Marcos (Marc Ferrer, who also directed and wrote this) is a director who exists on the fringes of the industry, fueled by grand ambitions and a shoestring budget. He is convinced that his latest project—a neon-soaked, queer-coded Giallo—is his ticket to finally being a famous filmmaker. However, the production takes a meta-turn when a black-gloved killer begins stalking his set. As the body count rises across the vibrant streets of Barcelona, the line between Marcos’s script and reality blurs. The police begin to wonder: is this a publicity stunt gone wrong, or is the director’s obsession with the perfect shot becoming literally lethal?

There’s plenty of Argento homages here, as well as Almodóvar. There’s plenty of camp and representation across the board, which is welcome. It’s not the best queer movie about making a queer giallo film — Knife + Heart is undefeated — but I do love that it tries. You get the hyper-stylized violence, the lingering shots of sharp objects, and a pulsating electronic score from the films of Italy, and then balance it with Almodóvar’s kitschy interior design — those venetian blinds, for example — and a deep focus on interpersonal queer drama. 

You can watch this on Tubi.

The quiet suburbs of Cleveland are shattered when young Justin Whitter vanishes while cycling through a local park. Lead detective Greg Harper (Jon Tenney) and his partner Spitzky (Gregory Alan Williams) are met with a haunting piece of evidence: a jagged green pocketknife left at the scene.

The discovery sends shockwaves through the department. The knife is the calling card of a child predator from fifteen years ago, a case supposedly closed with the conviction of Cole Gordon. If a copycat is at work, it’s a tragedy; if Gordon is innocent, it’s a judicial nightmare. For Tommy (Jeremy Gladen), one of Gordon’s surviving victims, the news triggers a visceral, bone-deep breakdown, as the trauma he thought was buried resurfaces with violent intensity.

Jackie (Helen Hunt) is struggling to repair her marriage after a scandalous affair, but her son Connor (Judah Lewis) remains venomous, unable to forgive her betrayal. However, the family’s emotional war is soon eclipsed by inexplicable occurrences, such as missing silverware, a daughter who doesn’t exist, letting people into the house, and Greg getting trapped in a closet.

The domestic friction turns fatal when Jackie’s former lover, Todd, arrives unannounced. After being struck by a flying mug, he is hidden in the basement to recover, only for Jackie to find his corpse later that day. Desperate to protect her family and convinced Connor is the killer, Jackie helps Greg bury the body in the woods.

Unknown to everyone, two homeless people, Mindy (Libe Barer) and Alec (Owen Teague), are hiders in the house. The film has set this all up as a supernatural story, and suddenly, everything becomes real life. While Mindy is a documentary filmmaker looking for a thrill, Alec is something far more. He isn’t just watching; he is interfering. He is the one who tied up Connor and left the green knife, a calculated move that suggests he knows more about Greg’s secret life than he lets on. As the two narratives collide, the film’s giallo influences shine through, thanks to masks, hidden perspectives, and a dark, stylish exploration of a legacy of violence.

This has the kind of big twist that I don’t want to reveal. But wow — I get it. Director Adam Randall and writer Devon Graye have set up plenty of twists and turns. It’s also the only giallo adjacent movie made in Cleveland.

Marius Mattei wrote The French Sex Murders, so at least he had worked on a giallo film before directing and writing this. 

When her boyfriend is shot in the head by a giallo killer — you can tell by the black leather and motorcycle helmet look familiar to those that have seen Night School and Strip Nude for Your Killer — Allison Spencer (adult star and Blink 182 cover girl Janine Lindemulder in her first movie ) gets amnesia and starts running before heading off to live with tennis player Ferry Spencer (Charles Pitt) who she thinks is her father, but then learns he isn’t, then sleeps with him. This upsets Dr. Sally Tyler (Larry Blair), who, after all, is Ferry’s girlfriend and treated Allison when she showed up. At the same time, an armed killer is looking for her, as are Captain Morrison (Ernest Borgnine) and his partner (Kurt Woodruff). Meanwhile, Joe Frank (Stuart Whitman) is trying to take advantage of all of this mayhem.

If you want to see Stuart Whitman in a tracksuit and Janine in a role before she started doing hardcore, good news. This movie has you covered. She’s also nude the entire film. Well, nearly. I mean, it’s memorable even if the movie makes no sense and then rewards you with a double twist at the end.

