Giallo film discussion.

Do I need to explain to anyone here what a giallo film is?

Didn't think so.

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NOW!

This question is sure to get discussion...

Giallo, horror or not? And why?

Personally I think some are very horror orientated (Red Queen Kills Seven Times) and others aren't related much at all (Bird With The Crystal Plumage)... but I'll let others go at it before I expand my point.


Or maybe me and dolemike can do Blood and Black Lace vs Tenebrae round 174?

Colonel Mortimer wrote:

This question is sure to get discussion...

Giallo, horror or not? And why?

Personally I think some are very horror orientated (Red Queen Kills Seven Times) and others aren't related much at all (Bird With The Crystal Plumage)... but I'll let others go at it before I expand my point.

No. Absolutely not.

They were suspense films, built upon the murder mystery novel. That they share common elements with horror films is unavoidable.

You can split the giallo into as many subgenres as you want (we've done that to horror films for years and years) and one of the closest subgenres to horror could be called the "gothic giallo" or the "fantastic giallo". These truly do embrace the horror film elements, without committing the grave error of forsaking their roots as a primarily realist genre. KILL BABY KILL and SUSPIRIA are essentailly gialli with ghost stories grafted onto them. While many would scoff at the idea of calling SUSPIRIA anything other than a horror film, one could make a case for it's inclusion into the gothic giallo subgenre due to it's reliance on giallo narrative conventions. This is where the line becomes a bit blurry. The giallo mgiht provide the backbone for the narrative but they are presented as horror films, with none of the iconic giallo imagery. Instead they draw their visuals from the tradition of horror cinema. So are they gialli or are they horror films?

Depends on your point of view. I can appreciate them much more easily as horror films than I can gialli as horror films allow for the supernatural to play a part in the proceedings while the giallo keeps itself grounded in reality. Although the killer in RED QUEEN is assumed to be a ghost by the film's characters, it is indeed a flesh and blood murderer. KILL BABY KILL does not adhere to that logic. The killer is indeed a ghost. That marries it to the horror genre, not the giallo. So that would make RED QUEEN a true "gothic giallo" and not a horror film, while KILL BABY KILL falls out of the catagory of the former and into the realm of the latter.

The other point of argument is in the violent content. Many action films put the violent content of horror films to shame. Horror as a genre may be preoccupied with violence but it is not a defining factor. And if you take the stalker/slasher angle as a bridge between the two, you must consider films like BASIC INSTINCT as horror as well.

In short, no. The giallo is not, in anyway, a subgenre of horror.

I figured more people would reply to this... as I know some of you would consider certain gialli horror films, but here goes. Bear in mind I haven't seen Red Queen in a while, so some of my facts may be off.

Sure the killer in Red Queen may be a real person, but up until that point you didn't expect that. You expect it if you're used to the genre and it's conventions, you know that someone in the principal cast is going to be revealed as the killer, but in the confines of the film, as far as the characters are aware it's someone that's been dead for a while who is doing the killings. And at the end of the film when it is revealed who the killer is more horror iconography comes out of the woodwork than the entire 80 or so minutes that preceded it. What if Red Queen fell victim to AIP's chopping board and they changed the end to make the killer a supernatural one in the same way they changed Black Sabbath's Il Telefono? Would that make one version of it horror and the other just a thriller?

I can't say for certain as I wasn't alive when this film was release, but I'm sure that if I saw this movie at the time of release I imagine I would have considered it truer to horror than even Halloween. Though obviously all that has changed now that horror in general has become more akin to the style found in Halloween than say Dracula. I wouldn't place something like The Girl Who Knew Too Much anywhere near horror but Red Queen I'd have no problems classing it as such. I wouldn't say that the giallo is a sub genre of horror, but at least in my mind some gialli do become horror-giallo hybrids.

What would you make of Scream? A film which despite it's name dropping of slasher films is playing almost completely by the giallo rules.

Good point with The Girl Who Knew Too Much. In my opinion, I'd definitly place Giallo in the Horror genre, but then, with films like TGWKTM, which is argued to be the original Giallo, there is little to no Horror at all. (Most, if not all, murders are bloodless and show very little.) I suppose it can be argued that Leticia Roman gets psychologically tortured throughout (when the doctors don't believe her originally, etc) so if you really pick at it, you could find strands of the Horror genre in that one Giallo flick.

Samurai_Funk wrote:

Good point with The Girl Who Knew Too Much. In my opinion, I'd definitly place Giallo in the Horror genre, but then, with films like TGWKTM, which is argued to be the original Giallo, there is little to no Horror at all. (Most, if not all, murders are bloodless and show very little.) I suppose it can be argued that Leticia Roman gets psychologically tortured throughout (when the doctors don't believe her originally, etc) so if you really pick at it, you could find strands of the Horror genre in that one Giallo flick.

But the ending could fall under "horrorfic" if you know what I mean. It was nice twist ending that anyone could figure out, but it was still pretty messed up.

