Giallo thread

[IanIcon Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close IanIcon]

Is the Raro DVD of Perfume of the Lady in Black preferable to their Blu Ray? I have heard really bad things about the blue quality.

[Clive Smith noodle doodle Find all posts View Profile Close Clive Smith]

Is the Raro DVD of Perfume of the Lady in Black preferable to their Blu Ray? I have heard really bad things about the blue quality.

In my view, yes. The BD was unwatchable for me; it looks terrible in motion.

[slizwiz Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close slizwiz]

Yeah, the Raro Perfume Blu is kinda bad. Sad and annoying that they screwed it up.

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

11 minutes into Argento's Non Ho Sonno AKA Sleepless. I haven't seen this in almost 10 years and I just abandoned it at around the 30 minute mark. Watching it again and the setup is pretty lame. There's this hooker, it's not established what transpired as she's with the killer of the movie. It's either pre or post coitus.

The Goblin score is kind of lame.

And what's with the dubbing in all of these Eyetalian flicks from the 00's and onwards? How did it get worse? How is that possible? I can understand that if this was a little low budget movie but this had a budget of 4 million bucks and managed to rope in Max Von Sydow to appear in this turd. It just amazes me.

1st edit: 15 minutes in and the hooker cltuches her bloody stump like the woman who had her hand cut off in Tenebrae. The effects looked a lot worse. Like something you'd expect to see in a Troma pickup.

2nd edit: I guess the use of rain is a throwback to Suspiria/Inferno?

3rd edit: and the friend of the hooker dies. Lame first person shot of the stabbing. What was the point of this opening again? Why open with an establishing event of the Dwarf Killer's latest victim with Sydow assuring the boy, and then cut to two Red Shirts? Why not involve Sydow in the opening more?

4th edit: 23 minutes and it dawned on me, why is the killer a dwarf supposedly? Is this just a painfully forced homage to Phenomena?

5th edit: 25 minutes in and another homage to Tenebre. But it's overlaid with footage from the first kill in case you forgot.

6th edit: the shot of the club is pretty lazily shot and the Goblin music is very bland. Oh and look, an homage to Inferno.

7th edit: I like the lighting. I like the use of blue and the light around the lighter. Why is there a British security guard?

8th edit: 29:29 that punch sound effect... Jesus christ... That's something you'd expect to hear in a Troma flick. The kill is pretty decent. I'll give the movie that much.

9th edit: the first act is over and we still don't know why the killer dwarf (god that sounds stupid) is committing these crimes. Completely unlike the other Argento Gialli where we're given a reason of some kind pretty early on. Except in Phenomena (which isn't really a Giallo) but there's the implied explanation that the deformed kid was just as insane as his mother. But let me get this straight; the killer of this flick just stopped for reasons yet to be explained, tried to rent a hooker, hooker said no, so he tries to go to sleep and the hooker very easily accidentally finds all of the evidence of the crimes they've committed. So now, even when they get the evidence back, they're still killing random people.

34:40 ANOTHER reference. Throwback to Tenebre.

10th edit: 37 minutes in and apparently this is funny because they're all midgets.

11th edit: so we go back to the kid from the opening who watches his mother die. The kill is actually pretty good. And I like the use of shadows. But I guess this is an homage to Deep Red. The actor playing the son has no personality and it seems that we're stuck with him for quite a while.

12 edit: we're approaching an hour into this movie and Sydow has barely been in it. I get the feeling that the film was written around Sydow's schedule. They had enough money to get Sydow but not enough money to shoot for a month or two with him. Sydow is easily the best thing in this picture so far.

13th edit: cliche of asshole trying to blackmail the killer in a giallo. We all know how this ends. Argento has steered clear of this trope up until this point in his career. Meh kill. This could have been cut out completely. Wait, 55:00 Sydow and the guy just happened to know where exactly the asshole was going in order to black mail the killer. Sydow does not have a gun for protection. He also gets his fingerprints on the body.

14th edit: an hour in exactly and I like Sydow but these scenes where he's alone and trying to figure out the mystery are just boringly shot. These are the kind of scenes where you need at least two or more people interacting with each to figure out the mystery. Just like in Tenebre or Deep Red. You can't shoot a mystery movie with a guy standing by himself in a room and speaking out loud. This just reaffirms my theory that they had Sydow for a limited amount of time and devised the easiest and quickest ways to film his scenes.