This isn’t just a giallo. It’s my favorite genre: Italians let loose in America, this time in Florida.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Based on the 1965 novel A Fragment of Fear by John Bingham, this concerns Tim Brett (David Hemings), a former drug addict who has turned his life around and written a book detailing his experiences. He visits his aunt, who has helped criminals go straight her entire life. Sadly, one of them strangles her later, which leaves Tim alone on an island.

While he finds love with Juliet Bristow (Gayle Hunnicutt), he starts to think that everyone is against him. A woman on a train warns him to stop asking questions about his aunt’s death. A cop calls him, and when he files a report, Tim learns that no such policeman works at the station. Soon, a secret group contacts him, telling him that the Stepping Stones, a charity started by his aunt to help criminals become good citizens, has begun blackmailing those who succeed.

Soon, he starts to worry that Juliet will be killed at his wedding, which pushes him into a spiral that he never recovers from.

I was wondering, “Is this a gialli?” 

That’s when Adolfo Celi appeared.

There are a lot of complaints about the ending, in which Tim finally loses his mind, and then the idea that everything that happened was either a fantasy or a drug trip. Yet how does Tim get along with Juliet, who found the body of his aunt, and how did they fall in love so fast? 

This was directed by Richard C. Sarafian and written by Paul Dehn, who wrote the Apes sequels. If you’d like to see Hemmings in a real giallo, well…Deep Red, right?

Also known as Qui? and Who Are You?, this Léonard Keigel-directed movie has Romy Schneider (Death Watch) as Marina, who starts the movie fighting with her man, Claude (Gabriele Tinti, husband of Laura Gemser), who beats her up and tries to drive his convertible off a cliff and into the sea. He dies — maybe — and she falls in love with his brother Serge (Maurice Ronet), but feels watched all the time. Hence: Giallo.

The cops and Serge want to know where Claude’s body is and who killed him. Then, once he gets with Marina, she starts to panic about everything. She’s not exactly the heroine; she couldn’t care less that Claude died, but you know, if someone was routinely abusing me, I wouldn’t be all that verklempt either when they drove into the ocean. It’s also wild that she’s able to jump out of a moving car with hardly a scratch, but as much as Serge wants answers, well, look, it’s Romy Schneider with those Eurocult eyelashes and heavy makeup, and if his brother really is dead, certainly he should sleep with his contentious lover.

This is also like 70 minutes long, which is just perfect. There’s also a rock soundtrack by Claude Bolling that features two songs, “Who Are You” and “Strange Magic,” playing over and over.

Editor’s note: Cinematic Void will be playing this movie on January 24 at 7:00 PM at The Sie Film Center in Denver. You can get tickets here. For more information, visit Cinematic Void.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joseph Perry writes for the film websites Gruesome Magazine, The Scariest Things, Horror Fuel, The Good, the Bad and the Verdict and Diabolique Magazine; for the film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope and Drive-In Asylum; and for the pop culture websites When It Was Cool and Uphill Both Ways. He is also one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast and can occasionally be heard as a cohost on Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast.

Official synopsis: Anything That Moves follows nubile sex worker Liam who bikes with his girlfriend — his partner in both business and pleasure — through the city delivering snacks and divine satisfaction to his love-hungry clients. Meanwhile, a serial killer’s gory murders are piling up and all the evidence seems to point back to the lovers’ bed. 

If you have been wondering what Ginger Lynn and Nina Hartley are up to these days, writer/director  Alex Phillips has you covered with his latest feature Anything That Moves. The two actresses add adult-film authenticity to this tale of bicycling sex workers Liam (Hal Baum) and his girlfriend Thea (Jiana Nicole), who get caught up in the case of a serial killer who targets Liam’s clients.

The film’s aesthetic combines 1970s era porn vibes with that decade’s sleazy, gory grindhouse horror gruesomeness. There’s more here than mere pastiche, but social issue elements and sincerity tend to get muddled amongst all of the calculated weirdness and exploitation activity.

There’s no denying the fine 16mm cinematography work by Hunter Zimny, who marvelously captures the oppressiveness of both the Chicago summer and the powers that be that try to hold down the sex workers, along with the sex scenes that vary from tender to violent as well as the decidedly graphic horror mayhem. The performances are all committed in their own ways, from the more sincere to the over the top, the latter including Frank V. Ross and Jack Dunphy as two police officers accusing Liam and Thea of being prime suspects.

Anything That Moves is a unique vision. If you’re in the mood for what Fantasia’s official synopsis describes as “a psychosexual dark comedy thriller” that bounces around but never seems to quite settle on a main thematic focus, it’s certainly worth a view. 

