most important aspect of any proper giallo: How is the J&B used? Well, I'm here to tell you that, in all the years of watching these things, I've never seen that familiar green bottle introduced so randomly. In the middle of a scene inside, they cut to Uberto's daughter (who is outside) as she makes her away across a patio, grabs a glass, then reaches inside a giant wooden duck (!) and pulls it out, pouring herself a glass. Then it cuts back to the woman inside. It's almost like they realized they had a contract to show the bottle in the first 15 minutes or whatever and desperately inserted the shot in the middle of a scene to make sure they didn't get fined or something. I was cackling for five straight minutes over the audacity.

Hilariously, the bottle is referenced during the disc's lone interview, with actor Massimo Foschi (who plays the son who is banging his own stepmom). It's a bit rambly, including a lengthy discussion of a prop liver he had to eat in a cannibal movie a few years later, but it's got some good stuff, including how he was instructed to make sure that the label could be seen whenever he had to pour a drink. He also keeps the film's vaguely incest-y theme extended to reality, seemingly suggesting he had an affair with the woman who played his sister (when asked about her he says something like "She was better off screen than on" and smiles before changing the subject). The only other extra is an audio essay, though it plays over a still of the film's title card instead of the appropriate footage, so I had trouble concentrating on it.

Honestly, even if the other two films on the set are duds, this one would be a worthy entry to the growing Forgotten Gialli collection (this is the 5th volume, to be clear). The discs aren't as feature-heavy as Vinegar's standalone sets, but ultimately that stuff doesn't matter - it's rescuing these obscure films and giving them a noticeable platform to make sure they find the audience they deserve. Plus, I still feel guilty writing up a review before I've gone through the extras, so when they're jam-packed I almost kind of sigh sometimes, as watching three commentary tracks (cough, the new Dog Soldiers 4K release, cough) means I could have watched three other movies in their entirety with that time. And they could be as fun as this! I haven't even mentioned the all-timer final shot before credits, which had me laughing even longer than I did at the J&B bottle. If you prefer your gialli to be serious, I'd steer clear, but if you, like me feel that the crasser the better, then by all means dive right into this one.

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FTP: Death Walks on High Heels (1971)

JUNE 21, 2022

GENRE: GIALLO
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Most "pile" movies are acquired (trivia winnings, unrequested review mailings, etc) but Death Walks on High Heels (Italian: La morte cammina con i tacchi alti) was apparently a purchase; as I tore off the shrink wrap I noticed a Fry's price tag. Fry's, for non locals, was a strange electronics store chain that seemingly specialized in outdated tech; whenever I needed an ancient kind of adapter or wire, I would almost always be able to find it there. Remember those "Game/TV" switches we used to have in the '80s for our 8-Bit Nintendos? I bought one there in like, 2013. So basically RadioShack, but with the size and scope of the glory era of Best Buy. The chain went belly up during Covid, but the writing was on the wall long before then - I remember going in 2019 and seeing several empty shelves, as if it were the last week of business.

It was probably on one of these final trips that I picked the movie up, since they for some reason always had a healthy supply of Arrow releases; it wasn't uncommon to see a Disney or Universal blockbuster be completely MIA but seven copies of something like The Stuff just sitting there. So it was probably on sale when I was getting something else and I was like "Hey, a Giallo I haven't seen!", but who knows. All I know is... it wasn't worth the wait. It's fine, nothing I hated watching or anything, but definitely falls in the "for completists only" section of the sub-genre, with only one solid twist at the halfway point setting it apart from a dozen others. It's a twist that has been done before (most famously in 1960, clue!) but it still surprised me all the same and gave the movie a little bit of a spark when it needed it most.

Alas, most of it is just too much "same ol" fare: the killer is after some stolen jewelry, there's a pervy guy across the way who is clearly NOT the killer but has to be there to give a red herring, etc. I tend to prefer the gialli where the killer is driven by some kind of psychological torment as opposed to a financial motive, but I can still be engaged if there's enough flair to the proceedings. Alas, the screenwriter even notes on one of the interviews that the director (Luciano Ercoli) was a guy who worked regularly because he could get the job done and on time, not because of his ability to dazzle audiences with his skills. So it's no surprise that the movie seemingly works from a checklist, with the script doing all the heavy lifting.

