Five Women for the Killer

Five Women for the Killer

"When you've stared death in the face, you never forget it."

Writer Giorgio Pisani (Francis Matthews) rushes home to see the birth of his son, only to find that his wife has died in childbirth. On top of that, he discovers that the baby isn't his - medical tests show that Giorgio is sterile. But as he pieces his life together, the police are investigating a gloved killer whose victims are all pregnant women - or women believed to be pregnant. Could Giorgio's grief and confusion be driving him to murder? Or perhaps smarmy pediatrician Dr. Betti (Georgio Albertazzi), who has just impregnated his mistress, is covering his tracks? The Police Inspector (Howard Ross) must find out before more women die!

Five Women for the Killer (not to be confused with Six Women for the Killer, a.k.a. Blood & Black Lace) is a decent post-Argento giallo that follows a pattern: a woman character is introduced, the woman reveals that she's pregnant, the woman is killed. By the fourth time this pattern plays out, the audience knows what to expect (and may find it a little boring) but the filmmakers pull the rug out from under our expectations in the final scenes. The script is cleverly set up to let the audience figure out the identity of the killer about two minutes before it's revealed on screen.

• Director Stelvio Massi was the cinematographer on one of my favorite gialli, The Case of the Bloody Iris.
• Composer Giorgio Gaslini, who would go on to contribute music to Deep Red, imitates the noisy, funky bebop of Ennio Morricone's Bird with the Crystal Plumage soundtrack.
• The title "sort of" makes sense because while only four women ended up dead, there were five intended victims.

What the Hell am I Watching?

If you're a main suspect in a series of murders and find yourself at a fresh crime scene before the police arrive, don't be like Giorgio and pick up the murder weapon. Major facepalm.

Fashion Moment

Nothing to report here. The plot doesn't include any cocktail parties, receptions or gallery shows, so none of the characters have a reason to dress up in anything fancier than sport coats and ties. 1970's casual wear abounds.

Obsession: A Taste for Fear

Obsession: a Taste for Fear

"Are knives standard in the bondage game?"

Diane (Virginia Hay) is a high-powered high-tech bisexual photographer who gets what she wants in the bedroom as well as in the studio. But when her model and lover, Tegan (Tegan Morrison) turns up dead, she has to stay a step ahead of Lieutenant Arnold (Dario Parisini) to protect her ex-husband, Georges (Gérard Darmon), who is the main suspect.  Soon, other people close to Diane are killed in the same way - bound in ropes and then stabbed, like a kinky encounter gone wrong. Can Diane find the real killer before Lieutenant Arnold closes in on Georges? And who will be the next to die in this wicked game of cat and mouse?

Obsession: a Taste for Fear definitely falls under the category of "sexy" giallo, with more gratuitous nudity and steamy scenes that any two other gialli combined. This movie is writer/director Piccio Raffianini's only credit - he never made another film before or since - but he seems to know his stuff, turning in a script with all the rhythms of a classic giallo and camera work throughout that pays homage to Dario Argento's Susperia, flooding each frame with deeply saturated color.

• You may know Australian actress Virginia Hay from her role in The Road Warrior, as a Bond girl in The Living Daylights, or as sexy blue alien Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan on TV's Farscape.
• The original Italian title, Pathos: Segreta Inquietudine translates roughly as Passion: Secret Anxiety. It's also sometimes called Pathos: Un Sapore di Paura, which literally translates as A Taste for Fear.
• The score by Gabrielle Ducros is a glorious late-80's fever dream of 808 beats, synthesized new-age panflutes and Lethal Weapon-style sax solos.
• There's a sly little homage to Michaelangelo Antonioni's1966 film Blow-Up, which was a touchstone for Argento's early films. Just like David Hemming's character in the mod classic, Diane gets frustrated during a photo shoot and tells her models to close their eyes and hold their poses, as she walks out of the building with no plans to return.

What the Hell am I Watching?

Near the very beginning of the movie, Georges takes Diane to a nightclub right out of a Stefon sketch from Saturday Night Live. This club has everything: little people ballroom dancers, a female bodybuilder, mirrors covered with cocaine, and a live band that plays New Jack Swing covers of George Gershwin songs.

Twice during the movie, scene transitions are made with a star-wipe, the cheapest and stupidest looking edit ever devised and one that has no place in a professionally-made film.

During the investigation, Lt. Arnold gets out of his car and is nearly run over by a speeding van. He draws his gun and fires what appears to be a laser blast. Where did that come from? Police have laser guns now? Are we in the future?

The movie never makes it clear what kind of photographer Diane is, exactly. She's not a fashion photographer, because her models almost never wear clothes. I suppose what she does could be considered high-end artistic erotica, but for what market? Calendars? Framed art prints?

Fashion Moment

When the characters do eventually get dressed, it's not often in something notable - or visible with all the high-contrast lighting effects.  But there seems to be a motif throughout the movie of crazy fashion eyewear. Here's Tegan, sporting some retro checkered shades.

Kim wears these strange sunglasses with matte lenses

Diane keeps it classic with black Ray Bans

And here's Georges in his Dwayne Wayne flip-ups (which he wears like an eye patch at one point).

Let's also have a look at the beautiful cinematography. It's a lot darker than Argento's use of color, but has the same disorienting, ultra-saturated effect.

 

 

Libido

Libido

"Not like my father! My god! Not like my father!"

As a child, Christian (Giancarlo Gianni) witnessed his father kill a blonde woman before hurling himself off a cliff. Now, many years later, Christian has returned to the house for the first time, accompanied by his wife, Helene (Dominique Boschero), the caretaker Paul (Luciano Pigozzi) and Paul's ditzy blonde wife, Brigitte (Mara Meryl).  Christian's guests are all on edge, unsure weather his return will stir up dark, traumatic memories and slowly but surely, Christian seems to lose his grasp on reality. He sees ghostly figures in the dark, chases phantom footsteps and swears that his dead father is in the house. Is the manor haunted by Christian's father? Or is Christian being gaslighted in an effort to steal his inheritance? If so, who is mastermind behind such a devious plan? 

