Giallo 'allo?

Buick6

too punk to drunk
'giallo' movies.

The next untapped 'cannon' for pomo trendies to re-imagine contextually subtextually.

Brian DePalma, we hardly knew you.

'Women's weepies' with sex and blood.

Soundtracks to die for.

Better and more 'modern' than Hitchcock! (Oi!)

you know you love them, and if you don't you want to (or will)

Discuss.
 
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Omaar

Guest
This is stuff like Dario Argento right? Goblin are pretty awesome. What's the capricorn-giallo connection?
 

Buick6

too punk to drunk
Argento is referred to as the 'best' as his films tend to be the most overtly stylised and explicitly violent, however there were hundreds of these films made. Lucio fulci made some truly sophisiticated gialli before he became a spltterpunk merchant as well as Sergio Martino, who is the Douglas Sirk of splatter, the aldo Lado made Marxist-gialli that gave Passolini a run for his money and then some.

Trust me I'm a professional.

whats the Capricorn business all about?
 

BSquires

Well-known member
Argento is one of my favourites. Have you seen his latest - The Card Player? There have been some complaints that he has dropped the ball, but I thoroughly enjoyed it... it isn't that gory, but still has enough thematic and stylistic tics to make it interesting... The 'animal' tiliogy are all excellent, Deep Red is a work of modernist genius, Suspiria has the scariest opening reel in cinema, Tenebrae changed my life and I even have a soft spot for Phenomena... I could go on...

As for other giallo, I've not seen too many but Bava's Blood and Black Lace, which I believe is the first example of the genre is pretty decent as are the contents of Anchor Bay's Giallo Boxset...

You are dead right about De Palma - he has always been more Argento than Hitchcock to me. When Brian is on form he is another personal favourite. It's propably my scopophilia...

In general you can't go wrong with widescreen aspect ratios, close-ups of eyes, OTT violence, dubious prog rock and outrageous twists. What's not to like?
 

Noah Baby Food

Well-known member
Nice topic! One of my obsessions, this...

There's a whole wealth of Italian exploitation cinema from the 60s, 70s and 80s, some really stylish interesting stuff, back when there was reasonable money in their film industry. Argento is a masterful director but sometimes seems to wilfully fuck things up - his films can be inconsistent from scene to scene, but visually they're some of the most striking ever. Not seen The Card Player yet, but have heard it's filmed in a much more naturalistuc style to his usual overblown theatrics, so he's gotta be commended for doing something different for sure.
Right about Fulci though - those who have just seen his 80s splatter stuff don't realise how good he actually was...the guy made westerns, comedies, all kinds of stuff, and his gialli are very good.
Umberto Lenzi also made some good 'uns...Ruggero Deodato too...in fact all these guys were proper workhorses, turning their hand to many different genres (I enjoy what I've seen of the hard-boiled Italian polizei (sp?) movies too, crazy macho stuff).

Interesting complement to the gialli is the strain of American grindhouse movies made in the 60s and 70s...dealing with similar themes (and mucho misanthropy, misogyny etc) but with none of the overt visual flair...stuff you need a shower after watching. Saw "Don't Answer The Phone!" the other night and it's great. There's something about the atmosphere of these films that can never be replicated I reckon...there's far more extreme material available nowadays, but it's all about the tone .
 

Buick6

too punk to drunk
Noah Baby Food said:
There's something about the atmosphere of these films that can never be replicated I reckon...there's far more extreme material available nowadays, but it's all about the tone .

Too right..genre now is retarded, has no tone, shitty feel, and it's all about wanky transgression and going for that 'snuff film' vibe, or it's all ripoff of 'Silence of the lambs' ad nauseum or David Fincher with the annoying flash-cuts. The Japs and Koreans get interesting 'tones'

I thought argento's recent 'Sleepless' was the best 'giallo' since, fuck 'Basic instinct'! But it's pretty inspiring that he still made a film that has the tone, soundtrack, chicks and crazy set-pieces that he was doing back in the 70s-80s.
 
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Omaar

Guest
I've not seen too many of these films, I was howevere particularly imressed by Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust.

My favourite thing about D'Amato is this list which I found on IMDB, this has to be some kind of record:

Sometimes Credited As:

Sarah Asproon
Donna Aubert
Stephen Benson
Steve Benson
Anna Bergman
John Bird
Alexandre Borski
Alexandre Borsky
James Burke
Lee Castle
Lynn Clark
O.J. Clarke
Hugo Clevers
Joe De Mato
Michael Di Caprio
Dario Donati
Raf Donato
Romano Gastaldi
Robert Hall
Richard Haller
David Hills
Igor Horwess
George Hudson
Gerry Lively
Kevin Mancuso
A. Massaccesi
Aristice Massaccesi
Aristide Massaccesi
Aristide Massaccessi
Arizona Massachuset
Andrea Massai
J. Metheus
Peter Newton
Una Pierre
Zak Roberts
Tom Salima
John Shadow
Federico Slonisco
Frederick Slonisco
Fédérico Slonisco
Dan Slonisko
Federico Slonisko
Federiko Slonisko
Frederick Slonisko
Frederico Slonisko
Frederic Slonisko
Frederiko Slonisko
Fred Slonisko
Chana Lee Sun
Chang Lee Sun
Michael Wotruba
Robert Yip
Joe d'Amato
 

Buick6

too punk to drunk
Noah Baby Food said:
What do you think of Joe D'Amato, Buick? what a guy he was. Have you seen "Emannuelle In America"?

