City Wide Fever: Micro-Budget Giallo Weirdness

There ought to be sufficient obscure Giallo directors to provide thesis material for every film studies grad student. Sam thinks Saturnino Rezi could be hers. She never heard of him before finding a USB stick loaded with his posters and ephemeral material, despite being a hardcore Giallo weirdo. However, the more she researches Rezi, the more her life becomes like his final unfinished stalker movie in director-screenwriter Josh Heaps’ City Wide Fever, which screens today nationwide at Alamo Drafthouses.

Even sight-unseen, Rezi pushes Sam’s buttons, especially the tantalizing tidbits regarding what would have been his final film, City Wide Fever, which was abandoned, because of … you know. Unfortunately, she must start with her massively inappropriate professor, Keith, who shares her Giallo passion. On his advice, she seeks out Hong, Rezi’s former cinematographer, who is known to frequent the last remaining old school Times Square adult emporiums.

Almost everyone else involved is already dead, likely murdered by the film’s hooded slasher, who also starts stalking Sam and her circle. He seems to come alive whenever anyone starts asking questions about City Wide Fever.

Heaps’ premise will intrigue most cult film fans, but the execution is beyond camp. Admittedly, he was deliberately going for a cheap and schlocky vibe, but the film still looks cheap and schlocky. Frankly, several extended off-color comedy bits clash with the film’s general tone and the humor doesn’t even land. Plus, there is no Giallo reality so twisted in which a New York film school professor could openly express QAnon lunacy and expect to keep his position, as Keith does. To make the lecherous prof even more annoying, he is played by Summer of Blood’s Onur Tukel.

It is a shame, because Heaps had several clever ideas, like casting a second Sam for particularly stressful and surreal scenes. For a little unexpected star power, Rutanya Alda is an especially good sport playing herself, the final survivor of City Wide Fever.

Argento’s Dark Glasses, on Shudder

Looking elegant is often a requirement for giallo characters and Diana is definitely stylish in her dark sunglasses. Tragically, they are now part of her mandatory uniform, after she was blinded during a stalker’s attack. As she acclimates to her new reality, she must also fend off the obsessive serial killer in giallo-master Dario Argento’s Dark Glasses, which premieres Thursday on Shudder.

In a bit of foreshadowing, Diana irritates her eyes while observing a solar eclipse. Remember kids, keep making those pinhole cameras. Unfortunately, Diana’s chosen field of sex work often attracts psychopaths, both movies and real-life. The man with a black van has already slashed several of her colleagues to death. That will be a white van, after he transfers some paint during his latest escape.

Diana was supposed to be his next victim, but she technically escaped with her life when he rammed her car into incoming traffic. Not only was she blinded, young Chin’s Chinese immigrant father was killer and his mother was rendered comatose, with little hope of revival. Initially, he resents Diana, but they soon form an unlikely bond. He will be part of her support system, along with Rita, a volunteer counselor for the newly blind, and Nerea, her new guide dog—especially Nerea.

Dark Glasses is a decent psycho-stalker horror film, but it feels remarkably similar to Argento’s Do You Like Hitchcock in its tone and intimate scoop. However, the former film also knowingly riffed on and channeled Hitchcock, which gave it a more distinctive identity.

In the case of Glasses, Argento gives viewers a blind woman and a young orphan in jeopardy, for double the manipulation. However, it represents a return to his signature style, after the much-maligned gothic horror of Dracula 3D. Honestly, it still looks cool. The bloody violence pops off the screen, just as it does in his best films. It is based on a past screenplay that was mothballed due to the production company’s insolvency, but it feels like a deliberate effort to get back to basics.

CFF ’20: Fulci for Fake

He was the second “Godfather of Gore.” Herschell Gordon Lewis was the first filmmaker to be dubbed with the title, but Lucio Fulci was a genuine film-stylist many consider a true auteur. He made films in nearly every genre, including White Fang, starring Franco Nero, but his reputation firmly rests on his giallo horror films of the 1960s and 1970s. Fulci, the filmmaker and the father, is profiled in Simone Scafidi’s slightly hybrid-ish documentary, Fulci for Fake, which screens (virtually) as part of the (online) 2020 Chattanooga Film Festival.