Libido (not to be confused with the crime thriller In the Folds of the Flesh, which is sometimes also known as Libido) is a very early giallo and one of the first written by Ernesto Gastaldi, the man whose credits read as a list of the greatest gialli ever made and who created the template for the slasher film with Torso.  Libido starts as a Psycho-style psychological thriller, introduces elements of gothic horror (thunderstorms, an old castle, muddy footprints, etc.) and finishes with a string of devious cons, double-crosses and mis-directs, ramping up the action all the way to the end. Gastaldi was clearly a fan of Mario Bava but also learned a lot from the French classic Diabolique.

• You may know Giancarlo Gianni from his roles in Casino Royale and A Quantum of Solace. Dominique Boschero would appear in several other gialli, such as Who Saw Her Die? And giallo superstar Luciano Pigozzi - the "Italian Peter Lorre" - was featured in the classics Blood and Black Lace and Naked You Die.
• This was the first directorial effort for both Gastaldi and co-director Vittorio Salerno.
• Please note that the 2nd death listed above - Christian's father - is one that's talked about but not shown.
• The movie opens with a Freud quote defining the concept of "libido" in clinical terms, but that provocative title doesn't really suit this mostly buttoned-up production.

 What the Hell am I Watching?

Libido may not be very well-known, but it turns out to be a highly influential giallo movie. If you're already a giallo fan, you will be shocked by the opening scene: Christian, as a young boy, is dressed in a short-pants suit with knee socks playing with a mechanical toy that plays a creepy sing-songy tune. He hears a scream and witnesses a murder, scarring him emotionally for the rest of his life.

Sound familiar? There's no way that Dario Argento didn't have this scene in mind ten years later when he wrote the beginning of Deep Red.

Also, the rest of the movie involves a psychologically unbalanced man named Christian who holes up in a cliffside mansion with a blonde woman, an older caretaker and the caretaker's bubbleheaded younger wife.  I'd say that's also a pretty good description of the middle third of Spasmo.

Fashion Moment

Brigitte is young, adventurous, and clueless about social cues, so her fashion sense tends to be a little daring. In one memorable scene, the camera leers as she dances the hula, wearing only black underwear and a feather boa.

Later, Helene's eyes nearly pop out of her head when Brigitte reveals this tiny pusstcat bikini.

But she does glam it up later with this elegant evening look.

As a side note, here's the musical toy that sets Christian off. He says it's Jiminy Cricket, but there's no way that's not Mr. Peanut.

The Murder Clinic

The Murder Clinic

I never look at houses. Only the people living in them.

It's 1870 and at a remote English estate converted into a psychiatric asylum, a beautiful young patient has been murdered by a mysterious figure in a black hooded cloak. That same night, Giseéle (Françoise Prévost) is lost in the woods and stumbles upon the clinic's doctor, Robert Vance, burying the body. The next morning, Dr. Vance discovers Giséle and takes her in as a guest, where she meets the doctor's wife, Lizabeth (Mary Young), Nurse Mary (Barbara Wilson) and several patients at the hospital. Did Dr. Vance really kill the young woman? Or did one of the inmates finally snap? What are those strange footsteps coming from the forbidden third floor? And who will be the next to die?

The Murder Clinic (not to be confused with Slaughter Hotel, which has virtually the same plot) is an early giallo that relies on the trappings of gothic horror to create its mood: a dark castle, torch-weilding villagers and a quite-possibly-mad scientist. But The Murder Clinic also clearly owes a lot to the gialli of Mario Bava, whose trademark colored lighting is appropriated along with certain plot elements from Blood and Black Lace. There are also elements that presage an important later work but I'll go into detail below.

• Elio Scardamaglia was mainly a producer of Italian exploitation films. This is the only movie he ever directed.
• Barbara Wilson seems like a natural on-screen, but this is her only film credit.
• You may remember Massimo Reghi (who plays psychotic patient Fred) as Marco in Blood and Black Lace.
• The Murder Clinic is an early script by superstar screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi.
• A shallow grave in the woods does not count as a scene in a cemetery, for the purposes of the checklist above.

What the Hell am I Watching?

 When Dr. Vance finds Giséle in the woods, he gives her a quick medical exam. And by "gives her a medical exam" I mean "gropes her bewbs."

There's a flashback late in the movie scored to a knockoff of the main theme from Gone With the Wind. I'm sure it's just different enough to avoid litigation.

Fashion Moment

Scardamaglia attempts a color motif in The Murder Clinic, just like Bava did in Blood and Black Lace. In this case, the color red links back to the first murder. At the beginning of the film, the killer runs through the castle and seemingly into the Vance's suite, where Robert is wearing this red smoking jacket.

The next morning, the victim has mysteriously vanished and Nurse Mary finds her red book slashed across the cover.

Wearing a fancy red dress, Giséle stumbles across Dr. Vance burying the body and when he finds her, Dr. Vance is wearing a red cape.

Later, when Giséle tries to blackmail Dr. Vance, he is wearing the same red smoking jacket.

On a different note, it may sound strange but The Murder Clinic may have been an influence on one of the greatest giallo films of all time - Dario Argento's Susperia.  The first murder in both films features a young woman escaping a looming manor house and running from a killer through the woods at night.  There's a scene in The Murder Clinic where Giséle slowly explores the house, gets chased by the killer, locks herself in a room, watches in terror as the door handle rattles, and is attacked - rather like Sara's memorable scene in Susperia. Both movies feature a mysterious woman hidden at the top of the house, who holds the answers to all the weird goings-on. And there's this scene, where a servant chases the killer through a shadowy labyrinth of hanging laundry...

... which is reminiscent of this memorably creepy scene from Susperia:

So was Dario Argento inspired by elements of The Murder Clinic? I'll leave it up to you to decide.

Do You Like Hitchcock?

Do You Like Hitchcock?

