“Laura non c’è” (“Laura Is Not Here”) was a pop-rock song written and performed by Italian singer Nek. It achieved a huge success in Italy, Europe and Latin America, as well as an entry in the Sanremo Music Festival 1997. It’s about the longing for someone you can no longer connect with and the pain that comes from losing a person.

In 1998, director Antonio Bonifacio (Olga O’s Strange Story, Scandal in Black) and writers Gianfranco Clerici (Murder Rock) and Daniele Stroppa (Delitto Passionale) took that song and made a movie out of it.

Lorenzo (Nicholas Rogers) is a comic book artist whose creations seemingly live in his head, as we see action in a bar — man that music sounds a lot like “Smack My Bitch Up” by The Prodigy — that is later realized by his pencil and brushes. He hears an argument outside his apartment — which has more fog in it than Fulci’s Conquest — and saves a girl from three thugs. She’s Laura (Gigliola Aragozzini), the doomed lover of the song, but he doesn’t know that yet.

Every time it seems like Lorenzo is getting close to Laura, she disappears. There’s a moment in a neon cross filled cemetery where she’s visiting the graves of her parents and tells him that she believes in reincarnation. Our comic book protagonist follows her everywhere, even getting kicked out of her apartment by several men, one of them who he thinks is her pimp. He finally succeeds in a night of romance with her, but wakes up to see track marks all over her arms, which causes him to be the one who disappears.

Little did he know that she was a diabetic and that the pimp was her doctor and that the man who kicked her out was her brother (Amadeus, an Italian DJ and television host). He’s told that she’s died from diabetes and that any time he spent with her was probably a fantasy. But oh wow — a cat that he meets on the street is Laura and the entire time, we’ve been in the world of another comic book. And guess who was drawing it? Nek.

The movie closes with Nek and Laura meeting as the song that inspires this movie plays.

This is honestly a strange film. It’s made by filmmakers with a background in giallo — cinematographer Silvano Tessicini shot Murder Rock, Sensazioni d’amore and Luna di sangue — and it has some of that but it’s also a pop song-based movie. I’m kind of amazed that it’s a real movie.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Kreola (Demetra Hampton, who played comic book character Valentina in the Italian TV series) has come to Santa Domingo to see her photographer husband Andy (Teodosio Losito). He’s already worried about her having eyes for Marco (Marco Carbonaro), but then the real trouble happens. Marco is looking for Iris (Cristina Rinaldi, P.O. Box Tinto Brass), who has fallen under the spell of a craggy old seafarer named Leon (John Armstead, Errore Fatale).

Kreola is supposed to try and lure the old man into her arms so that Andy can take back Iris, but she ends up falling in love with the sea captain too. As Jo Ann (Cinzia Monreale, probably pleased to be in a movie where Lucio Fulci or Joe D’Amato isn’t killing her), a writer, explains, the islands are where foreign women lose all inhibitions and leave their men.

Sadly, after two movies of Antonio Bonifacio that I really liked — Olga O’s Strange Story and Scandal In Black — I was let down by this. It seems to really go nowhere and I was hoping for at least some turn to the giallo after seeing that Daniele Stroppa wrote it. Instead, it’s lifeless.

Jefferson Bailey (Scott McGinnis, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock) owns the hottest of all businesses in 1983: a video arcade. It’s driving local business tycoon Joseph Rutter (Joe Don Baker, a man whose name I screamed into the ear of a sleeping girlfriend once, which is a long story I should really get to sometime) nuts, so he gets his two nephews and plans on shutting down the arcade. Mean! Unfair! No!

Bailey’s too smart for Rutter and has two pals named Eugene Groebe (Leif Green, Davey Jaworski from the legendary bomb Grease 2) — who is molested by swimsuit girls before he even gets to the arcade — and McDorfus who are ready to deal with this affront.

This movie was such a big deal that Midway allowed the image of Pac-Man to be used as well as their new game Satan’s Hollow and the as-yet-unreleased Super Pac-Man during the big showdown at the movie’s end.

Corinne Bohrer, who is pretty much teen movie royalty thanks to appearances in films like Surf II, Zapped! and Stewardess School shows up, as does John Voldstad who played “my other brother Daryl” on TV’s Newhart.

There are two real reasons to watch this movie. One is the theme song, which has beeps, boops and promises “video to the max” and “totally awesome video games!” This song will infiltrate your mind and not leave, trust me.

The other big reason is John Gries, who completely owns every scene he appears in as King Vidiot, a punk rock maniac surrounded by punker girls who only communicate in video game noises when they’re not all riding around on miniature motorcycles. In a more perfect world, King Vidiot would be the star of the film. Every other person pales in comparison to his greatness. Gries would go on to steal the show in plenty of other films like Real Genius, Napoleon Dynamite, Fright Night, The Monster Squad and TerrorVision.

