Man, Joe Eszterhas had the 80s neo-noir erotic thriller game all figured out. This is his first of the genre, but it’d be followed by Basic Instinct, Sliver, and Jade, which are three examples of this very American version of giallo. 

Jagged Edge was directed by Richard Marquand. Yes, the same man who directed Return of the Jedi. He also directed The Legacy and another film written by Eszterhas, Hearts of Fire. 

Starring Glenn Close as lawyer Teddy Barnes, the film is about her deciding to defend accused murderer Jack Forrester (Jeff Bridges), who police believe killed his wife Page (Maria Mayenzet) with a hunting knife. She’s put off doing criminal law since an incident with her boss, district attorney Thomas Krasny (Peter Coyote). Yet when she meets with private detective Sam Barnes (Robert Loggia), who was also impacted by Krasny, she decides to take the case. 

Krasny gets information on her client from Jack’s former lover, Eileen Avery (Diane Erickson), and from Bobby Slade (Marshall Colt), who explains how Jack uses his horse training to manipulate women. Teddy feels like that’s what she’s doing to him — they’ve already slept together — and while she thinks he’s guilty, the Evidence suggests he’s innocent. It doesn’t make things any easier when she starts to receive anonymous letters with non-public case details typed on a 1942 Corona typewriter.

Of course, she gets him off. But that night, as they celebrate in bed, she sees that typewriter in his closet. What happens next? Well, you should watch this.

Physical Evidence was going to be a sequel, with Glenn Close and Robert Loggia returning. It ended up being directed by Michael Crichon and starring Burt Reynolds and Theresa Russell. This was remade in India as Antima Ghatta and Kasoor.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Sophie Park (Amy Keum), a young Korean American woman, wants to learn more about her heritage. Every other girl at her college knows where they come from. However, Sophie’s family doesn’t even speak Korean. There’s a reason: her grandmother (Vana Kim) once fought a curse, and now, it has reawakened for our heroine.

Directed by Réi and written by Regina Kim, this finds Sophie asking her parents, Gabriel (Joseph Lim Kim) and Kelly (Eliza Shin), to tell her more about her family and Korea. Grandmother won’t allow this to happen. That said, she gets a new boyfriend, Jun (Kevin Woo), and, aside from dealing with her roommate Ari (Alice Bang), everything seems fine.

Then she brings Jun home, and her grandma goes nuts.

This brings in a lot of things I haven’t seen in horror: Japan and Korea’s complicated history, the power of Korean names and family history, and how ghosts tie into all of that. The evil man in the hat looks incredible, too. This movie should definitely be on your watch list, as it’s a lot better than your average streaming horror movie. Plus, it’s just 81 minutes.

You can watch this on Tubi.

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.