Colonel Mortimer wrote:

I figured more people would reply to this... as I know some of you would consider certain gialli horror films, but here goes. Bear in mind I haven't seen Red Queen in a while, so some of my facts may be off.

Sure the killer in Red Queen may be a real person, but up until that point you didn't expect that. You expect it if you're used to the genre and it's conventions, you know that someone in the principal cast is going to be revealed as the killer, but in the confines of the film, as far as the characters are aware it's someone that's been dead for a while who is doing the killings. And at the end of the film when it is revealed who the killer is more horror iconography comes out of the woodwork than the entire 80 or so minutes that preceded it. What if Red Queen fell victim to AIP's chopping board and they changed the end to make the killer a supernatural one in the same way they changed Black Sabbath's Il Telefono? Would that make one version of it horror and the other just a thriller?

Yes, in fact it would.

If the murderer in SUSPIRIA turned out to be simply one of the teachers, would that make it a giallo and not a horror film?

Yes, in fact it would.

By allowing a supernatural being to exist in the confines of the giallo, you are ultimately changing it's DNA from murder mystery to horror. You must also keep in mind that the giallo is a literary genre, not a cinematic one. based on a hugely sucessful brand of mystery novel. Therefore anyone who went to see this film in the theaters would have expected a true-blood killer and not a ghost (I call this 'The Baskerville' motif).

Had RED QUEEN played the same devious trick that KILL BABY KILL does (the killer really is a ghost) then your point would have validity. But as it stands it does not.

Colonel Mortimer wrote:

I can't say for certain as I wasn't alive when this film was release, but I'm sure that if I saw this movie at the time of release I imagine I would have considered it truer to horror than even Halloween.

Without knowledge of the giallo as "film genre", you'd most likely consider every giallo you see as horror.

Colonel Mortimer wrote:

Though obviously all that has changed now that horror in general has become more akin to the style found in Halloween than say Dracula. I wouldn't place something like The Girl Who Knew Too Much anywhere near horror but Red Queen I'd have no problems classing it as such. I wouldn't say that the giallo is a sub genre of horror, but at least in my mind some gialli do become horror-giallo hybrids.

Of course they do. I didn't deny that in my first response, but this original question was not about such and such a film. It was about the giallo as a whole (if I remember correctly). As a whole. the giallo is not, in any way, a form of horror. That the giallo sometimes resembles and sometimes plays by the rules of American horror films (mostly slasher films - which they mostly predated and likely inspired) does not make them horror. Maybe I've seen more than the usual viewer and therefore have not only a historical but proper critical angle.

Colonel Mortimer wrote:

What would you make of Scream? A film which despite it's name dropping of slasher films is playing almost completely by the giallo rules.

The entire purpose of the giallo is the mystery. Everything else is window dressing. That we don't know who the killer in SCREAM is not enough to make it anywhere near a giallo. Why SCREAM? Why not FRIDAY THE 13TH? THE PROWLER? MY BLOODY VALENTINE? All of these films share the same element of mystery about the killer's identity but all of them lack an amateur detective-esque figure and the mystery is something that is not fully or interestingly worked out in the films narrative. THey might be called North American gialli, but that "North American" means a lot.

BLOOD AND BLACK LACE is what i'd call a "blue print" giallo. Has all the main factors of a giallo and the colour scheme and direction. If anyone wanted to know what a giallo was, this is the film i, personally, would show them. Now its not a horror and shud not be classed as horror. Films such as SEVEN DEATHS IN A CATS EYES, RED QUEEN are gothic giallo's but i wouldn't call them horror. Now Argento's early stuff such as (and if no-ones heard of these, shame on you) BIRD WITH CRYSTAL PLUMAGE, CAT O NINE TAILS, FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET are all non horror giallo put his later output DEEP RED, OPERA, SUSPERIA seemed to lean towards the horror direction, i thought. Fulci's NEW YORK RIPPER i would class as horror because of the more extreme effects of the deaths.....

To be honest, this is a damn good question because i dont know if i could say it was horror or not, i feel that is its own genre but i dont know.....im lost!!!!

I suppose the more recent or graphic giallo films would be classed as horror because of the effects, which are like watching a horror cause the horror film go's out of its way to shit you up with the gore yet the giallo still has an approach that makes you think of the mystery unravelling before your eyes and the giallo of years passed hadn't got that shock feeling when watching one of the victims kick the bucket.

Hope this kinda makes sense cause ive just read it back myself and i cant fathom it out either!!

ZebedyCostello wrote:

Fulci's NEW YORK RIPPER i would class as horror because of the more extreme effects of the deaths.....

To be honest, this is a damn good question because i dont know if i could say it was horror or not, i feel that is its own genre but i dont know.....im lost!!!!

I suppose the more recent or graphic giallo films would be classed as horror because of the effects, which are like watching a horror cause the horror film go's out of its way to shit you up with the gore yet the giallo still has an approach that makes you think of the mystery unravelling before your eyes and the giallo of years passed hadn't got that shock feeling when watching one of the victims kick the bucket.