Scafidi (a.k.a. “Saigon”) sets up the film with a fictionalized conceit. Supposedly, actor Nicola Nocella will be playing Fulci in a biopic, but to better understand the man he is to portray, he must learn from those who knew him best. Therefore, he is the one ostensibly conducting all the on-camera interviews. Frankly, it is a questionable device, since the film still largely functions as a traditional, career-surveying documentary. Of course, that also means Fulci fans will indeed learn quite a bit about the master.

As one would hope, we do indeed get a fair supply of behind-the-scenes dishing as well as critical analysis of Fulci’s major giallos. Fans will be interested to hear from Fulci’s frequent cinematographer Sergio Salvati and composer Fabio Frizzi, as well as his protégé, Michele Soavi (who directed Cemetery Man and The Sect). However, the real surprising emotional centerpiece of the film are the reminiscences of Fulci’s daughter, Camilla Fulci, whose unfortunate accident profoundly affected her father. She is also well-qualified to discuss his work, having served as a 1^st assistant director or script supervisor on many of his films.

Francesca: Giallo Love for Halloween

Say what you will about the Italian giallo thriller-horror genre, but its characters sure knew how to accessorize. They always knew how to kill in style, rocking their patented leather gloves, wide-brimmed hats, leather belts, shiny rain coats, and fetish-friendly boots and pumps. Many of those things are also useful for concealing one’s identity, so the killer, who may or may not be a child abducted fifteen years ago, dons the classic giallo wardrobe in director-editor-cinematographer-composer Luciano Onetti’s Francesca, which is now available in a DVD/BluRay collector’s set, from Unearthed Films, just in time for Halloween.

Someone is killing the morally questionable citizens of Rome, leaving behind heavy passages from Dante’s Divine Comedy and antique coins on their eyes, presumably to pay their passage to Hell. Inspector Bruno Moretti and Det. Benito Succo are on the case, but their investigatory methods mainly seem to involve shooting pool and drinking J&B whiskey (a name brand staple of 1970s Giallos). Despite these efforts, the killer continues to elude them.

On the anniversary of Francesca Visconti’s abduction, Moretti visits her wheelchair-bound poet-dramatist father Visconti, ostensibly to glean some insights into Dante’s vision of justice, but really to ask about his long missing daughter. For reasons never really established (aside from this being a giallo), Moretti suspects the two cases might be linked.

In terms of cinematography and art direction, Francesca looks like it was pulled out of a giallo time capsule sealed in the seventies. Every visual detail is lovingly crafted. However, the picture’s incredible look cannot mask the shortcomings of the Italian-Argentine Onetti Brothers’ screenplay (helmer Luciano and producer Nicolás), which is thin even by the standards of the sub-genre. It also telegraphs the primary villain way in advance (although there are a few surprises regarding murky secondary figures in the third act).

Arguably, Francesca represents a weird acting challenge, since the cast presumably knew they would be awkwardly redubbed in Italian, deliberately on purpose. With that in mind, probably Gustavo Dalessanro displays the most intriguing screen presence as the slightly compromised Det. Succo.

As a feat of lurid cinematography, Francesca is quite a remarkable accomplishment. L. Onetti’s dark, proggy score (included as a CD in the 3-disk set) also suits the sub-genre to a tee. Yet, as a neo-retro-giallo narrative, the affectionate Astron-6 spoof The Editor is ironically more engaging. This is definitely a case of style favored over substance. Viewers should note there is a stinger, but it features some of the film’s most disturbing violent images, so watch according to your tastes. Recommended for hardcore giallo enthusiasts who will not object to its excesses, Francesca is now available for home viewing, from Unearthed Films and distributor MVD.

Brooklyn Horror ’16: Psychotic!

