The cinema of Giallo is the at the core of the genre itself. As it is seen through the eyes of it’s subjects. It is the term used for Italian horror movies throughout the modern world. Although originating in print, it was the cinema that would create a unique and authentic genre of art that would become timeless.
The first film that would be described as Giallo was Mario Bava’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963). An Italian reimagining of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much. Influenced by the dark subject matter of the Film Noir movement. Bava would set the landscape and define the basic structure of what would become known as Giallo cinema.
Bava’s’ follow-up film Blood and Black Lace (1964) is widely considered the birth of the genre and one of it’s most sinister examples. Bava himself is considered the father of the genre and one of it’s most talented contributors. Most notably he would enter Black Sabbath into the modern film lexicon.
Dario Argento’s The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1970) would be the next big film to carry the moniker. Argento would go on to direct what is arguably the most well-know Italian horror movie to date, Suspiria.
As the genre grew through the 1970’s and 80’s it would begin to envelope all horror movies originating from Italy or it’s filmmakers. Films such as Lucio Fulci’s A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (1971) and Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972), Luciano Ercoli’s Death Walks on High Heels (1971), Dario Argento’s Deep Red (1975), and Lamberto Bava’s A Blade in the Dark (1983) would provide classic Giallo fodder for filmgoers through the decades.
But it would be more supernatural horror films like Bava’s Kill, Baby, Kill (1966), Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 aka Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979), Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977), Lamberto Bava’s Demons (1985), Fulci’s The Beyond (1981) and City of the Living Dead (1980), and Argento’s Phenomena (1985) that would surround and obscure the genre proper with an eerily, yellow-tinged fog. And even though not strictly Giallo material, the supernatural and gothic themes of these movies would continue to permeate and obscure the strict defining of the genre.
So sit back, relax and enjoy the movies of Giallo.