That checklist lacked one thing though: J&B whiskey! There's one (1) bottle in the middle of an arrangement, where you can't even see the label (the green glass and red top gives it away), breaking a longstanding tradition in these things. But on a positive note, it's slightly less misogynist than most of the era; a good chunk of the movie is about an older guy who is unhappy in his marriage and thinks the world of our heroine, so he treats her very well, and her previous lover isn't as much of a jerk as many of his counterparts. If not for a rather gruesome demise at around the hour mark, where the killer seems to be sawing the woman's throat with his knife, I'd say it was overall the least problematic (to modern audiences) one I've ever seen. So in that regard it might make for a good entry one for audiences who get easily offended, but at the same time it's so perfunctory that they likely won't be excited about seeing any others.

Even Tim Lucas seems kind of indifferent to it; his historian commentary is loaded with uncharacteristic stretches of silence - at one point I considered whether I had accidentally turned the regular audio back on. More often than not he's just sort of narrating the film and adding some insight about its themes, as opposed to noting its place in the sub-genre's canon, what its other actors did before/after, etc. There's some of that, of course, but nowhere near as much as average. The interview with screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi is also seemingly disinterested in the actual topic; he spends nearly fifteen minutes complaining about how Sergio Leone changed part of his script for Once Upon A Time in America!

So it's kind of fitting that I acquired the movie so randomly in the first place. I certainly didn't set out to buy it; very likely just grabbing it while I was getting other things that I presumably watched already. Because it likewise seems like it's an afterthought for most involved, though lead actress Nieves Navarro married Ercoli a year later, so I guess something nice came from- nope, they met on The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion, I'm now seeing. Maybe this one helped pay for the wedding? I dunno. It's fine.

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Giallo Essentials Vol. 1

DECEMBER 7, 2021

GENRE: GIALLO
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Vinegar Syndrome has released a few volumes of "Forgotten Gialli", with obscure entries in the sub-genre that are, as can be expected, pretty hit or miss (otherwise they wouldn't be forgotten), but it's been a while since they put one out. Luckily, Arrow has picked up the slack and gone in the opposite with a collection they have dubbed Giallo Essentials, collecting a trio of previous releases at a lower price point than buying them individually. As far as I can tell the discs are identical to their standalone counterparts, and the boxed set doesn't save you any space either, so if you already own them there's no reason to pick this up. However, if you haven't already been blessed by The Fifth Cord, The Possessed, and The Pyjama Girl Case, then it's a no brainer to pick this up.

The only one I had actually seen before was The Fifth Cord (Italian: Giornata nera per l'ariete), and you can read my full review HERE (feel free to chuckle at the "source" - remember when we called it that? Or when they actually had obscure films like this on the service? Memories...). No sense of repeating myself too much, except to say that it's just as good a second time around (possibly better, since I got to watch it in Italian this time), especially since it had been so long that I forgot who the killer was anyway. I also forgot how people apparently found it hard to follow, which baffles me as much now as it did then - this is one of the most coherent entries in the entire genre! I always try to be optimistic, but ultimately I may have to just accept that a lot of people are simply very stupid.

The disc has a lot of bonus features I obviously wouldn't have had access to on "Netflix Instant" even if they existed then (looks like the majority were created in 2018). It's a solid mix of recollections from people involved, including star Franco Nero and editor Eugenio Alabiso, as well as the historian efforts like a commentary from Travis Crawford and a terrific video essay from Rachael Nisbet that highlights underappreciated director Luigi Bazzoni's visual style, particularly his penchant for filming characters in front of or behind blinds or glass (sometimes both!), embellishing their feelings of being trapped or whatever. Gialli critics like to assume it's all just a bunch of zooms and "male gaze" kind of stuff, and there certainly is a lot of it across the genre, but things like this really help illustrate that these filmmakers aren't just a bunch of horny hacks.