"You know she can report it to the police. It's called 'stalking.' I read an article."

When Giulio (Elio Germano) isn't writing his thesis on German expressionist films, he's studying his sexy neighbor Sasha (Elisabetta Rochetti) through her window across the street. One day, he overhears Sasha talking with blonde-haired Federica (Chiara Conti) about Hitchcock at the local video store and shortly after, Sasha's mother is murdered during a break-in. Were the two women inspired by Strangers on a Train to kill for each other? Giulio becomes obsessed with finding the answer, but getting closer to the truth could land him in serious danger!

By the late 1980's Dario Argento had watched slasher movies surpass traditional-style gialli in popularity, and by 2005, those same slasher flicks were eclipsed by the ironic, meta, post-modern style of Wes Craven's Scream series.  Do You Like Hitchcock? (which was made as a TV movie) is clearly Argento's response to the new trend. Whereas Craven's characters were horror fans, ironically aware that they were participating in a slasher movie, Argento looked to the godfather of giallo and made his characters Hitchcock fans who find themselves acting out a suspenseful murder mystery. The obvious references are to Strangers On a Train, Rear Window, and Dial M For Murder, but there are also more subtle nods here to Psycho (an attempted bathroom murder and an embezzling office worker), Vertigo (a dark and light-haired pair of femme fatales), and a climactic ending right out of North By Northwest.

• Pino Donaggio contributes another dishwater-dull musical score. But at least there's some ambition behind this one, as it tries to mimic Bernard Hermann's strings-only Psycho score in key moments.
• Argento knows blood and he knows suspense. What he's never been very good at is sex scenes, and Do You Like Hitchcock? provides several clumsy, unresolved examples.
• This is late-period Argento, so it's not as stylized or visually inventive as, say Deep Red. But now and then - just every now and then - we get a flash of the old Dario. Throughout the movie we see brief moments of steady cam POV shots, macro lens pans, saturated lighting, and certain editing moves that could only have been done by Argento.
• There's some fantastic acting by Chiara Conti as we silently watch her get harassed by her boss, endure his abuse, and get forced into sleeping with him. She conveys a lot of emotion with barely any dialogue.
• At the very end of the movie, Giulio spies on a new neighbor. Notice that she's reading a giallo book, ironically titled La Finestra Sulla Notte or The Window in the Night.
• There's an attempted suicide, which I've listed above under "attempted murders"

What the Hell Am I Watching?

 I simply do not understand the point of the 8-minute prologue where young Giulio watches two women kill a rooster. Unless it establishes a history of Giulio spying on people, which is something that really didn't need to be established.

I have a hard time believing that in 2005 the video store still relies on a DOS-based computer system.

Argento can't help a bit of self-promotion. It's hard to miss the poster for his movie The Card Player (Il Cartaio) in the video shop.

Drinking game! Drink every time you see an architectural sculpture.

Fashion Moment

Mostly unremarkable but youthful street clothes. But this David Lynch fan at the store wears a parody T-shirt that made me smile.

Sweets From a Stranger

Sweets From a Stranger

"Horizontal in life and in death. What difference does it make?"

 A bicycle-riding killer is stalking prostitutes in the city, hacking them up with a razor blade before finishing the job with a handgun. The police have responded by stepping up patrols, but the local prostitutes aren't happy about the increased harassment and don't feel any safer. In response, they form an alliance, arming themselves, watching each others backs, and collecting evidence on suspicious clients. All this just adds to their own personal problems. Monica (Anny Papa) looks after a lonely, troubled young girl; Angela (Marina Suma) secretly supports her family as a high-priced call-girl; Stella (Mara Veiner) struggles with doubts about ever being loved and fitting into society. All the while the mysterious killer keeps striking – could it be a crazed client? The police inspector? Or perhaps it's one of the girls, turning on her sisters?

Sweets From a Stranger (not to be confused with So Sweet... So Dead) may have the framework of a murder mystery, but at its heart it's a gritty depiction of the lives of prostitutes, touching on serious issues. The movie addresses the dangers of the job, police apathy, financial difficulties, mental illness, abuse, and it ultimately asks us to consider who is being exploited by prostitution. Serious stuff.

• Sweets From a Stranger was written and directed by Franco Ferrini, one of Dario Argento's main screenwriters of the 1980's. This is his only directorial effort.
• The first murder is a shot-for-shot homage to Blood and Black Lace. The victim (Sabrina Ferilli) is chased through a wooded area, is knocked to the ground, and is hacked by a knife. Just as in Mario Bava's classic, the camera pans up to statues of crying angels as the girl dies, giving a sense of ironic pathos.
• That first victim (who is only called "La Romana" or "the girl from Rome") has a dog with her. When a John asks what the dog's name is, she coyly replies "Adescame" which translates as "seduce me" (or, literally, "lure me in"). 
• You may remember Anny Papa from A Blade In the Dark
• For a movie about prostitutes, there's very little nudity.
• For the purposes of the checklist above, I'm counting the hooker's union as an "all-girl institution."

What the Hell am I Watching?

Once the girls unite and devise a plan of action, they all drive to a field where they take clients and loudly address the nearby shrubs, (where they know peeping Toms hide) asking for protection and help in finding the murderer. Then, as a gesture of good will, they lift their coats and put on a (mostly chaste) show for the unseen men hiding in the foliage.

That whole scene is scored to a knockoff of the "Colonel Bogey March," which you may know as the peppy theme to Bridge on the River Kwai.

Fashion Moment

It's the mid-80's, so when the women aren't in over-complicated underwear, they're hiding under bulky layers and long shapeless dusters.

They look like an all-girl Cure cover band.

There is, however,  a scene where a group of the ladies drop off important evidence to the police, wearing masks to hide their identities.

Meow.

Sleepless

Sleepless

"He killed my mother. It's not the same for me as it is for you.

Not just a routine case. Or a hobby."