He is known as “The Party Killer” and he is a real Brooklyn slasher. In this case, he is both a killer of Brooklynites and a psycho-stalker who happens to be from Brooklyn. At least he deserves credit for killing some of the most annoying victims ever in Maxwell Frey & Derek Gibbons’ Psychotic! (trailer here), which screens during the inaugural Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.

If you needed one more reason to avoid Bushwick, the Party Killer should certainly suffice. We will see exactly how he gets his name when he kills Shannon right smack in the middle of the birthday party she threw for her boyfriend Bill, the bass player in Stuart’s band. Since then, Bill has been a little uptight, whereas Stuart has always been ragingly insensitive. The inevitable conflict between them results in Stuart getting kicked out of the band he started.

Stuart’s square Craigslist roommate “Old Dog” Tim also wants him out, but fortunately he is preoccupied with stalking his old girlfriend. Stuart is quite smitten himself with sarcastic Roxy, but she is probably too cool for him. Unfortunately, he presumably left his wallet, keyboard, and weed at her place (but admittedly his memory is a little fuzzy on that score). As Stuart and Tim pursue their self-involved Seinfeld-esque lives, people in their social circles keep getting killed. Yet despite all the corpses, there never seem to be any cops around. This is indeed de Blasio’s New York.

Frey & Gibbons wear their Giallo love on their sleeves, but when it comes to satirizing the Italian horror genre, they can’t lay a patent leather glove on Astron-6’s The Editor. There is an awful lot of time devoted to the band and its internal discord, which might be very Brooklyn but tries our patience. Frankly, despite ostensibly tweaking BKLN hipster pretensions, Psychotic! often leaves us even more exasperated with Kings County denizens.

Still, Brian Stansfield’s woozy looking cinematography is absolutely spot-on. To their credit, Frey & Gibbons don’t hold back jack as Old Dog and Stuart, respectively. Kristen Martin also nicely boosts the energy and attitude as the mysterious Roxy. There is no question the Brooklyn Horror fest will be the perfect venue to watch Psychotic! with a like-minded audience, so if you are interested at all, see it there. However, it will be a more hit-or-miss viewing experience in other boroughs and other cities. It’s Brooklyn thing—screening this Saturday (10/15) at Throne Watches, as part of the first annual Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.

Tulpa: Italian Giallo with Tibetan Décor

There are about one hundred Mormon congregations in Italy and they can all sleep soundly. On the other hand, the rich and kinky Commie Catholics frequenting a Buddhist-themed sex club are in deep merda. A mysterious killer decked out in a black hat and gloves is violently murdering them one by one. It is all quite disturbing for Lisa Boeri because she had club dealings with all the victims. Having it all go down during the world financial crisis is not doing her any favors either in Federico Zampaglione’s Tulpa (trailer here), which releases today on DVD in the UK.

Right, Tulpa is about as Giallo as you can get, starting with the strangely reassuring mixture of Italian and phonetic English. There is also plenty of sex and violence, so consider this a trigger warning for just about anything. To relieve stress, Boeri frequents Tulpa, an exclusive members-only club, operated by the mysterious Kiran, who serves up hallucinogenic cocktails while presiding over the nightly orgies. Boeri is one of his favorites for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, she is rather taken aback when three of her recent partners are murdered by a serial killer (just for the record, that would be two women and a man).

Of course, the police have no idea what links the victims, because they do not exactly advertise their membership (and naturally the killer collects their Tulpa cards). Boeri will try to warn her most recent hook-up while navigating the viperous office politics at her embattled financial services firm. Perhaps her two intense worlds will intersect or perhaps the killer is of her own creation. Either way, she cannot trust anyone.

According to ancient Tibetan mysticism, a Tulpa is a sort of golem that is created through meditation. That is all well and good, but Kiran, as played by the Romansh-Swiss-born Nuot Arquint, only looks marginally more Tibetan than Tilda Swinton. Frankly, the entire Tibetan Buddhist theme of the club is just bizarre, particularly all those statues of Buddha the members frolic around. Fortunately, the enlightened Buddha is past any worldly concerns. In fact, he might find humor in the situation, especially when Zampaglione is reincarnated as a bed bug.

Be that as it may or may not, Zampaglione certainly checks the rest of the Giallo boxes. Claudia Gerini (who played Pilate’s wife in The Passion of the Christ) is naked a lot as Boeri and the murders are all pretty gruesome. For further fan service, Zampaglione, his brother Federico, and Andrea Moscianese collaborated on a score that evokes classic Giallo soundtracks, but also incorporates a healthy dose of smooth boudoir jazz. Likewise, cinematographer Giuseppe Maio periodically breaks out the fish eyes for suitably distorted effects.

To recap, Tulpa offers sex, violence, gore, smoky tenor sax, and Tibetan spiritual motifs. That’s what we call fully stocked. Although the elements often make little sense (especially the deliriously illogical yet weirdly obvious final revelation), Zampaglione marshals them into a slick, uber-stylish package. It is the “guilty pleasure” in its purest, most lurid form. Recommended for genre fans, Tulpa is now available on Region 2 DVD in the UK.

AFF ’15: The Editor

Obviously, editors are important to horror movies. They get to do all the cutting. Of course, these days, it is mostly done digitally, but for 1970s Italian giallo movies, it was all about sharp cutting implements. Unfortunately, journeyman editor Rey Ciso has somewhat lost his touch since a mysterious accident left him with four wooden fingers. In accordance with giallo genre conventions, Ciso will find himself tipped as the logical suspect when a psycho stalker starts knocking off cast-members of his latest film in Astron-6’s spoof, The Editor (trailer here), directed by Adam Brooks & Matthew Kennedy, which screens during this year’s Atlanta Film Festival.

After his freak accident, Ciso either spent time in a private clinic or a looney bin. He and his doctor apparently have very different memories of that time, but that does not necessarily mean Ciso is wrong. Regardless, his new student-intern Bella worships the editor. His past her prime actress wife, not so much. She seems somewhat obsessed the up-and-coming star, Claudio Calvetti. Inconveniently, he is also very dead, along with his frequently naked co-star, Veronica.

Since the killer hacks off the same four fingers from his victim that Ciso has lost, the violent but incompetent Det. Peter Porfiry naturally settles on him as the prime suspect. To make matter worse, the killer has taken an unhealthy interest in Ciso, sending him tapes of his work. At least good Father Clarke believes in his innocence, not that a sexually confused materialist like Porfiry takes much stock in what priests have to say.

The Editor might be a comedic send-up, but it outdoes Cattet & Forzani’s Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears with its loving attention to giallo production details. It looks and sounds terrific, incorporating the sinister Goblin-esque soundtrack, over-the-top bloodletting, and plenty of gratuitous nudity. The way Ciso and Porfiry never change their hideously 1970s outfits is also a nice touch. Clearly, co-writers Brooks, Kennedy, and Conor Sweeney understand what makes giallos tick, right down to the bafflingly incomprehensible finale.

Brooks also serves himself well as Ciso, the cracked up everyman. He is sort of like a straight-man for the gags, except he constantly gets to freak out. Kennedy’s Porfiry also gorges on plenty of scenery, looking like an appropriately low rent Donald Sutherland. Tristan Risk (a.k.a. burlesque performer Little Miss Risk) and Sheila E. Campbell duly vamp it up like good sports as the ill-fated Veronica and Porfiry’s ex-wife Margarit, respectively. Laurence R. Harvey scores some of the biggest laughs as Father Clarke, while the appearances of Udo Kier and Crime Wave’s John Paizs need no explanation.

In terms of tone and substance, The Editor is maybe seventy percent giallo and thirty percent Troma, so it is certainly not for the overly sensitive or easily offended. However, it makes you want to go back and re-watch classics of the genre, which attests to its legitimacy and the cleverness of its satire. Shamelessly lurid, The Editor is quite enthusiastically recommended for giallo fans when it screens this Saturday (3/21) at the 2015 Atlanta Film Festival.

ND/NF ’14: The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears

Sometimes you have to wonder if Fifty Shades helped normalize some downright dangerous behavior. This is one of those times. Sex and violence are intimately linked in Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani’s latest Benelux giallo pastiche, but it is not clear whether this is intended to horrify or titillate the audience. Fasten your restraints, because The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears (trailer here) will be a heck of a bumpy ride for most viewers when it screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films, co-presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and MoMA.

Dan Kristensen is in for it. Returning from a business trip, he finds his creepy Brussels flat is chained from the inside, but his wife Edwige is missing. When the cops finally show up, he has roused all his neighbors and heard a rather unhelpful story from the old lady in number seven, explaining how her presumably late husband also disappeared under similarly murky circumstances. Naturally, the flatfoot suspects Kristensen, especially when he subsequently wakes up in bed, next to her severed head.

So, Tears would be downright plotty compared to the Grand Guignol memory play, Amer, Cattet and Forzani’s previous valentine to the giallo genre, if it were not for their myriad excesses. Repetitive cycles are a really big deal for them, but it is hard to feel much suspense or dread when the same crummy things keep happening to Kristensen, with only mild variations that make matters progressively worse for the poor slob each time.

There is no question the filmmaking couple has quite the eye for composition and cinematographer Manu Dacosse gives it all a lushly lurid look. Even though they are not original, the musical hat-tips also set quite the mood. However, their constant jump cuts, violent expressionistic interludes, and is-this-a-dream game-playing hobble the film’s pacing, narrative cohesion, and basic sense of flow.

Frankly, despite all the stylistic madness going on around him, Klaus Tange still gives an admirably presentable performance as Kristensen. Nonetheless, it is production designer Julia Irribarria’s team that takes the honors, creating a truly creepy, yet luxuriant backdrop, like the Belgian (or pseudo-Italian) equivalent of the Dakota in Rosemary’s Baby. With its marble floors, gold paneling, and Mucha-esque screens (much like the awesome one-sheet), it might just be worth losing the occasional spouse to live there.

On a technical level, Tears is quite polished. Cattet and Forzani accomplish everything they set out to do, but the resulting film is deathly static. Masterful visuals are all very nice, but they cannot compensate for ill-defined characters and muddled plot points. Instead of a sensationalistic indulgence, it becomes a rather taxing chore to watch. Recommended for fans of the Maria Beatty fetish films John Zorn scored, The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears screens again tomorrow (3/30) at the Walter Reade, as the 2014 edition of ND/NF comes to a close.

Berberian Sound Studio: Giallo Madness

This might be the most anti-horror movie genre freak-out, perhaps ever.  Do not tell the hapless sound engineer in question he is just working on a movie or the violent images he sees are no big deal.  The vintage-era Italian giallo will profoundly disturb the nebbish Brit throughout Peter Strickland’s Berberian Sound Studio (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Poor Gilderoy assumed he had been hired to engineer the sort of nature documentary that has been his specialty.  Unfortunately, The Equestrian Vortex is anything but.  This will be the latest gore fest from the notorious giallo auteur, Santini (who does that name remind you of?).  The film opens with a girl on a horse, but she will soon find herself in a bacchanal of witchcraft and graphic, sexually charged violence.  Gilderoy is not prepared for this material, but nobody refuses Santini.

Right from the start, Santini and the staff of the grimy 1970’s sound studio torment Gilderoy with mind games.  The engineer’s mental and emotional health quickly deteriorates as he records the smashing pumpkins and other foley effects that accompany the on-screen tortures.  On the plus side, there are elegant Mediterranean bombshells coming in out of the studio to record their screams, but only Silvia, the fading starlet, shows him any kindness.  Of course, she is no match for the notorious Santini, or his Mephistophelean producer Francesco.

The fresh produce sacrificed to make Berberian could have made a month of salads for the Italian army, but it all has the desired impact.  In a more just world, Berberian should be an Oscar shoe-in for the sound categories.  However, the Academy will probably be far too uncomfortable with the film’s premise and implications.