Bazzoni codirected the earlier The Possessed (Italian: La donna del lago) with Franco Rossellini, which is sort of a "proto-giallo" that is not only shot in black & white (not unlike Bava's The Girl Who Knew Too Much, widely considered the real origin of the genre) but is also based on a true story. One that, according to the historian commentary by Tim Lucas, actually had more murders than the film offers! It's more of a sad drama with some thriller elements than anything one might conjure when thinking of a giallo - for starters, I don't think the hero of the film is ever in any real danger until the final moments. He's a struggling author who has returned to a hotel where he once stayed, hoping to get his creative juices flowing but really hoping to get reacquainted with one of their employees, who he had a brief fling with on his last visit. Alas, the girl (Tilde) is nowhere to be found, and since we're technically in giallo territory it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that she has in fact died. The reports say suicide, but...

So, yeah, the movie is about a guy trying to solve a months-old murder, but it doesn't seem like the killer is active and ready to strike again, which is why it feels more like a drama about a lost love. The thriller elements are enjoyable, but I think anyone expecting Deep Red or Don't Torture A Duckling style excess will be disappointed, to the extent that it might be even doing the film a disservice to include it on a GIALLO ESSENTIALS set - it'd be like putting Peeping Tom in a set with The Burning and Silent Night Deadly Night or something. Not that I didn't enjoy the film - on the contrary, I found it quite engaging and enjoyed the change of pace, but some viewers may not adjust as quickly and feel bored. Just a warning! Enjoy it for what it is, don't dismiss it for what it isn't!

The third film on the set is also kind of light on the violence, but it too is based on a true story so you can't really blame them for having some tact. The Pyjama Girl Case (Italian: La ragazza dal pigiama giallo) is based on a real life mystery involving an unidentified body, and uses the names and more or less the same motive as the person ultimately convicted of the crime, although many believe the case was never truly solved (for starters, the victim had different color eyes than the woman the murderer claimed he killed!). At any rate, it's an engaging film that splits its time between the detectives (including a hilarious Ray Milland as a grouchy old-school cop that scoffs at psychoanalysis) and a woman named Linda who is desperate to find love. She is currently dividing her time between at least three men, each having something the other lacks, presumably trying to feel out which one would be best in the long run.

One might assume she is the killer's next victim, but (spoiler for 45 year old movie ahead) after a while it shouldn't take too many brain cells to realize that the film has a split timeline, and she is in fact the dead woman that the other characters are trying to identify. It's an unusual approach to this sort of thing, and director Flavio Mogherini treats it as a twist of sorts, neglecting to note that half of the scenes are essentially flashbacks by coloring them differently or doing on-screen "Six months earlier" kind of text. Saw fans will be accustomed to this sort of thing (given that it's set in Australia, I'd be very curious if the Aussie directors of Jigsaw are fans, as it did the same thing albeit more overtly in service of a twist), but a casual viewer might just be puzzled why the two sets of characters aren't interacting and - perhaps more importantly if they sat down for a giallo - why no one else was being killed.

That said, as with Possessed I found it quite involving, aided greatly by both Milland's delightful performance (wait til you see his final send off to a pervert suspect) but also the lovely Riz Ortolani score, which also includes a pretty haunting/amazing theme song sung by Amanda Lear (listen here if you've never been blessed). Ortolani is on hand for an interview along with actor Howard Ross and editor Alberto Tagliavia, but for my money the highlight of the video extras is a lengthy interview/essay by Michael Mackenzie, who speaks about the "globalization" of giallo, i.e. how many of them feature plots of visiting Americans (or any non-Italian really) being caught up in a murder mystery in Italy, or an Italian going somewhere and, yes, being caught up in a murder mystery. To his knowledge (so I'll believe him) this is the only one set in Australia, which certainly gave it some new flavoring even if Mogherini seemed a bit obsessed with showing the Opera House in Sydney. There's also a Troy Howarth commentary, but it's a little icky at times - he is clearly quite infatuated with the actress playing Linda (who is indeed beautiful), laments at the brevity of a lesbian scene, and at one point basically admits to masturbating. I know I complain about them running off the filmographies of the actors, but I'd rather listen to that, I must say.

A second volume is already on the way, including Torso, What Have They Done To Your Daughters, and Strip Nude For Your Killer, all of which definitely fall in "your mental image of a giallo" territory. And I've seen them all (in fact I think I have the original Arrow releases!), which is a bummer because I was hoping to discover more, but I like that they're being released so close together. A new fan to the genre can get both and enjoy a trio of traditional entries, and then another group of more offbeat, dare I say classier (or at least, less sleazy) titles that, when you group all six together, really shows off the range and potential of this somewhat underappreciated genre. Add in all of the bonus features and you can basically go from newbie to halfway decent scholar for the price of two boxed sets!

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Crazy Desires of a Murderer (1977)

APRIL 3, 2021

GENRE: GIALLO
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

I felt a tinge of pride when Vinegar Syndrome's third "Forgotten Gialli" set arrived and I discovered I had actually seen one of the movies before (Autopsy, via a revival screening); it's like I'm a hardcore veteran of such fare! But I'm not, and even if I was, I could be forgiven for not having seen Crazy Desires of a Murderer (Italian: I vizi morbosi di una governante) before, as it was never given any kind of home video release in the US until now, which is sadly the case for a lot of these. I mean, that's great that they're rescuing them, but with everyone settling for streaming now, these films are going to continue to be obscure to general fans whether they deserve to be or not.

Anyway I had a lot of fun with this one, though it wouldn't necessarily come to mind if asked to recommend a few titles to someone new to the genre. Not that it's a "for die-hard fans only" affair, but it doesn't seem necessarily beholden to the formula for these things, and for a while it barely resembles one at all. Things start off on brand: there's a murder in the opening scene, then a young woman and her friends, having just returned from China, hang out at her baron father's home and party. One friend is working on some kind of drug deal where he's attempting to screw his partner out of the money, so we have our possible motive established, and there's even a creepy relative for good measure.

But after the centerpiece murder, a detective (Corrado Gaipa, aka Don Tommasino!) arrives to investigate and it basically turns into a Columbo episode for the remainder of the runtime. He takes over lead character duties, leaving our assumed heroes in the background (at one point the drug dealer guy and his partner get into a fight and he knocks the guy out - and then they're not seen again until the final scene, apparently having reconciled) and manages to make things more complicated by coming up with valid theories as to why pretty much every other character could be the killer. Don't get me wrong, it's still enjoyable - it just gives it a different feel than the other gialli of the era, giving it kind of a more throwback feel to the earlier days (where police involvement was more prominent), but also with intermittent gory murders that were the order of the day. It's an admirable attempt to blend the old with the new, for sure, but the blend could have used some fine-tuning.

Speaking of throwback: even though the movie was produced just a year before Halloween, there's a "quickie Psycho ripoff" feel to the proceedings, as the prime suspect for the killer is a mama's boy with a penchant for taxidermy and (black and white!) flashbacks showing him killing his mother's lover. We know it can't actually be him because it's too easy, but it's kind of amusing to think that nearly twenty years after Hitch's masterpiece, people were still brazenly ripping it off. I was also endlessly amused by how indestructible the Baron was, as it seems he's about to be killed in the opening scene, only to appear alive and well a few minutes later. Then he has a heart attack, which we learn is the third he's had and will probably survive this one as well! Weirdly, the actor went uncredited despite having some prominence, and never made another movie again, so perhaps Gaipa's character look into that for a sequel.

Oh, if you like sex in your violen-I mean, in your gialli, you will likely be pretty satisfied. At one point our non-detective main characters play what can only be referred to as a pornographic version of Charades, where two people have sex in a certain way and the others have to guess which movie they're copying (next time someone suggests Charades at a party, I guess I shouldn't be so dismissive). Then after that, they all go to their rooms and have more sex, with different partners than seen during the game. One pair seems to be suggesting a bit of DP via a candle at one point (the male fashions the melting candle into something a little smoother and rounded at the top as the woman turns over on her stomach, so uh...), and there's even a bit of "take sexual advantage of a mentally challenged guy" flair that I haven't seen in quite a while (Devil Times Five fans, stand up!). Like the other elements, the formula is a bit off, as it comes off like someone came along and inserted it at the 11th hour, but in the overall experience it kind of fits; it's like an exquisite corpse movie. It's a giallo, then a softcore comedy, then a '70s detective TV show.