Seventeen years ago, in 1983, little-person serial killer Vincenzo Fabrizi murdered three people in Torino – including the mother of young Giacomo (Stefano Dionisi) – before his body was found, dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot. Now, in the year 2000, someone is killing the same way and leaving trademark paper animal cutouts at the crime scenes. Retired detective Ulysses Moretti (Max Von Sydow), who worked the original case, is drawn to the investigation once again, joined by a grown-up Giacomo. Is this just the work of a copycat killer? Was it really Fabrizi's body they found all those years ago? And how do the murders tie in to a violent nursery rhyme that the killer hums? 

By the dawn of the 21st century, the world had mostly forgotten about giallo, but its greatest auteur, Dario Argento, kept the fires burning with Sleepless. Here, he borrows not only from his own catalog (The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, Deep Red), but makes reference to the classics (Blood and Black Lace) and borrows from some of the lesser entries of the genre (a major third act plot point is lifted directly from The Pajama Girl Case).  But Argento's main inspiration for Sleepless seems to be David Fincher's 1997 thriller Seven, with its low-key lighting, grimy rain-soaked aesthetic, and a serial killer who commits ironically-themed murders based on a work of literature.

• The title ostensibly comes from Moretti's insomnia, but only a passing reference is made to the fact that he has trouble sleeping.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with the plot.
• The creepy nursery rhyme at the center of the story was written by Argento's daughter, Asia.
• Goblin is back, hooray! Argento movies just aren't the same without the eerie synth-rock sounds of Claudio Simonetti.
• It's weird to see giallo characters use cell phones. So many movies from the 1970's and 1980's hinge on the fact that the characters can't readily communicate from anywhere they want.
• Two of the murders listed in the body count occur before the prologue and another (Vincenzo's death) occurs between the prologue and the main action of the film.

What the Hell Am I Watching?

Seriously – what the hell am I watching? Because the "moody" lighting is so low most of the time that I can't make out what's going on.

If that blue file is so important, why do people keep forgetting it or leaving it alone or dropping it in the street? It's infuriating!

Police round up little people as suspects to the sound of wacky bassoon music. It's kind of insulting and off-putting.

Giacomo reunites with his childhood friends at a bar where his romantic rival, Fausto (Roberto Accornero) keeps bringing up the fact that Giacomo's mom was brutally murdered. Even when they change the subject, he keeps bringing it back and wonders why everyone is so sensitive. Also, they talk about the fun times as kids when they all murdered animals, as if it's just something every kid does growing up.

The gang meets up a few days later at a mime bar. As in a bar for mimes. Wearing striped shirts and white facepaint, pretending to be trapped in a box. I swear to God, this is a thing that happens in this movie. What's most bizarre is that it goes completely unremarked-upon. No one makes reference to the fact that they're in a bar full of mimes. This might be a visual reference to the movie "Blow-Up," one of Argento's early influences.

Fashion Moment

As a clever callback to the hitman in Argento's The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, the murder of a nightclub dancer is committed by someone in a yellow jacket -  literally a "giallo killer."

Cat O'Nine Tails

Cat O'Nine Tails

"That's it then. Nine leads to follow. It's a cat with nine tails."

A mysterious break-in at a high-tech genetics lab where nothing was apparently stolen has the police baffled, but newspaper reporter Carlo Giordani (James Franciscus) is determined to follow the story. He is joined by Franco Arno (Karl Malden), a blind crossword puzzle creator and shrewd amateur detective who uses his remaining senses to their full advantage. Before long, the burglar turns to murder in order to cover up the secret of his crime. Who could it be? One of the five lead scientists working on an important scientific breakthrough? Or perhaps it's Anna Terzi (Catherine Spaak), the sexy daughter of the company's owner. As they get closer to the truth, Carlo and Franco find that they are the killer's next targets!

Cat O'Nine Tails has a bad rap. It's generally considered to be one of Dario Argento's weakest films but it's not a bad movie at all. I will concede that it's about 20 minutes too long, but this movie is certainly not in his bottom five. It has a clever plot, interesting characters, good action, well-realized kill scenes, and top-notch suspense. But instead of taking it on its own terms, this sophomore effort is unjustly compared to Argento's dazzling debut, The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, and how do you follow up such a groundbreaking opus? To put it in a more modern context, Cat O'Nine Tails is Argento's Unbreakable.

• So blind amateur detective Karl Malden cares for orphan girl Laurie and together they solve crimes with handsome newspaper reporter Carlo. How was this not a TV show? They could have pitched it as "Face from The A-Team meets Murder She Wrote meets Punky Brewster."  Get Aaron Spelling involved and you've got a hit on your hands.
• Was the security guard murdered at the break-in? I don't think his injuries were fatal so I didn't list him in the body count. If he had died, everyone would have referred to the crime as "the murder" rather than "the burglary."
• Argento punctuates this movie with some really good set pieces: a suspenseful scene with poisoned milk, a car chase through Torino, a tense safe cracking scene, and a climactic rooftop brawl.  I also love that after narrowly escaping a poisoning, Carlo is apprehensive about drinking milk for the rest of the movie.
• Karl Malden is, arguably, the most famous actor ever to appear in a giallo film.

What the Hell Am I Watching?

The investigation takes Carlo to the lamest gay bar ever. I'm sure it was meant to represent the dark, dirty underbelly of the city but it looks just like your average Applebee's. Please notice in the background that they have a print of Richard Avedon's famous portrait of George Harrison.

One of Argento's favorite things (especially in these early movies) is to jump into a scene at the end of a conversation. So we repeatedly hear the end of one of Carlo's colleague's recipes, an anecdote about a sexy encounter at a tailor's shop, and the conclusion of an insult contest at a bar. It's a cute device that throws us out of context for a second and provides the film with a little lightness.

Why would a building have an elevator shaft that leads up to a skylight? Is that even possible?

Fashion Moment

Anna has a thing for these intricately-constructed outfits with cutouts all over the blouse and slits up the sides of the pants. Just like with her personal relationships, she keeps things covered up and reveals only as much as is nescessary.