Also known as Il Sorriso Del Ragno, The Spider’s Smile and Sweet Blue Sweat, this is the only movie directed by Massimo Castellani, who was assistant director on Bloody Pit of Horror and Perversion Story. It was released on VHS by Magnum Video back in the day.

Tony Driscoll (Thomas Hunter) is an insurance man investigating a $5 million jewelry robbery in which he becomes the main suspect. That’s because a woman he hooks up with slips some jewels into his luggage and then gets killed. It features Gabriele Tinti, and while you’d hope it was a full-on giallo, it’s closer to Eurocrime or even a travelogue of Greece.

Elena Nathanail is the femme fatale, and this was produced by Sergio’s brother Luciano. Writers are Italo Gasperini (Scalps, Wrath of God) and Armando Morandi.

When all I have are facts, know that the movie won’t be memorable.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Arturo (Sebastián Badilla, who directed this with his brother Gonzalo) has been waiting to ask María Elena (Trinidad de La Noi) on a date, but he’s waited too long, and now she’s with a magician, Tatán (Nicolás Luisetti). He decides to make her jealous and starts dating Beatriz (Raquel Calderón), the most popular girl in town.

But then there’s a giallo killer who takes out their teacher, Marión (Diana Bolocco), and starts to kill students. Can Arturo and Beatriz find love and live long enough to enjoy it?

At some point, Arturo gets María Elena to watch Tenebrae. There’s also a killer who looks exactly like the murderer in Blood and Black Lace. Each character also gets photos of other movies in their credits; it looks like someone cut and pasted these from Google Images. That said, there’s a bullet through the door like Opera, a crystal bird and J&B. 

This movie was so badly reviewed and did so poorly that the brothers left Chile. There was also a big deal when the cast performed the song that inspired this movie — by the band Supernova — and people beyond upset.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Directed and written by Giovanna Lenzi (who also appears in this movie as Julie Garrett) and Sergio Pastore (married to Lenzi at the time; he also directed Crimes of the Black Cat), Delitti arrives after the Giallos of the 70s and even the revival in the 80s, as erotic thrillers were just putting a different name on the same genre. 

The weapon for the killer in this case is the uric acid in coffee with sugar, which creates hydrogen cyanide and transforms into a poison capable of murder. This is Giallo BS Science at its finest; uric acid is “a natural byproduct of purine metabolism in the body, and while it can lead to conditions like gout when levels become too high, coffee does not appear to increase uric acid levels or create hydrogen cyanide.”

It certainly can’t turn your face into a death mask, like in this movie. Even if it also contains snake venom.

Anyways… at least this has music by Guido and Maurizio de Angelis, or as we know them, Oliver Onions. So it has that going for it.

This has an inspector trying to learn who is using this poison to kill people and a killer who likes to dance. I get it. I feel the call of the dance as well, but I’m not stalking women and forcing them to see my gyrations. There’s a ton of dance in this, as one couple literally frugs before they, well, fuck. Or they would, if the dude hadn’t pulled a knife and made the detective walk right in. And it turns into a karate fight? And has dialogue like this? “Enough of your polite evasiveness, inspector. Let’s just say it like it is: that my brother was gay and liked to dress in women’s clothes was already generally known, wasn’t it?”

Oh, Delitti, you crazy.

Also: There’s a strange fight with choking between two lingerie-wearing women who then take a shower together.

Also also: A dwarf who likes to make snuff films.

As for the cast, we have Michela Miti as Betty. She was also in Gialloparma and Andrea Bianchi’s The Seduction of Angela. As you can imagine, for the star of a Bianchi film, she’s naked for much of this movie. Saverio Vallone is Bob; he was also in Antropophagus. Sascha Darwin was in plenty of Fulci’s late movies, such as Touch of Death and Voices from Beyond, as well as two of the Fulci Presents movies, The Murder Secret (there’s Bianchi again) and Bloody Psycho. Solvi Stubing is also on hand, making her first movie in five years and long after her heyday of making movies like Strip Nude for Your Killer (yes, I see you, Bianchi). And is that Gianni Dei I observe, Patrick from Patrick Still Lives?

Grotty sex scenes, music taken from A Blade In the Dark, lots of synth, so much dancing and a closing line that says, “Be careful who you hang with girls. Make sure that he is not a snake lover…”

They say this is the worst giallo ever made — also the only one directed by a woman, until Knife + Heart — but it’s so relentlessly weird that I enjoyed myself.

Sadly, during the premiere of this movie, Pastore suffered a fatal stroke. That’s one way to avoid the critics.

You can watch this on YouTube.