Director Filippo Walter Ratti (for whom this film would be his last; he died a few years later) seemingly tries to apologize for the lull in the murdery parts though, as they are incredibly graphic. Apart from the killer wearing *white* gloves (10 yard penalty, movie!) the big one in the middle is a pretty standard sequence for this sort of thing until the character expires, at which point the killer removes the victim's eyes, which we watch in gnarly (and, for its day, fairly convincing) detail. One would think this meant the start of the killer offing all of the group, but nope -(spoiler for 40+ year old movie ahead) she is actually the only one of the six to die, as supporting characters make up the rest of the body count. The detective even laughs about how they were just red herrings!

The lone extra is an interview with one of those sidelined actors, who talks about arguing with the director and also believes he was never paid for the film. I'm always a fan of these candid takes, but unfortunately either due to lax translation for the subtitles or just his own inability to provide context, it's kind of hard to follow what he's talking about sometimes. He frequently rattles off names of people who don't seem to be involved, alluding to events and other movies as if we're all on the same page, so I honestly couldn't really take much from the chat beyond what I already mentioned. But hey, better than nothing, since even a trailer for the film seems to be elusive.

The last film on the set is the aforementioned Autopsy, which I never reviewed when I saw it as it was part of a double feature with Eyeball and I enjoyed that one more. But I also don't really remember much, so I'll at least give it a quickie review when I get to it. I'm kind of backed up on review discs and there's a bunch of stuff on Shudder and Netflix that I've been wanting to watch, AND I still haven't even gotten to the *2nd* Forgotten Gialli set! So I either gotta be choosier with what I actually review (I'll WATCH everything I am sent, for sure, but can't always justify a writeup) or learn to get the hell off of Twitter. And maybe stop doing so many puzzles. It's a tough life, man.

What say you?

P.S. The set is currently only available through Vinegar Syndrome's site. But here's the Amazon link for the first one, if you want to buy your cat food or household products or maybe even a book at the same time.

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Murder Mansion (1972)

MARCH 20, 2021

GENRE: GHOST, GIALLO
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

One valid criticism of the giallo sub-genre is that they tend to get a bit samey; the casual sex, the black gloves, the money schemes... if you take any half dozen at random you're likely to see the same plot points turn up in at least half of your picks. This is partly because they rarely cross with other genres, which can do wonders for what might actually be a fairly generic story; if I were to say "an unseen menace picks off a group of people one by one until there's only one female left" you might think I'm describing Friday the 13th but I'm actually thinking of Alien. So imagine my surprise when I picked a movie called Murder Mansion (Spanish: La mansión de la niebla) from Vinegar Syndrome's latest Forgotten Gialli collection and discovered it was less giallo and more... Old Dark House movie?

Things start off pretty typical for such a "yellow" film; there's a guy on a motorcycle, another guy in a car, and a lovely hitchhiker that the latter picks up and instantly starts rubbing her thigh (with black gloves, of course). Then we meet a guy who tells his wife he's waiting for a notary but he's actually in bed with another woman (a prostitute, maybe? She mentions him spending "all his money on women like her"), so within ten minutes or so we have all the proper ingredients: sex, money, gloves, and motorcycles. But then the hitchhiker, tired of the driver's advances, hooks up with the motorcycle guy as they head toward a town nearby, and things get a little more supernaturally charged.

Turns out everyone is heading the same way (and some are even involved with the same people!), but a thick fog and confusing directions leaves everyone lost. After some atmospheric wandering around in the countryside, everyone ends up at the titular locale (well, it's not ACTUALLY named Murder Mansion, as they probably wouldn't have stopped, but you know what I mean) and it starts to resemble James Whale more than Sergio Martino. I figured someone would just start killing everyone in the joint and it'd be up to our heroes (motorcycle guy and hitchhiker, aka Fred and Laura) to figure it out, but nope! Before long they're full on walking around dusty/spider-webbed basement corridors, and a pair of ancient ghouls seemingly rise from the adjacent cemetery to scare some of them into sounding crazy.