Trauma

Trauma

"Each human being's head contains a soul. The one remaining riddle of the universe."

Recovering drug addict David Parsons (Christopher Rydell) gets more than he bargained for when he rescues anorexic teen Aura Petrescu (Asia Argento) from a suicide attempt. Aura is returned home to her parents, where her psychic mother, Adriana (Piper Laurie) is holding a seance for rich clients. But during the ritual, Adriana channels a recent victim of a serial killer called "The Headhunter," who has been leaving headless corpses around the city. Aura follows as her parents run into the night in a panic, but she is too late - and only sees the killer making off with the heads of her parents. Aura finds David for help and together they track down the killer. Could it be eccentric Dr. Judd, who is in charge of the clinic from which Aura escaped? What did Aura actually see that night? Together, David and Aura must uncover the dark, hidden secret that links the victims.

Trauma dates to 1993 - a time when the taste for gialli had long past and people were even getting bored with the predictability of slasher flicks. Scream would come along and turn everything on its head in only a few short years. But Dario Argento kept plugging away with this attempt to return to the glory days of Deep Red by recycling and re-arranging elements from his greatest hits (in that sense, he's like a cinematic Christopher Wren, who would rearrange the same architectural elements in different ways to create different buildings). I think Trauma had a lot of potential but was hindered by a few mis-steps. First, Argento's muse, Daria Nicolodi isn't in the cast. I suspect that the part of Adriana was written for her but the American producers insisted on Piper Laurie for her name recognition and horror cred. Second, there's the banal, forgettable orchestral score by Pinal Donaggio. Trauma would have been 100% improved with a classic Simonetti score. And third, the script may have worked by 1975 standards, but more modern audiences expect a higher degree of sophistication, better dialogue, and script that... y'know... makes sense.

• Character actor Brad Dourif (best known as Grima Wormtounge from The Lord of the Rings) has one scene and he goes full-on Nick Cage crazy with his brief screen time.
• Speaking of, Piper Laurie (who made her name playing crazy moms, such as her Oscar-nominated turn in Carrie) seems to have two speeds: nutso-bonkers and asleep.
• Along with his signature camera tricks, Argento also throws in "butterfly-eye-view." 
• The murderer's weapon of choice is an electric garrotte, which tightens a wire that cuts off the victims' heads. It's not exactly the same, but this manner of mechanical decapitation is one of the many elements borrowed from Deep Red.
• Corey Garvin, who plays Gabriel, the nerdy neighbor kid, continues the long giallo tradition of creepy, psychotic children. They sort of gloss over it, but he straight-up murders someone in this movie.
• The anorexia angle (which is established and quickly forgotten) was inspired by Argento's daugher Anna's own struggle with the disease.
• Horror movie legend Tom Savini was responsible for Trauma's makeup effects.

What the Hell Am I Watching?

Let's start at the beginning: As David reaches over the bridge to rescue Aura, he shouts "Stop struggling!" She is doing anything but struggling and, in fact, looks on the verge of passing out.

A co-worker bluntly asks David if he has done the grownup with Aura and he disgustedly scoffs "She's only sixteen!"  But that doesn't stop him from making out with her (and probably more) just a few scenes later.

Please enjoy one of the most cheaply-produced dream sequences ever committed to film.

One of the ancillary victims not only gets a full name – Nurse Hilda Volkman – but news of her death is accompanied by a professional black-and-white headshot. I find this hilarious.

Looking for Dr. Lloyd, David checks out a seedy local dive bar. Apparently, Argento's idea of an urban American bar is an old-timey saloon with dark wood paneling and a pianist in the corner banging out some ragtime.

This movie's killer is the MacGyver of homicide. When the electric garrotte breaks on a victim's necklace, he doesn't panic - he just places the stunned victim's head in an open elevator shaft and pushes "down." The elevator does the rest, chopping the head off cleanly. The decapitated victim is even able so scream before his head hits the ground. Gruesome and hilarious.

If they were to make action figures of the characters in this movie, I'd want one of the nameless pharmacist who punches out David. Action Pharmacist!

Stick around for the credits, wherein a reggae band performs from the front porch of a home near the final crime scene. The camera zooms in on a girl swaying to the music while the reggae band fades and the orchestral score takes over. It's simply a weird way to end a weird movie.

Fashion Moment

When Dario Argento makes a point of showing you an unusual piece of jewelry in the first ten minutes, you'd better believe that it's going to be important later on.

And by the way, track marks don't work like that. They're called "track marks" not "randomly spaced marks."

Opera

Opera

"I think it's unwise to use movies as a guide for reality. Don't you, Inspector?"

After the demanding lead singer of a new opera production of Verdi's Macbeth is injured in an accident, her young understudy, Betty (Cristina Marsillach) opens the show to rave reviews. But trouble is only just beginning behind the scenes of this "cursed opera," as Betty becomes the plaything of a murderer. He repeatedly ties her up and tapes rows of needles under her eyelids so she can't blink, forcing her to watch as he murders her friends and colleagues.  Strangely, these killings echo the nightmares Betty had as a child after her mother died – nightmares of a sinister man in a black hood. Could the killer be the demanding director Marco (Ian Charleston), who made his name directing ghoulish horror films? Or maybe it's her agent, Mira (Daria Nicolodi), always eager to drum up publicity?  Can handsome Inspector Santini (Urbano Barberini) uncover Betty's connection to the killer?

The consensus among many horror and giallo fans seems to be that after a brilliant run of early works, the quality of Dario Argento's films has slowly declined. I strongly disagree and will enthusiastically hold up many of his middle-period films from the 1980's against some of his earlier, more highly regarded gialli.  Opera (a giallo paraphrase of Gaston Leroux's The Phantom Of the Opera) is an excellent example, proving that, while he likes to return to certain story elements, he never stopped innovating new visual and narrative devices. Here we're treated to a bird's eye camera swooping dramatically through a theater, a perspective looking up from the bottom of a drain, disorienting 180-degree camera rotations, and a chilling visual "pulse" effect as the killer stalks his prey.  Who but Argento could come up with that? Most importantly, though, I find that Argento's middle period films - and especially Opera - have a more mature complexity, mixed in with the giddy anarchic fun of someone who loves making scary movies.