This all comes from Greydon Clark, who directed The Uninvited — a movie where George Kennedy does battle with a house cat — Without Warning and Wacko, as well as appearing in movies like Satan’s Sadists.

The saddest part of this movie was that even though the good guys win, arcades would be dead by the mid-1980’s. So really, the bad guys did win. King Vidiot? Well, no one knows what happened to him.

The MVD Rewind Collection release of Joysticks has a 2K scan and restoration from 35mm film elements, new fan commentary featuring MVD Rewind Collection’s Eric D. Wilkinson, Cereal at Midnight host Heath Holland and Diabolik DVD‘s Jesse Nelson, audio commentary by director Greydon Clark, an interview with Clark and a fake trailer for a movie called Coin Slots directed and written aby Newt Wallen and starring Mr. Lobo and Eric D. Wilkinson.  It all comes in incredible retro packaging, as well as reversible artwork, a collectible 2-sided mini-poster and more.

You can get it from MVD.

Set over a 24-hour period in 1978 Florida, this movie has a man named Ted (Andrew Sykes) shoplifting and trying to get with someone, anyone and always getting shot down. Director and writer (with Eric Pereira and Brandon Slagle) Devanny Pinn buries the lead quite well, even if I knew who Ted was, knew what would happen next and have seen the story so many times. This is a very different take and if you want to be surprised, well, stop reading.

One night, Ted goes out drinking, following some sorority girls, but he gets too drunk, he comes on too strong and he gets thrown out. Yet he can still follow those girls home and instead of trying to pick them up, he becomes a destroyer, wiping them out one by one because he’s Ted Bundy and this is his story.

There’s a solid cast on hand — Jeremy London from Party of Five, Kathleen Kinmont from Halloween 4, Lisa Wilcox from Nightmare On Elm Street 4 and 5 and Eileen Dietz from The Exorcist amongst other talented actors.

Unlike so many true crime stories, this puts you in the world of the victims, letting you get to know them before the inevitable. It’s very effective and quite disquieting, as the violence doesn’t let up.

You can get this on DVD or blu ray from MVD.

In this film, Dario Argento explains the difference between fear and panic (the panico that gives this its title). He claims that fear is like a fever of 100.5 F, one that has you terrified. Panic is just a degree higher, something that takes you beyond to a place that you can’t control.

If you’ve read Argento’s book Fear, he often speaks of writing his scripts isolated in a hotel room. In this documentary, the director finds himself returns to the place where he completed his latest script and speaks as part of an intimate interview, all while being followed by a film crew documenting his life for a movie about his illustrious career.

He’s joined by friends, collaborators and fans — many of whom are today’s most important filmmakers — to discuss the story of his life and films.

Director Simone Scafidi made Fulci For Fake in 2019, a film that attempted to explain the movies of Lucio Fulci. In that effort, he didn’t have true access to Fulci. Here, he has Argento speaking to his greatest successes and why he makes movies, as well as some of the most essential people in his life, including his daughters Fiore and Asia, his first wife Marisa Casale, Claudio Simonetti of Goblin, Lamberto Bava, Michele Soavi, Luigi Cozzi and current directors Nicolas Winding Refn, Guillermo del Toro and Gaspar Noé.

Del Toro speaks most effectively on the power of what Argento can do and how he’s “getting high off his own supply.” He makes a case that Deep Red presents a world where anything at any time can happen and that you must accept that — “here’s is a killer doll, alright” he laughs — and that it’s also full of ancient evil waiting on the outside of the frame, a film where no one is safe.

There’s a lot more that I’d like to have heard about, such as the time in American making Dawn of the Dead and Inferno, as well as what inspired his later films. This skips quite a bit — sorry fans of Dracula 3D and Mother of Tears — but it’s impossible to get a multiple decade career into a short running time. What does emerge is that even when people have had rough relationships with Dario — such as actress Cristina Marsillach, the star of Opera — they feel as if they have learned from the time they spent with him. It makes for an interesting companion to his aforementioned autobiography, as you only hear his side of the story, where Asia presents a more nuanced vision of him, including a surprising moment of tenderness and vulnerability.

It’s very hard for me to be objective on this film’s subject, as his movies form the nucleus of so much of my love for cinema. I am pleased with the results, as it gives me as much as I need to know and I could honestly listen to Soavi, Bava and Cozzi speak for hours.

As a film nerd, I am beyond happy that this mentioned The Card Player. As you may know, my parents’ first date was to see The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and for years they used it as a barometer of films they hated. I think my gialli addiction started in those formative film discussions as a form of rebellion. Also: Yes, I did cry when they showed the Louma crane from Tenebrae.

