Luigi Cozzi is well thought of around these parts for his less down to the planet Earth fare like Hercules, Star Crash and Alien Contamination. However, his giallo experience exists, as he was the writer of Argento’s Four Flies on Grey Velvet. He contributed to other Argento projects throughout his career, like the special effects for Phenomena and second unit direction for The Stendhal Syndrome. He even co-owned and managed Argento’s memorabilia store, Profondo Rosso (Deep Red). Here, he brings us the tale of an adulterous man who uses a murderer to solve all of his life’s problems.

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George Hilton (Sartana’s Here… Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin, The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh) plays a man who wants to take care of his wealthy wife. He ends up meeting an unnamed killer who is disposing of his latest murder (he’s played by Antoine Saint-John, who played Schweick, the artist who starts the events of The Beyond). They strike a deal where the killer will erase the wife and make it look like a kidnapped. That said — nothing is ever that easy.

As he’s loading Nora’s body in the trunk, Luca and Laura (Christina Galbo, The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, What Have You Done to Solange?) steal the car and head to the beach. The killer gives chase as they take up at an abandoned seaside house, as Luca plans on taking her virginity. She keeps putting him off, sending him out to get food while the killer sneaks in.

As the killer makes his way closer to Laura, Luca is making time with a stranded and sexed up motorist played by Femi Benussi from Strip Nude for Your Killer and Hatchet for the Honeymoon. This is an absolutely bonkers segment, as the killer attacks our heroine to somber music while a happy ditty plays as her boyfriend cheats on her, unaware what horrors are going on inside that beach house.

Every man in this movie is either a moron or a complete villain. The same can be said for most of the women, except they’re victims, too. Luckily, Laura finds it within herself to stop this cycle of madness.

This film doesn’t really follow all of the giallo conventions, but that’s just fine. It keeps moving and by the end, I was gripped as the many webs of the store all drew together. Indeed, it has an alternate title of The Spider (I saw it as The Dark is Death’s Friend). Cozzi does a nice job of building the suspense and presenting Laura as less of a faceless victim and more of a proto final girl that you want to see survive.

Seeing as how we’re in the middle of giallo week here at the site, there’s no better blu ray available now than this set from Severin if you either want to learn all about the genre or already are a fan and want to see some of the people behind your favorite films. There’s so much on all three discs to love, no matter whether you know that giallo means yellow, you’ve never seen an Argento movie before or that you can name these films or if you worship Edwige Fenech and can name every movie’s alternative titles off the top of your head.

Disc one contains the documentary All the Colors of Giallo by Federico Caddeo, which features interviews with writers like Dardano Sacchetti and Ernesto Gastaldi as well as George Hilton, Daria Nicolodi, Barbara Bouchet, Nieves Navarro and the still lovely Ms. Fenech, plus Argento, Umberto Lenzi, Lamberto Bava, Sergio Martino and even audio from the past from Lucio Fulci!

This is a treat, hearing from the actual people what it was like to be part of these films as well as the legacy that they’ve created. It’s a perfect companion to the All the Colors of the Dark rerelease that Severin put out alongside this. Plus, there’s an interview with John Martin from The Giallo Pages and audio commentary by Kat Ellinger, who wrote the book All the Colors of Sergio Martino.

The best part of this collection are the trailers, which include The Girl Who Knew Too Much, Blood and Black Lace, Libido, The Embalmer, The Murder Clinic, Deadly Sweet, Death Laid an Egg, Naked You Die, The Sweet Body of Deborah, A Black Veil for Lisa, Deadly Inheritance, Paranoia, Perversion Story, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Five Dolls for an August Moon, Hatchet for the Honeymoon, Death Occurred Last Night, The Weekend Murders, The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion, The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, The Cat O’ Nine Tails, A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, Cold Eyes of Fear, The Designated Victim, In the Eye of the Hurricane, Slaughter Hotel, The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail, The Fifth Cord, The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire, The Black Belly of the Tarantula, The Bloodstained Butterfly, Short Night of Glass Dolls, Death Walks on High Heels, The Devil with Seven Faces, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, The Dead Are Alive, My Dear Killer, Seven Blood-Stained Orchids, All the Colors of the Dark, What Have You Done to Solange?, Amuck!, Who Saw Her Die?, The French Sex Murders, The Case of the Bloody Iris, The Crimes of the Black Cat, The Red Queen Kills Seven Times, Knife of Ice, Don’t Torture a Duckling, Tropic of Cancer, The Killer is on the Phone, A White Dress for Mariale, Torso, Death Carries a Cane, Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye, Spasmo, The Killer Reserved Nine Seats, The Girl in Room 2A, What Have They Done to Your Daughters?, Puzzle, Death Will Have Your Eyes, The Killer Must Kill Again, Autopsy, Eyeball, Deep Red, Strip Nude for Your Killer, The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance, Strange Shadows in an Empty Room, The House of the Laughing Windows, Nine Guests for a Crime, Watch Me When I Kill, The Psychic, The Pyjama Girl Case, Hotel Fear, Enigma Rosso, The Sister of Ursula, The Bloodstained Shadow, Killer Nun, Giallo in Venice, The New York Ripper, Tenebre and A Blade in the Dark.