• The soundtrack is a fantastic mix of grand opera, moody synthesizers, and speed metal.
• You will never see a movie with more POV and steadycam shots than Opera.
• The sound effects are also a highlight of the film. From the croaking ravens to the sound of scissors ripping through a woman's sternum, the audio mix is incredibly visceral.
• Just as he did in Four Flies on Gray Velvet and Deep Red, Argento uses the "opening the curtain" effect as Betty storms through the theater after an attack.
• From behind a closed door we hear (but don't see) Betty's young neighbor get smacked by her surley mother. It still counts as a "woman slapped in the face."

What the Hell Am I Watching?

Let's say you've just knocked out your assailant while your friend is tied up nearby. Any sane person would: 1.) untie your friend 2.) unmask the killer 3.) grab the gold bracelet that the killer was after 4.) run for your life and call the police.  Unfortunately, for some reason Giulia chose to: 1.) go for the bracelet first 2.) unmask the killer 3.) get murdered when the killer springs back to life.

Here's another infuriating situation: After narrowly surviving an attack by a killer who is clearly targeting her, Betty goes home, blinds herself with eye drops, and then leaves the front door ajar when someone on the intercom claims to be her police escort. This moment of stupidity, however, leads to one of the best sequences Dario Argento ever filmed. Someone is in the house and someone else is banging on the front door. Both claim to be the police, but one is the killer. It's a fantastic piece of suspense, lit by pulsing colored lights in the style of Blood and Black Lace.

Betty is saved from the killer by a Deus Ex Machina in the form of a voyeuristic ragamuffin neighbor girl who likes to crawl around the building through the air conditioning ducts.

Why is there a tank of gasoline in the music library? There's also a life-sized, fully-clothed mannequin stashed in the corner, so I suppose the killer could have planted everything there ahead of time.

Fashion Moment

Betty's Lady Macbeth costume exemplifies the opera production: loud, jarring, gaudy, and anachronistic. 

The costume is also a major plot point. When the killer tears it to shreds, he inadvertently starts a chain of events leading to his own capture.

Deep Red

Deep Red

"You think you're telling the truth, but in fact you're telling only your version of the truth. 

It happens to me all the time."

Marcus Daly (David Hemmings) is an English jazz pianist living in Torino. Late one night, he witnesses the murder of a renowned psychic (Helga Ulman) through an apartment window, but arrives too late to help, though he's sure that there's an important detail at the crime scene that he can't quite remember. Marcus joins forces with reporter Gianna Brezzi (Daria Nicolodi) to track down the clues, which lead them to an abandoned house, an elementary school, and back again to the scene of the crime. As the clues are revealed, the murderer continues to strike in grisly fashion. The killer could be anyone – and Marcus is closer than he thinks.

Dario Argento has said that Deep Red is his favorite among his own films and it's a really good choice. I'd say it's his Rubber Soul, bridging the divide between two distinct phases of his career; it has the classic giallo format of his early works while introducing more paranormal elements, indicative of his middle period of the late 1970's and 1980's. Deep Red meanders at times but it has a brilliant and cunning little story. After you see the big reveal at the end, go back and watch it again - the thing Marcus couldn't remember was, in fact, there from the beginning.

• Deep Red is a cool title for a movie, but it doesn't really relate in any way to the story.
• The scene where the psychic has a vision of the killer in a theater is beautifully bookended by the opening and closing of a red velvet curtain. It's an effect that Argento first tried out in Four Flies on Gray Velvet and later used in Opera.
• In fact, the cinematography throughout the film is stunning. Check out the beautiful steady-cam work and macro lens shots.
• The bar in the square was designed after Edward Hopper's painting "The Nighthawks."
• Marcus and Gianna share an aggressive, competitive flirtation throughout the film. They're reminiscent of William Powell and Myrna Loy. I think this is Daria Nicolodi's best performance. David Hemmings reminds me of a young Michael Caine.
• The Art Nuveau mansion that Marcus explores still stands and is a highlight of Torino's Dario Argento Location Tour, though you can only view it from outside the fence.
• The two animal deaths are the bird suicide and the lizard with a pin in its neck. We only see the lizard thrashing around (which is very upsetting), but I think we can expect that it died of its injuries.

What the Hell am I Watching?

 That aggressive flirtation manifests itself in a weird, and completely superfluous co-ed arm wrestling scene.

Apparently, Torino has a Library of Folklore and Popular Traditions. Probably not a big tourist spot.

In the best scene in the movie, the psychic's manager, Bardi (Piero Mazzinghi) is in his study late one night after discovering an important clue. He hears a noise and suddenly a creepy-ass mechanical puppet wielding a knife runs at him from behind a curtain. He knocks it down and breathes a sigh of relief before the killer bashes his head from behind and stabs him in the back of the neck.  The appearance of the puppet is jolting and unexpected. The suspense is beautifully timed, the music cue is superb, and the payoff is fantastic.

Man, that little ginger psycho gives me the creeps. Nicoletta Elmi was the go-to child actress of the giallo era, also appearing in Bay of Blood and Who Saw her Die? She then grew into a stunningly beautiful woman and appeared in Lamberto Bava's horror movie Demons. She gave up acting in the 1980's to become a doctor.

Fashion Moment

Let's hear it for Carlo's boyfriend, Massimo, for bringing some casual fabulousness to the set.  Dude can rock a kimono.

 

It may surprise you to learn that Massimo is played by a woman – Geraldine Hooper – hence the androgynous look.

Four Flies on Gray Velvet

Four Flies on Gray Velvet

"I think someone is trying to drive you crazy before finally killing you."