Actually, hehe, the first I ever heard of Joe D'Amato was from a porno movie I bought called 'outlaws'. It was a porno Western with some of the hottest girls having the hottest sex I'd ever seen! I then did a Google (this was around 1999, and he'd recently died) and found that he had some 'cult' film connection.

It was only recently that I became aware that he'd made tons of giallo, horror, exploitation and hardcore porno titles!. He was also a gifted cinematographer, you should check out the giallo 'what have they done to solange'. D'Amato was the DOP and it's one of the finest giallos ever. It was shot in London, as were many giallos, capturing the 'swinging' vibe of the late 60s and early 70s.

In the late 90s D'amato mainly did hardcore porno. Even when its filth, those Italian's always got class!
 
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Noah Baby Food

Well-known member
The guy was incredible, a real master hack - would do any genre, bang 'em out. He used to say "I am not a very good director but I'm a good cinematographer". Can you imagine ANYONE in Hollywood talking about themselves in such terms?

Emmanuelle in America is nuts - in the course of her sexy and free-spirited escapades (which includes a bit where a woman tosses off a horse, for crying out loud - the noise it makes is fuckin crazy) our heroine uncovers a snuff movie ring. the "snuff" sequences are very well done, very convincing and genuinely shocking. the whole thing is filmed like a TV movie or a soap opera, so when the nastiness kicks in it's very disconcerting. Also features some very incongrous hardcore scenes featuring VERY ugly people who have no relevance to the plot.

Other good uns by this man:

Absurd - follow up to The Anthropophagous Beast, classic early 80s slasher featuring Italian exploitation stalwart, the massive George Eastman. No sex in this one. Very grim sadistic tone, the pace isn't that great but the gore sequences are superb.

Porno Holocaust - I have the Italian disc of this with no subtitles. From what I can make out it's about a huge black man who lives on an island murdering folk with his big demonic penis. Old Joe said that the mix of sex and horror didn't quite work in this one.

Buio Omega (aka Beyond The Darkness) - everything fell into place with this one...it's claustrophobic, quite well acted, nice visual touches and very extreme. definitely one of his best.

Emanuelle And The Last Cannibals - very enjoyable jungle potboiler, not as unpleasant as Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust or Lenzi's Cannibal Ferox, but good film.


...haven't had the pleasure of "Quest For The Mighty Sword" or "Ator The Fighting Eagle"...his ventures into swords & sorcery are meant to be absolutely shocking..."Quest For The Mighty Sword" indeed... also, haven't really checked his straight-up porn stuff, although "Caligula: The Untold Story" is on its way to me - which is supposed to make the Tinto Brass original look tame.

there's even a documentary about the geezer (thanks IMDB), which I'm gonna have to seek out.

(related point: i IMPLORE anyone reading this to go and buy the DVD of "Troll 2". D'Amato produced it and the director called himself "Drake Floyd". You can pick it up for about three quid from Music Zone shop or amazon...please just trust me on this one. google it and check the reviews. one of the most ludicrous films i've ever seen)
 
O

Omaar

Guest
Animal Snuff

Buick6 said:
Cronenberg used 'emmanuel in america' as an influence for some of the ideas in 'Videodrome'

really? videodrome is fantastic, I'm curious to see this emanuelle in america ... on the subject of horseplay, has anyone seen 'the beast'?

What do people think about those animal death scenes in cannibal holocaust and ferox? I found them highly disturbing, but they seem important in order to blur the reality fiction boundary. Pretty abhorrent really though.
 

Noah Baby Food

Well-known member
Buick6 said:
Cronenberg used 'emmanuel in america' as an influence for some of the ideas in 'Videodrome'


Didn't know that, that's cool. Nice to see the culturally respectable giving props to the culturally unrespectable (stuff like that confounds da snobs...e.g. the critics not wanting to call Gaspar Noe an exploitation film director, and not calling Dead Man's Shoes a slasher film)

As for the animal violence thing...very contensious point. it does help to blur the line in Ferox and Holocaust, and it certainly ain't nice, but for me it did kinda work in these two films though. Gives the films a bit more of that barbaric, medieval vibe, if you know what I mean. However, I've got "Man From Deep River" by Lenzi, early seventies rip-off of "A Man Called Horse", which is credited as being the precursor to the whole cannibal genre. It's a terrible film, full of animal cruelty, but with no real "meat" otherwise. It actually offended me, and trust me, that never happens. Ferox and Holcaust have some great set-pieces, great sense of unrelenting sadism in the former and great documentary feel in the latter - and this all helps balance the nasty animal scenes. Man From Deep River has none of that, it's weak, and the animal scenes seem really distasteful and "tacked on".
 

Buick6

too punk to drunk
Well if anyone saw Michael Haneke's 'time of the wolf' they stab a horse in the throat and kill it.

Haneke is very hoity-toity arthouse stuff and very sick too.
 

viktorvaughn

Well-known member
Digging out this thread as recently watched a few of the Argento ones and thought they were great. Deep Red genuinely quite queezy/eerie. Any more tips?
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Craner is your man for this, have a look in the (kind of) thriving Euro Cult Film thread that's probably about third in the ranking in the Art section, loads of that stuff there.
 
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