Hope this kinda makes sense cause ive just read it back myself and i cant fathom it out either!!

The giallo was never a truly gore-less genre and lumping the giallo into horror simply because of their gore content is ridiculous.

You alluded to the main difference in your last paragraph: the giallo is a murder mystery. That the murders got to be more graphic as the 80s rolled in was inevitable and, in terms of audience taste, unavoidable. Even Fulci's RIPPER, a film more inspired by MANIAC than BLOOD AND BLACK LACE, cannot be discarded into the horror genre. Underneath all the nipple slicing, eyeball carving, and face blasting, it is a giallo - perhaps the best representation of what happens when the giallo catered to the slasher fan and the first of the final nails being driven into the coffin.

Dave wrote:

The giallo was never a truly gore-less genre and lumping the giallo into horror simply because of their gore content is ridiculous.

You alluded to the main difference in your last paragraph: the giallo is a murder mystery. That the murders got to be more graphic as the 80s rolled in was inevitable and, in terms of audience taste, unavoidable. Even Fulci's RIPPER, a film more inspired by MANIAC than BLOOD AND BLACK LACE, cannot be discarded into the horror genre. Underneath all the nipple slicing, eyeball carving, and face blasting, it is a giallo - perhaps the best representation of what happens when the giallo catered to the slasher fan and the first of the final nails being driven into the coffin.

Yeah, i know exactly where your comin from. The giallo is a murder mystery, full stop. And upon making films such as NEW YORK RIPPER which were catering for the slasher genre it is inevitable that they would pull out a few punches of the old red stuff. Dave your right, i think you've hit the nail on the head.

What about more obscure or just down right crazy giallo such as SISTER OF URSULA, where the murder weapon turns out to be a wooden dildo, hahaha, i love that film, or such crazy efforts of STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER. Where could we class them in the Giallo pile??

I know I am stupid but I do not know exactly what a Giallo is.

mmyersisgod wrote:

I know I am stupid but I do not know exactly what a Giallo is.

Well, without getting technical- think of 'em as slashers, but (usually) with a deeper story and a mystery to solve mostly involving who the killer is.

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

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

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

Really just look at what Bird With The Crystal Plumage is and you'll sort of get the idea. My first giallo was Deep Red, which while obviously still a giallo as a novice to the genre I have to admit gave me the wrong impression of what they were

I'll probably post my epically long essay on them later.

Colonel Mortimer wrote:

Really just look at what Bird With The Crystal Plumage is and you'll sort of get the idea. My first giallo was Deep Red, which while obviously still a giallo as a novice to the genre I have to admit gave me the wrong impression of what they were

I'll probably post my epically long essay on them later.

I love TBWTCP. I thought Giallos also had the killer with black gloves or something?

mmyersisgod wrote:

Colonel Mortimer wrote:

Really just look at what Bird With The Crystal Plumage is and you'll sort of get the idea. My first giallo was Deep Red, which while obviously still a giallo as a novice to the genre I have to admit gave me the wrong impression of what they were

I'll probably post my epically long essay on them later.

I love TBWTCP. I thought Giallos also had the killer with black gloves or something?

Sometimes, but not all of them have a black gloved killer. It's not like the killer has to have the gloves to make a film a giallo.

It's just something a lot of directors use for style and sometimes to even further mask the identity of the killer since in a lot of these films all you can see are the killers hands.

Argento is famous for always playing his own "black gloved killers" in his flicks.

dolemike wrote:

mmyersisgod wrote:

Colonel Mortimer wrote:

Really just look at what Bird With The Crystal Plumage is and you'll sort of get the idea. My first giallo was Deep Red, which while obviously still a giallo as a novice to the genre I have to admit gave me the wrong impression of what they were

I'll probably post my epically long essay on them later.

I love TBWTCP. I thought Giallos also had the killer with black gloves or something?

Sometimes, but not all of them have a black gloved killer. It's not like the killer has to have the gloves to make a film a giallo.

It's just something a lot of directors use for style and sometimes to even further mask the identity of the killer since in a lot of these films all you can see are the killers hands.

Argento is famous for always playing his own "black gloved killers" in his flicks.

Ok sweet well I am gonna pick up those too Mario Bava collections Dobe was talking about.

Really good blog, all about Giallo, great read.


http://killinginstyle.blogspot.com/

Gonna watch Red Queen ASAP. WHYDTS? has become my favorite non-Argento with Opera still being my favorite.

aaronalive wrote:

Really good blog, all about Giallo, great read.


http://killinginstyle.blogspot.com/

Sure, link to it just as the guy's quit blogging, whydon'tcha!

dolemike wrote:

aaronalive wrote:

Really good blog, all about Giallo, great read.


http://killinginstyle.blogspot.com/

Sure, link to it just as the guy's quit blogging, whydon'tcha!

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