Roberto Tobias (Michael Brandon) is a young rock drummer living in Rome with his wife, Nina (Mimsy Farmer). When Roberto notices a strange figure in black spying on him, he follows the man into an abandoned theater to confront the stranger. Suddenly the stranger pulls a knife, there's a struggle, and the man in black is stabbed and falls into the orchestra pit, dead. It's then that Roberto sees a figure high in the balcony wearing a doll mask, taking photos.  Days later, Roberto receives the dead man's ID card in the mail, then photos of the struggle, and menacing notes from the doll-masked stranger – but no blackmail demands. Roberto hires private detective Gianni Arrioso (Jean-Pierre Marielle), but anyone who gets too close to the truth is suddenly murdered. It seems that the murderer is closer than anyone suspects!

After The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Cat O'Nine Tails, Four Flies on Gray Velvet is the third installment of Argento's "Animal Trilogy," a series of unrelated gialli that only have animal titles as a common link. This one has style to burn, full of crazy camera angles, macro lens shots, a youthful aesthetic, and of-the-moment music cues, courtesy of Roberto's rock band and composer Ennio Morricone. The action starts in earnest as Roberto runs into a theater, parting the red velvet curtains in the doorways, and literally "opening the curtain" on his story (an effect Argento would repeat Deep Red and Opera). Sadly, the stylish direction overcompensates for a weak script which ultimately makes no sense. One of Argento's great strengths, though, is that he understands the need for a rhythm of tension and release throughout a film. And in this case, he throws in quite a few light moments, courtesy of Godwin (Bud Spencer), The Professor (Oreste Lionello, in top form), the slapstick antics of the Postman (Gildo DiMarco), the gay detective, and a visit to a coffin designers' expo.

• Four Flies on Gray Velvet is the least-known of Argento's early films, because it wasn't available on DVD until 2009.
• A poster for Four Flies on Gray Velvet appears in the lobby of the theater in the horror film Demons.
• The opening credits are creepily interrupted by a pulsing heart against a black background – an effect Argento would repeat in Susperia.
• Roberto and Nina live on "Via F. Lang. " As in "Fritz Lang." As in the German silent film pioneer who created the expressionist horror masterpiece Nosferatu.
•  I want Gianni's eye-shaped door handle. And I want Roberto's contoured steel phone
• Nina's cousin Dalia is played by Francine Racette, whom you may know as Donald Sutherland's wife and Kiefer Sutherland's stepmother.
• Roberto has recurring nightmares of a prisoner getting beheaded. Since it's just a dream, I counted it as a "fake murder."
• Jean-Pierre Marielle's detective Gianni Arrioso is one of my favorite giallo characters. I wish he could have had a spin-off TV series. Somebody get on that.

What the Hell Am I Watching?

 We're introduced to the character God (short for "Godwin") with a sudden Alleluia chorus. It's just a crazy, random moment. Oh, and Godwin has a parakeet named "Jerkoff."

Let's talk about naked bath time. When Nina flees for her safety, cousin Dalia draws Roberto a bath and gives him a neck massage. After some weak protests, she succumbs to his charms and ends up in the tub with him, sharing some adult time. This is the film's only sexy scene.

At the end of the film, the murderer gets a long speech, revealing the reasons for killing everyone. This isn't a monologue as much as it is an aria, and the actor really lets loose, taking it way over the top into an unhinged, lunatic rant. Some of the lines in this speech weren't dubbed into English, and on YouTube they're not subtitled. But you're not missing much – just a little more shouting about daddy issues and living in an asylum.

There are some beautifully staged kill scenes in this movie. My favorite is defined by a brilliant sense of rhythm. The following events occur quickly and at a steady beat:

1. Surprise knife to the forehead
2. Fall down the stairs. BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM
3. Scream
4. Bloody knife glints in the light
5. Stabbed in the chest

My other favorite kill scene is the slow-motion car wreck that finishes the movie. It is stunningly beautiful, set off by Ennio Morricone's haunting score.

Fashion Moment

A Wardrobe Assistant (Giovanni Viti) is credited, but not a Costume Designer. It's a shame, because someone got Roberto's cool-casual 70's rock star wardrobe exactly right. Lots of fitted shirts, T's, and tight jackets.  But you gotta love Gianni in his swanky double-breasted suit. You can tell that times are a little lean for him, because it's just slightly too big.

Honorable mention goes to Nina's pendant necklace, which provides a vital clue in the case.

Phenomena

 
Phenomena

"I love you. I love you all. I love all of you."

Jennifer Corvino (Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelley) is an American teenager at a Swiss boarding school who can communicate telepathically with insects and suffers from episodes of sleepwalking. The school just happens to be a funicular rail ride away from the home of Professor John McGreggor (Donald Pleasence), a famous insect scientist who is confined to a wheelchair and is assisted by a helper monkey. For nearly a year, the village has been terrorized by a killer who preys on young girls, but the police are baffled. The students at the Academy are only casually concerned. Can Jennifer find the killer with the help of her insect friends? Will Jennifer's horndog French roommate Sophie (Frederica Mastroianni) live to see the end of the movie? And what dark secrets does the school hold?

Err. Mah. Gerd.  I love this movie, you guys. Seriously. It is, hands down, my favorite Dario Argento film. If you're looking for a crazy, weird flick and you're sick of Troll 2, give Phenomena a spin because absolutely nothing makes any sense in this movie. It's like the script was written in Italian, translated into Martian, and then translated into English because no human beings talk or behave like the characters in Phenomena. It is totes cray-cray, but I'll get into specifics a little later. By the mid-80's, Argento moved away from giallo and into the realm of supernatural horror, but Phenomena seems to be an effort to marry the two genres. The movie is very atmospheric and there are some good horror effects, but things really ramp up in the last 15 minutes with rotting corpses, a fight scene on a boat, fire, a decapitation that comes out of nowhere, and, of course, a monkey with an old-fashioned strop razor. That she found lying in a trash bin.