Indeed, Berberian is unusually forthright questioning the cumulative impact of desensitizing imagery, far surpassing Cronenberg’s somewhat thematically related Videodrome.  Shrewdly, Strickland never shows the audience the Equestrian horrors slowly boring their way into Gilderoy’s brain.  It is far more unsettling to hear them take shape in the studio and to watch the engineer’s pained responses.  This is an artfully creepy film that skillfully builds the claustrophobic tension, up until the third act collapses into surreal reality-problematizing bedlam.

Who knew Toby Jones had this in him?  As Gilderoy, he quietly but rather spectacularly portrays a shy, reserved man coming apart at the seams, in a marked departure from his supercilious type-casting.  As his polar opposite, Cosimo Fusco’s Francesco is malevolent sleazebag worthy of the giallo tradition.

Yet, the real stars of Berberian are the technical crew who so perfectly recreate the look, sound, and general vibe of the genre.  Listening to Broadcast’s original score, one could easily believe it came off a rare vinyl soundtrack (that’s a good thing). Similarly, production designer Jennifer Kernke’s team painstaking attention to period detail makes the analog studio feel like a truly real (and really awful) place to work.

This is a superior midnight-genre film that might just challenge regular midnight-genre patrons.  Oddly enough, it also happens to be one of the year’s best period productions.  Highly recommended for open-minded cult movie fans, Berberian Sound Studio opens this Friday (6/14) at the IFC Center.

EUFF ’11: Amer

Imagine V.C. Andrews with a European accent. Though the dialogue is sparse, that is definitely the vibe of Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s macabre feature debut. Billed as a tribute to the so-called Giallo genre of Italian exploitation shockers, the French language Belgium film Amer (trailer here) certainly has a Euro sensibility, appropriate in its way for the 2011 European Union Film Festival in Chicago, where it screens this Saturday.

Ana’s creepy family manor might not be the best environment for a child in her formative years. There appears to be a mad woman shut away in the room next to hers. In another room her (apparently) dead (maybe) grandfather lies desiccated. Instead of providing reassure or guidance, her mother constantly nags at her, when not having explicit sex with her father in what seems to be the only unlocked room in the house.

Her relationship with her mother is little better when the audience next encounters Ana as an adolescent in Amer’s briefest episode. Eventually, a fully grown Ana returns to the (presumably) deserted home of her childhood. Of course, once she disrobes for her bath, viewers know to expect some serious Giallo business.

If creepy atmosphere and lurid imagery are your things, then Amer is a definite go. Conversely, those who get hung-up on narrative cohesion should give it a wide berth. The rest of us mere mortals who might be intrigued by the premise should be advised, Amer privileges style far above substance. Cinematographer Manu Dacosse perfectly captures the lush malevolence of Grand Guignol productions. Yet, even with the ready stock of genre excuses, Cattet and Forzani’s screenplay has considerable issues of logic and consistency. At times, the combination of strobe lighting and rapid editing cuts even makes it tricky to discern the actual action on-screen.

Relying heavily on the three Anas, Cattet and Forzani probably get the best work from the youngest: Cassandra Forȇt. Indeed, the first episode is arguably the strongest, effectively exploiting the claustrophobic setting for gothic chills. While the third at least delivers the genre goods as well as a measure of closure, the connecting adolescent chapter is really just a big shrug.

Despite its rich look, seriously cool opening credits, and a funky soundtrack drawn from vintage Giallo films, Amer never really gets under the skin in the way a good horror movie should. Adventurous viewers will probably leave the theater scratching their heads, mumbling “I suppose that was interesting.” While never dull, there are far superior films at this year’s EUFF, including Disco and Atomic Warfare, Kawasaki’s Rose, Rabbit a la Berlin, Red Chapel, Portuguese Nun, Letters to Father Jacob and the opening night selection, Bibliothéque Pascal. For Giallo diehards, it screens during the festival at the Gene Siskel Film Center this coming Saturday (3/5) and the following Wednesday (3/9).