Hell it's even quite possibly the most chaste 1970s eurohorror film I've ever seen, with very little sex and even less violence. It's not until the climax that the body count really rises, and (spoiler for 50 year old movie ahead) it's just mostly bloodless gunshots as opposed to the usual knives and razors. The killer's motive still circles back to familiar giallo themes (money and daddy issues, in this case), but it's kind of remarkable how un-giallo it all is, to the extent that the reveal was the first time in close to an hour I even remembered that this was presented as that kind of film in the first place. If this was somehow the first "giallo" you ever saw, you'd have the weirdest impression of what these movies were like.

That said, I found it delightful all the same. Again, since so many of them are kind of similar, it was great to just get caught up in the spooky shenanigans instead of thinking "They stole that bit from What Have You Done To Solange!" or something like that. There's a great sequence where the two heroes are being shot at in the graveyard, and they think it's the guy from the car (who shrugs off Fred "stealing" Laura from him and hits on someone else at the house, but surprisingly takes no for an answer pretty quickly), but then they discover that his body was just being propped up and he's been dead for a bit - it's the sort of thing that adds to the mystery but without the usual abundance of exposition that usually just ends up complicating these movies. That Fred and Laura are actually pretty likable people is another perk; it's rare to find much sympathy in these movies, as even the heroes tend to be misogynist jerks (you usually end up feeling more compassion for the killer who is often a victim of childhood trauma or something).

The lone extra on the disc (no historian commentary, alas) is an interview with Evelyn Stewart ne Ida Galli, who plays the lady of the house. Fitting for such a PG-ish kind of movie, it's one of the more upbeat actor interviews I've seen from something from this place and time; usually these interviews are hilariously candid about brutish directors, co-stars who couldn't ask, scripts being rubbish, etc, but Stewart is pretty complimentary about the whole affair. She even says something to the effect of "I don't have any bad memories of this one!", and the closest she gets to any kind of dirt is something about the soon-to-be ex-husband of one of her female costars, who she bonded with. It's kind of sweet, though fairly dull if you're used to the more unabashed "I'm retired now so IDGAF" nature of these pieces.

Despite its rather flimsy connection to the sub-genre, I'm super glad Vinegar included it on their set. You can't argue with its "forgotten" status (the IMDb page is pretty bare, and when you click on the title on Stewart's page, it brings you to the page for the '80s adventure game Maniac Mansion, which is another of its titles), and at the end of the day the main goal is preserving these movies and finding them the audience they deserve. Hopefully these volumes will continue; not only are they helping me expand my giallo horizons, but they're also given wonderful packaging that looks great on the shelf. Having survived the shoddy era of cheap cardboard boxes (remember that Omen set? Ugh!), I find myself in awe of how sturdy Vinegar's collections are. I'm all about that deluxe aesthetic!

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All The Colors Of The Dark (1972)

OCTOBER 9, 2020

GENRE: GIALLO, PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: STREAMING (SHUDDER)

Considering Rosemary's Baby's importance in the horror genre and the Italians lengthy history of "paying homage" to successful American films, I'm surprised to realize that All The Colors of the Dark (Italian: Tutti i colori del buio) is one of the very few I've seen that appear to be directly inspired by it. While Exorcist and The Omen got cribbed from mercilessly, for whatever reason (perhaps just dumb luck with my selections) the plight of Rosemary Woodhouse didn't seem worthwhile to rip off all that often, making this 1972 film a novelty for me.

I also haven't seen too many of Sergio Martino's films, a blind spot I keep half-thinking "I need to fix that" but (obviously) fail to take the initiative; the only ones I've seen are Torso and Blade of the Ripper, both of which I quite enjoyed. But they were more traditional giallo types, whereas this one blends the sub-genre not only with Rosemary's Baby's satanic cult elements, but also the sort of "Is this woman going crazy or not?" stuff that was, in turn, an escalation from his earlier Repulsion. So it kind of feels like this is the next logical step, because it has those elements plus knife wielding maniacs and - woo! - a "murder someone to steal their inheritance" plot, of which I am usually endeared.

Edwige Fenech plays Jane, who has recently lost an unborn child in a car accident and is still traumatized from her mother's murder when she was a child - fair to say she's got every right in the world to lose her mind. So it certainly doesn't help that she starts being menaced by a guy with piercing blue eyes (contacts, I hope; I don't want to live in a world with people whose eyes are THAT blue!), who seems to be trying to kill her but is thankfully not very successful. But is he even real, or a figment of her frazzled imagination? And who can she trust to tell about these things, especially when one friend's advice is "hey maybe you should check out a black mass", which results in her being terrified by ANOTHER guy and increasingly unsure of who to believe about these things.

It's an interesting approach taken by Martino and his writers; there is so much stuff going on it's almost impossible to believe all of it could be really happening, so you just start wondering *which parts* are real, if any. But, thankfully, it doesn't take until the final scene to get our answer, as the script is nice enough to occasionally offer a scene between characters where Jane isn't present, which confirms that at least some of what she is saying is true even though the movie isn't quite over yet. There's a Psycho style epilogue where someone rattles off a lot of exposition to fill some holes, but until that point I think it's well balanced - it never gets too confusing, but the mystery remains more or less compelling throughout.

It can get a bit exhausting though, as Feneche is seemingly chased and/or attacked every ten minutes, with the score from Tarantino fave Bruno Nicolai bombarding you throughout each one (and the scenes between). The plot is largely inconsequential, this is more of an "experience" that only took me about fifteen minutes or so to start thinking that it was a big influence on Cattet and Forzani's films Amer and The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears (the latter actually has a piece of Nicolai's score, so there's no "deduction" necessary there). I almost wish I had saved it for a big screen/large crowd viewing, as it would probably benefit from the enhancement, but since my most recent giallo experiences were more low-key, the change of pace was nice.

But the thing I loved most requires a spoiler for this 48 year old movie, so skip this paragraph if you want to remain pure! For those who are still here - I absolutely adore the fact that George Hilton' male lead, who has the hilarious name of Richard Steele (think of nicknames for "Richard"), was the rarest of things in an Italian genre film from the era: an actually decent guy. Not only does he spend the movie trying to help his fiance (even when she starts suspecting he may be part of the problem), but when a female villain tries to seduce him with her body AND the promise of riches, he shoots her down (literally!), whereas most of his peers would, if not go all the way through with it, at least enjoy the sex being offered him before regaining his nobility. I try not to judge films for their "dated" content because I know they are products of their time, but it can be difficult at times to enjoy these things when the guys are such monsters while serving the role as "hero", so it's just a relief when one comes along that doesn't require a disclaimer or an apology.

Hopefully Shudder keeps adding more of these films to their increasingly impressive lineup; I'm sure they don't sell subscriptions the way exclusives and big gets like Halloween (I believe they're the only ones who have it on their lineup without an additional charge) can, but to me this is the kind of stuff that will keep me renewing - movies I missed along the way when I know I'll never be able to keep up with all the modern options. Every day there's like five new movies coming along across all these services, and it's just daunting to try to even put a dent in that lineup. But I CAN get through all of Martino's genre output, which has a finite number of options - doing that will make me feel accomplished, instead of trying to stay on top of the newer stuff, which is akin to trying to stop a boat from sinking by cupping my hands together and spooning the water out. And I'll probably enjoy the films more to boot.

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The Police Are Blundering In The Dark (1975)

JULY 7, 2020

GENRE: GIALLO
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

It's interesting that only one of the three films on Vinegar Syndrome's Forgotten Gialli collection is actually from Italy, since they're the ones who were responsible for the sub-genre (some even say if it's not Italian it's not even a giallo, which I don't agree with, but I guess they will be furious about this). The Police Are Blundering In The Dark is that one exception, a true Italian production (the other two were Spanish films) and, of the three, the one where Dario Argento's influence was most apparent. It's also the fastest paced of the lot, offering a murder in the first few minutes while the other two on the set took their time getting to the black gloved shenanigans.