• Among the many music credits are Goblin (of course), Iron Maiden, and Mötorhead.
• The costumes were done by Georgio Armani.
• The use of a knife-wielding monkey was clearly inspired by Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue."
• Jennifer uses an orange phone when she's talking to her dad's agent from the bank, not a red phone. So close. 
• I listed the body count as 8+ because we're never told how many victims there were before the movie started. There was the Dutch tourist at the beginning (played by Argento's daughter, Fiore) and McGregor's assistant, Rita, but there's an indeterminate number in between.
• Phenomena is my favorite Dario Argento film because it has every single one of his signature moves: a spear through the mouth, women smashing head-first through a window, slowly exploring a creepy old house, hidden rooms, scaling the outside of a building, Daria Nicolodi in the cast, creepy dolls, creepy doctors, psychic powers, swimming while fully-clothed, fire, women being poisoned, macro lens shots, maggots, a plot point lifted from a Poe story, a guy in a wheelchair, partially-decomposed human remains, and the main character is a foreigner living abroad.
• In the September 28, 2012 issue of Entertainment Weekly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon names Ingrid the chimp as one of his "five favorite horror characters."

What The Hell am I Watching?

Go back and read that synopsis again. Seriously. She talks to bugs. Helper monkeys. Donald Pleasence with a Scottish accent. I could go on for days about all the crazy in this movie, but here are just a few highlights:

There are at least four moments when the monkey just appears out of nowhere. BAM! MONKEY!

There's one line of voice-over in the entire movie and it's completely superfluous.

Speaking of superfluous, the script is packed with completely inconsequential details that never pay off later. Jennifer is a vegetarian. Her father is a famous movie star working in the Philippines. The baby food that Sophie's parents left behind after their recent visit tastes bad. It's Passover. And we're treated to a rambling story about the time Jennifer's parents got divorced. The movie could have been about 20 minutes shorter with more judicious editing.

The name of the bank Jennifer visits is "Swiss Bank."

Jennifer gets fully dressed before sleepwalking. Falling from a building doesn't wake her up. Getting hit by a car doesn't wake her up. And when the two guys who hit her try to help her, she struggles against them, mumbling "I'm sleepwalking!"

Falling into a pit of maggots and rotting human remains? Well done, sir. *slow clap*

Fashion Moment

Jennifer is usually dressed in crisp, all-white outfits (the better to show all the dirt and blood that accumulates by the end of the film) but what really stands out is her sharp school uniform, complete with leather-banded beret. Nice job, Georgio Armani.

Is this a uniform, though? It looks like one, but in the classroom scene the girls are all wearing casual clothes - jeans and Bee Gees T-shirts.

Suspiria

Suspiria

"Bad luck isn't brought by broken mirrors, but by broken minds."

Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper) is an American dancer who has only just arrived at a prestigious European ballet academy when she notices a series strange occurrences: a recently expelled student is murdered; strange noises can be heard at night; the staff behaves in an odd manner; maggots rain down from the ceiling. Suzy's roommate, Sara (Stefania Casini) has been cataloging the clues for months and may have an explanation – but could her far-fetched, diabolical ideas about the school be correct? Or are the deaths just the accidents they appear to be?

Thanks to its popularity among mainstream horror fans, Suspiria is the most famous giallo ever made, even though it is the least-characteristic film of the entire genre. It is unquestionably Dario Argento's masterpiece and a staggering artistic achievement. It has style to burn, is quintessentially Italian, and centers around a murder mystery, but it stands apart from the rest of the genre, due to its extreme visuals and a story that hinges on the supernatural, rather than a human killer.  In fact, Suspiria has more in common with supernatural horror movies like Rosmary's Baby than it does with giallo.  Emboldened by Suspiria's success, Argento would go on to make a sequel, Inferno, which turned out to be an incoherent, candy-colored mess and can't be categorized as a giallo.  Decades later, he would complete the trilogy with Mother Of Tears, which is a flat-out horror film.

• The most impactful thing about Suspiria is its cinematography and, most notably, the intense, eyeball-searing use of wild, vibrant colors to give the ballet school an otherworldly, disorienting feeling. Argento's color sense comes from his mentor, Mario Bava, who made frequent, pioneering use of colored lighting in his giallo Blood and Black Lace and in the Gothic horror film Kill Baby... Kill! The shifting color schemes in all of these movies have also been linked to Poe's story "The Masque of the Red Death."
  
• The set designs also create a feeling of distortion and unease. They're a curious mix of Art Deco, Art Nuveau, and modernist geometry. The velvet-textured walls of the school give a sense of decadent opulence.
• Suzy is attacked by a bat in a scene which could only have been inspired by Hitchcock's The Birds. A similar scene can be found in Lucio Fulci's giallo A Lizard in Woman's Skin.
• Connections have been made between Suspiria and The Wizard of Oz: The young heroin blows in during a storm, finds herself in a land of crazy colors, takes poison that makes her sleepy, must defeat a witch, and, in the end, finds that she had the answers she was looking for all along.
• The body count is 5+ because, while we see five murders, it's unclear how many people died in the fire at the end of the film.
• The title isn't explained, but the word "suspiria" means "she who sighs" in Italian. It makes reference to the witch's distinctive snoring.
• I once met Stefania Casini at a horror movie convention. She was friendly and very generous with her time.

What the Hell Am I Watching?

The opening sequence is the most famous and it unfolds like a deadly Rube Goldberg device. Expelled student Pat (Eva Axen) runs away from school, gets attacked by a floating spirit, gets stabbed in the gut, crashes through a skylight, and gets hanged by an electrical cable.

My favorite scene is Sara's murder sequence. It starts in green in her room, shifts to red as she follows a strange sound down the hall, turns blue as she ventures into the attic and is attacked, and ends in violet when she falls into a pit of razor wire.

Did I mention maggots raining from the ceiling? Because that's a thing that happens in this movie.

Fashion Moment

Just everything. You'll find yourself slack-jawed at the grotesque beauty of the entire film. Have a look: