Needs to be seen to be believed, in all its disgusting, shameless glory.The revival of antiquity and the archaeological finds of antique sculpture gave way to many representations of the nude in the 16th century. It’s real ‘take a shower afterwards’ stuff, but the more male characters we meet-sweaty abusers every one-the more you start to wonder if Bianchi is… having a go at the patriarchy? Then the film goes back to treating Castelnuovo as a loveable rogue-even after he’s physically abused his girlfriend-and you remember what you’re watching. ![]() This happens just after his friend has looked her up and down and commented-I shit you not-“I want my mommy”. It’s another one that seems to self-critique as it goes-every man is a pervert and a predator, especially photographer lead Nino Castelnuovo, who once starred in Jaques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and who we meet here coercing a stranger into sex in a public changing room. Andrea Bianchi’s aptly-titled serving of sleaze literally starts with a shot of a woman’s pubis and only gets pervier, but manages to wedge in a pretty good yarn alongside all the skin. ![]() The same year as Deep Red, one of the genre’s grubbiest efforts was unleashed. The movie also has a wonderfully satisfying, seemingly endless dummy-thrown-off-a-cliff finale, truly one for the ages. He also shoots the heck out of it, with faces in closeup surrounded by the blues and greens of the Italian countryside, strategic split-diopter shots complemented with oppressive sound design (the drone of cicadas throughout), and feverish editing (sometimes cutting away mid-sentence). It was only 1971 and Fulci was not mucking around-there are two infamous scenes here, one involving a woman beaten with chains (soundtracked by a nearby radio station-odds are very high Tarantino saw this film), the other an attempted seduction of a pubescent boy by very nude genre legend Barbara Bouchet.įulci wallows in the muck, but the mystery is engrossing, culminating in a pointed swing at the Catholic Church. A real journeyman, he dabbled in Westerns, war films and sci fi, and cranked out some notable gialli-the phantasmagorical sleaze-fest A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, the controversial and condemned New York Ripper, and this small town freak out. Lucio Fulci’s career started in the late fifties making crime films, and peaked twenty years later with gross-out classics Zombie Flesh Eaters, City of the Living Dead and The Beyond. The killer is a bit less terrifying than later iterations, wearing a stocking over his face and a fedora hat, but despite minimal blood the deaths are gnarly-a victim getting spiked through the face is shocking now, nevermind 1964. There are lingering closeups of murder weapons, and of course leather-gloved hands. The lighting grows gaudier during the violent scenes, and the music gets rowdier. So many hallmarks of horror cinema are already in place in Blood and Black Lace: a broken sign creaks in the rain. James Wan’s Malignant also springs to mind as a recent riff on these tropes. Blood and Black Lace might be his most stylish effort though, which is appropriate given that it takes place in a fashion house where models are mysteriously dying.īava was clearly a major architect of the genre, and his bold use of colour influenced fellow horror titan Dario Argento, as well as many modern filmmakers including Edgar Wright, who prior to Soho had included giallo elements in Hot Fuzz. ![]() In 1970 he gave the genre a massive shakeup with the bloody murder setpieces of A Bay of Blood. The consensus is that Mario Bava’s 1963 film The Girl Who Knew Too Much is the first official giallo.
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