Plus, you get an entire disc filled with kriminal trailers and The Case Of The Krimi, an interview with film historian Marcus Stiglegger and a third disc (!) with music from the films curated by Alfonso Carillo of Rendezvous! From The Archives Of Beat Records and remastered By Claudio Fuiano. It contains music from The Young, the Evil and the Savage, Killer Nun, Perversion Story, A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail, Seven Shawls of Yellow Silk, Amuck!, Smile Before Death, The Case of the Bloody Iris, All the Colors of the Dark, The Cat In Heat, Strange Shadows In an Empty Room, The Bloodstained Shadow, The New York Ripper and The Great Swingle.

This is literally THE giallo package that I’ve turned to time and again since I’ve purchased it. You’d do well to do the same. It’s available from Severin.

How many of the giallo movies advertised by trailers on this set have you seen? Check out this Letterboxd list!

Todd Strauss-Schulson directed A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas and The Final Girls before taking on this comedy, which both pokes fun and celebrates the romantic comedies that we either love, hate or love to hate. There’s a great crew along for the ride, so I didn’t put up much of a fight with this choice by my wife.

When Natalie (Rebel Wilson) was a young girl growing up in Australia, her mother (Jennifer Saunders!) told her that movies like Pretty Woman were BS and that girls like her don’t get happy endings. She’s kept that message in her mind as she grows up and moves to NYC to become an architect. It’s also given her low self-esteem, making her take guff from everyone in her office and unable to see that her friend Josh (Adam DeVine) wants to be way more than a best friend.

That’s life until she’s knocked out fighting a mugger and wakes up to an alternate world where every single cliche of romcoms becomes true. Her best friend has now become her office enemy. Her client is now in love with her. And even Josh has found who he thinks is his soulmate, a combination swimsuit model/yoga ambassador.

Schulson has said that the idea of this film came from how romcoms really do lie to their viewers. “Are they helpful or hurtful? Does it lead to more isolation? This idea that you aren’t whole until someone comes to save you.” In truth, this movie is about falling in love with yourself before you can give love to anyone else, which is about the best message I’ve seen in a movie in forever.

Look, this isn’t going to blow your mind or replace any of your favorite movies. That said, it is a fun little movie and has some nice production values, particularly in how it separates the real world from the romantic one.

Who says giallo had to stop in the 1970’s? Certainly not the makers of this film, who crafted this neon-lit exploration of the genre in 2012. This is the story of an old man obsessed with a serial killer who is also obsessed with him. Each murder, the killer calls him to say that he has killed for him again. Finally, he decides to go into the night and hunt down the murderer.

While this is a crowdfunded short film, it’s long on style and mood. It feels, looks and sounds exactly like a giallo should, with a killer that has a much more elaborate look than the typical black mask and gloves.

As the old man keeps looking for the killer — fulfilling the role of the amateur detective so essential to giallo — he remains one step behind throughout.

There’s also an intriguing commentary of the role of women in giallo as Hester Arden plays every single female role. Are women interchangeable? Or just victims to be moved around and endlessly repeated? I read that Argento wanted all of the women in Tenebre to look the same to give the sense that the same woman was dying over and over. This film accomplishes the same task.

There are no easy answers here, even in the ambiguous ending. I’ve heard that the creators of this film intend to make a full giallo film someday and I look forward to seeing what they do. This is a masterful effort that I’ve watched several times and look forward to coming back and exploring many more.

It’s pretty amazing that the most Italian giallo made in years was created by two British guys — director Ryan Haysom and cinematographer Jon Britt — working in Germany.

You can watch this for free on Amazon Prime and learn more at the movie’s official Facebook page.

The second in Dario Argento’s “Animal Trilogy” with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Four Flies on Grey Velvet, this film isn’t one of the director’s favorites and it failed to follow up on the success of the first film in the United States, although it was very popular in Italy. It’s filled with a lot more humor — it still has plenty of shocking moments — and kind of meanders around. But there’s still so much to enjoy.

Franco “Cookie” Arno (Karl Malden) is a blind man who is obsessed with solving puzzles. One comes to him in real life as he walks at night with his niece Lori. They overhear a man plan to blackmail someone, then that man breaks into the Terzi Institute. We meet our second hero, the reporter Carlo (James Franciscus) when he investigates the affair.