It also has the best title, though it sadly has little to do with the movie, as the police don't really factor into it at all. The line comes from a newspaper headline about a handful of murders that have occurred over the past 18 months (the one in the opening sequence being the latest), and surfaces again when one of the film's heroes explains why he was trying to solve the case, but that's it. Since so many gialli feature heavy police activity (in Argento's films, where they were often co-leads with the innocent hero whose name had to be cleared) it's kind of funny that one of the few to use "Police" in their title has about as much police activity as a later Friday the 13th sequel, i.e. none.

Instead, it has one of the horniest heroes ever, which meant I spent most of the movie laughing at his caddish ways. His girlfriend is the movie's second victim, who is using his car to travel to a modeling shoot (all of the victims are models) and has to stop somewhere along the way when the car breaks down. She calls him to let him know and ask him to come help, but he's already in bed with another woman! When he finally decides to come help her (she's already dead, alas) he ends up at the artist's home, at which point the artist's maid throws herself at him. This leads to a hilarious sequence where they get interrupted and she tells him to come to her room, which he can't find so he is kind of just wandering around the house looking for yet another woman to cheat on his girlfriend with. He never manages to find her, but as a consolation prize he ends up sleeping with the artist's niece for good measure. All while trying to find his girlfriend! It's amazing.

As for the mystery, it's inadvertently made "difficult" by what I assume was a mistake in the opening kill. As is often the case, we only see the arm for the most part, swinging into frame toward the victim, but at one point the stuntman/camera operator/whoever playing the arm lunged a little too far and offered three frames of the side of his face. Later on, when we meet the artist, one could conceivably think they were the same person, and since he is confined to a wheelchair, it seems like it could be setting up a twist (he's faking his invalid state!). But no, it's just a bad mistake from the director/editor, and my (very close) second pick was the guy it turned out to be anyway.

It's also not particularly complicated or involved - he just wants to kill women, I guess. No lengthy childhood flashbacks to explain the trauma is offered, nor is the particular hatred toward models explained. Just a crazy guy, and that's that. And the camerawork is equally rudimentary - apart from a few long (still) shots where an entire scene plays out without a cut, there's nothing notable about any of it, no flourishes during the murders or vivid imagery. That said, the screenwriter goes for some mild Four Flies on Grey Velvet-esque silliness with the late reveal that the artist is working on a device that can produce an image of what someone is thinking about, which of course helps identify the killer. The hero ultimately doesn't really do anything himself, amusingly; you can cut him out of the movie entirely and it would play out pretty much the same way.

But then you'd be denied what might be my favorite scene! He goes to the hotel where his girlfriend was staying, and asks for the clerk to go wake her up. We know she's dead already, so watching the guy go check the empty room then come back would be pointless. Instead, we stick with the hero, who sits down in the lobby and watches the hotel's maid endlessly wipe down a table, rolling her eyes at this guy's intrusion. It's like a full 60 seconds that offers absolutely nothing, but I found it delightful - it kind of reminded me of the bit in The Prowler where the bored deputy just pretends to go look for the sheriff until enough time has passed to tell the caller he isn't in. So pointless/random, but so good.

Unlike the other films on the set, there's no historian commentary for this one - which makes sense given how obscure the movie is (this is apparently its first official home video release, on any format, ever). Instead, there's an audio essay that runs about 10 minutes, quickly covering the highlights of its participants' careers and offering some perspective on the film's merits and placement within the genre. It's nothing particularly essential, but worth a listen to get your money's worth, and I took extra enjoyment since the writer shares my opinion that the film is enjoyable without doing anything notable. It came out in 1975, so the sub-genre had already been well established (and if you include that year's Deep Red, gone through most of its most well known classics, in retrospect), but feels kind of underwhelming, so it kind of reminded me of those later '80s slashers like Iced and Berserker where they were just going through the expected motions for a sub-genre that was already losing its appeal. That said I still enjoyed it, perhaps because The Killer is One of Thirteen (the second film from the set that I watched) was kind of a snooze so it just looked good in comparison? Either way, I had a good time with this set and look forward to Volume 2, though all of them are definitely "for completists only" as opposed to must-see entries.

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