You can watch this starting February 2 on Shudder.

To commemorate the release of Dario Argento Panico, Shudder and the IFC Center will present Panic Attacks: The Films of Dario Argento, a series of films celebrating the works of the Giallo horror maestro, revealing his profound impact on horror and his lasting influence on cinema.

The series screens January 31 to February 8 (Full schedule here) and will feature the following films:

Suspiria (1977) dir. Dario Argento

Deep Red (1975) dir. Dario Argento

Dario Argento Panico (2024) dir. Simone Scafidi

The Cat o’Nine Tails (1971) dir. Dario Argento

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) dir. Dario Argento

Opera (1987) dir. Dario Argento

Vortex (2021) dir. Gaspar Noé

Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971) dir. Dario Argento

The Mother of Tears (2007) dir. Dario Argento

Inferno (1980) dir. Dario Argento — on 35mm

Tenebrae (1982) dir. Dario Argento

Phenomena (1985) dir. Dario Argento

Dracula 3D (2013) dir. Dario Argento

Irena (Kseniya Rappoport) is a Ukrainian sex worker who is looking for a job in fancy Italian apartment building and starts by cleaning the stairs, even though she already has money. Her plan is to get closer to the Adacher family who lives there, starting by becoming friends with the nanny, Gina (Piera Degli Esposti). And then, when that au pair is crippled by a fall — that Irena may have caused — she’s hired for the same role and takes care of Thea (Clara Dossena).

There’s a reason behind her madness. She has given birth to nine children whose theft was the final dignity that she could not bear in her horrific life. Stabbing her pimp, she has come to Italy as she believes that Thea is her child. And if she has to stage a crash that kills the girl’s mother Valeria (Claudia Gerini), that’s just a means to the end. Bad luck follows Irena as the pimp remains alive and wants the money she took from him. Even though she takes care of him and it seems that she will move into the new motherless house with Thea and her father Donato (Pierfrancesco Favino), the police arrest her.

In jail, she refuses to eat. Thea visits her and feeds her, which gives her an urge to survive. Many years later, we see her finally leave prison behind and a fully grown woman is waiting for her. It is Thea.

The Unknown Woman, unlike many giallo, was a huge success. It won David di Donatello awards for Best Actress – Leading Role for Kseniya Rappoport, Best Cinematography for Fabio Zamarion), Best Director for Giuseppe Tornatore, Best Film and Best Music for Ennio Morricone.

Tornatore is best known for Cinema Paradiso and Massimo De Rita may have written an award-winning movie here, but under the name Max von Ryt he wrote Blastfighter and as Max De Rita he penned Blood Link. Actually, his career stretches back into the 1960s with his first credited script being War of the Zombies.

This was Italy’s official submission to the 80th Oscars Best Foreign Language Film category. It lost to The Counterfeiters.

Regardless of high class this is, it’s heart beats yellow blood.

You can watch this on Tubi.

28° minuto is the story of the Monster of Florence, which has also been the plot of The Killer Is Still Among Us and Il mostro di Firenze. It’s directed and written by Paolo Frajoli and Gianni Siragusa.

As the city of Florence deals with the serial killer, Fabrizio (Christian Borromeo) and Patrizia (Antonella Sperati) have just been engaged and are ignoring the danger. There’s also a police officer, Mauro Poggi (Marzio Honorato), who is in charge of catching the killer. He’s also dealing with a love story, yet his is much longer and sadder with Paolo (Corinne Cléry), who is still in love with him despite being married. He works with a criminologist (Paul Muller, Nightmare Castle) and they discover that the Monster once watched him mother cheat on his father, which made him want to kill any couples that he finds steaming up the windows of cars on lover’s lanes.

This was originally shot back in 1986, as Siragusa started the film and was blocked by the legal actions of the relatives of the serial killer’s victims. For some reason, five years later, this was no longer a problem. Frajoli finished the film and if numerous web sites are to be believed, he used scenes from Bakterion — the couple watches it when they go to the theater, which has posters for Phenomena, Inferno and Body Count — and some moments from The Killer Is Still Among Us along with his footage.

Also released as Tramonti fiorentini (Florentine Sunsets) and Quel violento desiderio (That Violent Desire), this even has the killer dress in a motorcycle outfit, as if somehow it wants to remind us that it’s trying to be as shocking as Strip Nude for Your Killer. Sadly, by 1991, it seemed as if so many gialli — even those based on actual killings — were sadly bloodless.