The head of the institute, Dr. Calabresi, looks at his files in his office and phones someone who agrees to meet with him. He tells his fiancee Bianca (Rada Rassimov, the sister of Ivan, which you can tell by her eyes) that whatever was taken could be a big step forward. As the doctor waits on a train platform, he’s pushed off a train platform. This brings the two heroes together and starts a string of murders, as anyone connected to the mystery is quickly killed.

It turns out that the Terzi Institute is able to isolate the chromosomes that point to evil tendencies within people and they have a miracle drug that can change that. Carlo also becomes involved with  Professor Terzi’s daughter Anna and they’re followed by both the police and the killer.

From milk being poisoned to dead bodies being searched in the middle of the night inside a crypt, the noose tightens around our heroes’ necks, with even Cookie’s niece being kidnapped and in danger. And oh yeah — his girlfriend and her adoptive father have had an incestuous relationship for years.

There’s a rooftop battle that may or may not take out one of the protagonists — the movie doesn’t even tell us — and finally the killer is knocked down an elevator shaft, his hands bleeding as he tries to grab the cable to stop him. It’s one of the few moments of sheer awesome in this film, but hints that greatness is in the future of Argento’s films.

You can watch this movie for free on Vudu and on Amazon Prime.

One of my favorite things about giallo are the alternate titles. As if The Bloodstained Shadow isn’t a great name, this movie also goes by Solamente Nero (Only Blackness), which is a way better title. The other thing I love about this genre is that just when I think I’ve seen every good one, I find another to enjoy.

This is the kind of movie that tells you exactly where it stands in the first minutes, as a killer strangles a girl in a field before the credits even start. That murder has never been solved. Years later, a college professor named Stefano has a nervous breakdown. To recover, he comes home to visit his brother Don Paolo, who has become a priest that hates all of the immorality in their small town.

Oh what immorality — there’s a gambler, a psychic, a combination atheist/pedophile and an illegal abortionist with a mentally challenged son who lives in a shack top the list, along with your typical sex and drinking that happens in any town.

Meanwhile, murders have been piling up and whoever is behind it, they’re leaving notes to the priest, warning him that if he reveals who the killer is, he’ll be next. That’s because on Stefano’s first night back home, Don Paolo saw the killer murder the town psychic in the courtyard.

Stefania Casini (Suspiria) also appears as the love interest, Sandra, who helps Stefano come back to normalcy. Well, as normal as a town filled with murder can be. I’m kind of amazed that she wears a belly chain all day. When you get to the love scene, you’ll know what I mean.

There’s also some amazing religious imagery in this one, like a skinned and bloody animal that has been placed in the sacristy to warn the priest that he’s getting too close, or the communion scene that reveals who the real killer is.

Finally, Goblin plays some great music in here, created by composer Stelvio Cipriani. It’s really a great package, thanks to director Antonio Bido, who directed one other giallo, Watch Me When I Kill. I love how the past childhood trauma that the brothers endured continues to permeate their lives as they try to grow up. This is a very adult giallo and by that, I mean that it doesn’t need nudity and gore to tell its tale.

You can watch this on Amazon Prime.

Other than the films of Mario Bava (Blood and Black Lace, The Girl Who Knew Too Much), there’s no other film that has no influenced the giallo. In fact, the most well-known version of the form starts right here with Dario Argento’s 1970 directorial debut. Until this movie, he’d been a journalist and had helped write Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West.

Sam Dalmas (Tony Musante) is an American writer suffering from an inability to write. He’s gone to Rome to recover, along with his British model girlfriend (yes, everyone in giallo can score a gorgeous girl like Suzy Kendall). Just as he decides to return home, he witnesses a black-gloved man attacking a girl inside an art gallery. Desperate to save her, he can only watch, helpless and trapped between two mechanical doors as she wordlessly begs for help.

The woman is Monica Ranier and she’s gallery owner’s wife. She survives the attack, but the police think Sam may have had something to do with the crime, so they keep his passport so he can’t leave the country. What they’re not letting on is that a serial killer has been wiping out young women for weeks and that Sam is the only witness. That said — he’s haunted by what he’s survived and his memory isn’t working well, meaning that he’s missing a vital clue that could solve the crime.

As you can see, the foreign stranger who must become a detective, the missing pieces of memory, the black-clad killer — it’s everything that every post-1970 giallo would pay tribute to (perhaps rip off is the better term).

Another Argento trope shows up here for the first time. It’s the idea that art itself can cause violence. In this film, it’s a painting that shows a raincoat-clad man murdering a woman.

Soon, Sam is getting menacing calls from the killer and Julia is attacked by the black-clad maniac. The police isolate a sound in the background of the killer’s conversations, the call of a rare Siberian “bird with the crystal plumage.” There’s only one in Rome, which gets the police closer to the identity of who is wearing those black gloves (in truth, it’s Argento’s hands). It’s worth noting that the species of bird the film refers to as “Hornitus Nevalis” doesn’t really exist. The bird in the film is actually a Grey Crowned Crane.

Alberto, Monica’s art gallery husband, tries to kill her, finally revealing that he has been behind the attacks. Ah — but this is a giallo. Mistaken identity is the main trick of its trade. And even though this film was made nearly fifty years ago, I’d rather you get the opportunity to learn for yourself who the killer really is.

I may have mentioned before that my parents saw this movie before I was born and hated it to a degree that any time a movie didn’t make any sense, they would always bring up “that weird movie with the bird that makes the noises.” Who knew I would grow up to love Argento so much? It’s one of those cruel ironies that would show up in his movies.

An uncredited adaptation of Fredric Brown’s novel The Screaming Mimi, this film was thought of as career suicide by actress Eva Renzi. And the producer of the film wanted to remove Argento as the director. However, when Argento’s father Salvatore Argento went to speak to the man, he noticed that the executive’s secretary was all shaken up. He asked her what was wrong and she mentioned that she was still terrified from watching the film. Salvatore asked her to tell her boss why she was so upset and that’s what convinced the man to keep Dario on board.

The results of all this toil and worry? A movie that played for three and a half years in one Milan theater and led to copycats (and lizards and spiders and flies and ducklings and butterflies and so on) for decades. Argento would go on to film the rest of his so-called Animal Trilogy with The Cat O’Nine Tails and Four Flies on Grey Velvet, then Deep Red before moving into more supernatural films like Suspiria and Inferno.

The trouble with watching so many horror movies is that I often feel like I’ve seen what I’m watching before. This time, this feeling isn’t all in my head. Seriously, 2015’s The Abandoned was about a troubled, antipsychotic-dependent young woman who takes a job as a night guard and has to deal with demonic forces. 2016’s The Autopsy of Jane Doe was about coroners who experience supernatural phenomena while examining the body of an unidentified woman. Put them together and you get this movie.

Shat Mitchell plays Megan Reed, a troubled ex-cop in rehab who takes a graveyard shift in the morgue as part of her therapy. This doesn’t seem like a good idea. Nonetheless, she soon meets the body of Hannah Grace, a dead girl who was possessed and is now reanimated by demons. This also doesn’t seem like a good idea.

Hannah’s father smothered her during the exorcism to save one of the priests. Now, she’s escaped her grave and heals with each murder she commits. The police caught her father attempting to mutilate her body, as the demon can only die once her body is destroyed. He convinces Megan to help him, but Hannah burns her father and stalks our heroine, feeding off her fear and depression.

Her cop ex-boyfriend shows up to rescue her, but Hannah tears him apart. Megan grabs his gun and unlike when she couldn’t shoot back at a perp — which is how she got depressed in the first place — she’s able to destroy Hannah.

That said — you know this is a modern horror movie that needs the callback at the end, so it’s hinting that the demon is now in her, despite her being clean, sober and happy.

If you were born after 1995, then perhaps you’ll enjoy some of the jump scares in this. But if you are old, like me, and remember a better time for horror, you can’t help but be disappointed. Or feel disoriented and say, “Didn’t we already watch this?”

Well, it’s official. I always thought Strip Nude for Your Killer and Play Motel were the sleaziest giallo I’d ever seen. Good news. Or bad news, depending on your morals. Ruggero Deodato is here to let you know that there’s no limit to the depravity that he can bring to your TV set. Seriously, I feel like I have to wash it now after this one. I guess that’s what I should expect from the maker of Cannibal Holocaust.

This movie starts off with a sex worker making love to a ponytailed man in a suit in the middle of her kitchen while her sister watches and touches herself. Trust me, it’s not going to get any cleaner as it goes on.

Vida (Katarzyna Figura, The Player), Ludmilla and Sissy (Ilaria Borelli, Life Is Beautiful) are three gorgeous sisters living together in a Budapest apartment. The next day after the opening sex scene, Ludmilla finds the bloody remains of the ponytailed man, a pimp named Yury (Yorgo Voyagis, Frantic), in the washing machine.

Inspector Stacev responds to the police call, but the body is gone. He believes that this is all in Ludmilla’s head but soon, he’s making time with all three sisters. One by one, they tell him that they are innocent, blame one another and then have sex with him. Obviously, this makes his girlfriend Irina incredibly jealous.

So why are the girls putting him through this? Has there really been a murder? Is he next? How many sex scenes can Deodato fit into a film (the answer is an awful lot)?

Shameless put this out a few years ago and I’ve heard rumors that Arrow may be re-releasing this soon. It’s pretty decent, but you might want to know what you’re getting into before watching this with people not ready for the excesses of Italian films.