You can watch this on YouTube.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jennifer Upton is an American (non-werewolf) writer/editor in London. She currently works as a freelance ghostwriter of personal memoirs and writes for several blogs on topics as diverse as film history, punk rock, women’s issues, and international politics. For links to her work, please visit https://www.jennuptonwriter.com or send her a Tweet @Jennxldn

The Japanese title of The Boy and The Heron translates to “How Do You Live?” The title of one of Miyazaki’s favorite books, although this film has nothing to do with that story. 

After his mother passes away in a fire during WW2, 12-year-old Mahito finds it difficult to adjust to life in a new location following his father’s re-marriage. After he is bullied in school, he self-harms to avoid going to class. 

Mahito is visited by a talking heron who tells him his mother is still alive. He takes Mahito to an abandoned tower which serves as the portal to another realm. There, Mahito searches for his mother and meets all manner of mystical characters including a younger version of his mother. 

The Boy and The Heron is Hayao Miyazaki’s most personal and abstract film to date. He made it for his grandson. It’s about the old and the young and loss and acceptance. 

It feels like classic Miyazaki with a bit of David Lynch thrown into the mix. Visually, there’s so much detail, even in the quieter moments where nothing is happening, that it’s a film that will take most people more than viewing to absorb and unpack the meaning of everything on screen. 

The possible interpretations are limitless. Is this a warning about perceived power in alternate realities i.e. the internet? Is it showing us the human side of militaristic societies like the ones that sprung up in WW2? Is it a Buddhist parable involving the realms of the gods (deva), the demi-gods (asura), humans (manuṣa), animals (tiryak), hungry ghosts (preta) and hell denizens (naraka)? I honestly don’t know. And I like it that way. 

I’m fairly certain the granduncle, who lives in isolation with his pencil is Miyazaki. A man who neglected reality in favor of the worlds he created. It’s well-known that following the success of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Miyazaki threw himself into his work so much so that he neglected his wife and son Goro, with whom he has a strained relationship to this day. There’s also a lot of Miyzaki in Mahito, who grew up during and after WW2. 

At one point, the grand uncle in the other realm taps 13 building blocks with his pencil and indicates a desire for a successor to all he has created. I’ve heard it suggested that the number 13 represents Miyazaki’s films, but this theory holds no water. There are only currently 12 films if you count the feature length works and if you count the shorts directed for exclusive screenings at the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka Japan, there are substantially more than 13. I saw the short, titled Mei and the Kitten Bus at the museum (the official sequel to My Neighbour Totoro) and it was delightful, even if there were no English subtitles. Totoro’s first appearance in a crowd of creatures carrying his umbrella solicited substantial “ooohs” and “ahhhs” from the audience, owing to how beloved this character is in Japan. 

Whether Miyazaki-sensei makes another short or feature, it seems likely that The Boy and The Heron will be studied by future film scholars as one of his most important films. It’s rare that an aging director produces something this interesting. 

For example: In the other realm, there parakeets. These birds are fascist militaristic, but they also love their families. Notice, in the adorable image below, the parakeets cuddling their unborn young? Clearly, the parakeets aren’t really the “bad guys.” They’re just like humans. They have merely fallen prey to the flock mentality and follow their king – who resembles Mussolini- blindly. Once the flock crosses over into “reality” they are rendered harmless. 

Will it be his last? Time will tell. He’s “retired” several times before, but it seems as if creating the worlds in his mind is what keeps him going. Just like Granduncle. 

The film ends with a new beginning. Mahito is free to create his own stories. There is no “The End” as appears in all his other works, so I’m betting there will be at least one more short or a partial feature that goes into production before Miyazaki-sensei departs this earthly realm. If it turns out to be his last, I consider myself extremely lucky to have shared this reality at the same time as this master storyteller.

Martha (Tamara Mazarrasa) has raised her daughters Raquel (Lucía Tinajero) and Eva (Giovanna Reynaud) well, but they don’t know that the mother who runs a boutique and is putting them through college used to run with one of the most dangerous gangs in town.

When Eva is taken by El Chacal (Alex Guerrero) and his gang, Martha learns that the police may have good intentions but they aren’t able to get the job done. To save both of her daughters, she’ll have to go back to the woman she was before.

Directed and written by Mitchell Altieri, this is exactly the type of revenge movie that you’d expect. Then again, the sneak attack where the gang releases Eva and has her so drugged up she dies a few days later — all the doctors and tests in the hospital couldn’t see that coming, I guess — is pretty out there and I like that the cop who helps Martha, Juan Cinderos (Javier Dulzaides), doesn’t become her lover. It’s got a strong heroine who doesn’t just stop when she defeats the gang but also tries to offer support and a future to the women they kidnapped. She finds closure by being who she was always meant to be: a mother.

You can watch this on Tubi.