15th edit: another random kill. This is starting to remind me of Friday the 13th part 5: a New Beginning where a character is introduced in one scene and just as quickly killed. Oh wait, but in part 5, characters are often introduced in one scene and then killed in the next or at least in their third scene. Man, the killer took his sweet ass time to make his move. More horrible sound effects. And the killer smashes a dummy head.

16th edit: 70 minutes in and we finally get a kind of motivation for the killer. How they know the killer is going to strike at this one concert is anyone's idea. How is it this one particular location? Is there just one concert hall with a ballet in all of Italy? There's some notable stylistic moments but nothing really as strong as Argento in the prime of his career. That severed head didn't look very good though.

17th edit: an hour and twenty minutes in and another character introduced briefly and then quickly killed off with a very lame sound effect. Starting to notice a pattern by this point.

18th edit: we're just under an hour and thirty minutes in and here's a pointless sex scene that shows no nudity... Holy shit, we're actually getting a scene where the killer interacts directly with Max Von Sydow. Took long enough. I guess this is an homage to Deep Red. Max has really shitty aim, this guy was a cop?

19th edit: and he's dead. Sydow dies just as we arrive at the 3rd act. I guess the shot of the parrot with his body is an homage to the chimp hanging out with Donald Pleasance' body in Phenomena. 1:29:30 patented butt shot because we all know Argento loves those ass shots. Oh wait a second...

20th edit: THERE'S STILL TWENTY MINUTES LEFT OF THIS MOVIE!

21st edit: an hour and thirty four minutes in and Deep Red puppet reference. This could be a drinking game spotting all the references. Fulci was spot on when he said that Argento loved himself.

22nd edit: I like that after all of these scenes where we follow our main characters trying to figure out the mystery and they just happen to stumble upon the final big clue. All those previous scenes with them trying to figure it out didn't feel pointless at all. 1:42:00 yeah, you're not fooling me Argento, I've seen Deep Red.

23rd edit: 1:45:00 yep, I knew it. So our protagonist figured out the killer based on... the asthma spray. Even though when we flash back to his murdered mother we clearly don't hear the sound of an asthma spray canister (whatever they're called). The killer's childlike voice reminds me New York Ripper.

24th edit: an hour and 47 minutes in and I'm like Elaine from that one episode of Seinfeld:

What a piece of shit. The only thing I'll give it credit for is that one kill and a good headshot (also recalling New York Ripper which is kind of weird). How the fuck did this get a 6.1 rating on IMDB? What the fuck man.

[The Silly Swede Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close The Silly Swede]

Cause it is still much much better then all his other films on this side of the millenia?

Besides, the opening train sequence is top notch.

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

That's a pretty low bar to pass.

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

That's a pretty low bar to pass.

Touche

I like NONHOSONNO more than you do, Alex, but I agree that it's a hodgepodge of allusions to some of Argento's earlier films. I remember reading reviews of it at the time where people praised that aspect: I think it was a case of Argento preaching to the converted and gaining 'easy' points from his loyal audience by referencing his earlier films and thus framing NONHOSONNO as a 'return to form' after the initial critical disappointment surrounding PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, THE STENDHAL SYNDROME and TRAUMA. On the other hand, and in retrospect, THE STENDHAL SYNDROME strikes me as one of his better films. (I always liked this picture and felt that at the time of its first release, I was swimming against the tide as the film seemed to get a critical drubbing literally everywhere.) I like TRAUMA much more than I did when it was first released too, and watching PHANTOM OF THE OPERA in its Italian language version also raised that film in my estimation - though I'd be hard pushed to place TRAUMA or PHANTOM in the same league as STENDHAL, personally.

NONHOSONNO also works much better in Italian. The English dub is terrible, imo.

[Dom D Spoon! Find all posts View Profile Close Dom D]

Nonhosonno is the one film I'd say where Argento was really going out of his way to repeat himself and recapture some old glory. I really like the first half hour or so. It gets lost somewhere along the way after that but I still like it quite a bit. I should rewatch Trauma. I don't think I've seen it this millenium. I seem to recall heads that talked after they got lopped off though and some other silliness that was hard to get past. I'm really not sure what he was doing Phantom Of The Opera. Had he just been watching some Jeunet films and got over excited? Tonally it's all over the shop. Stendahl on the other hand just keeps getting better. A slight disappointment on the first watch as it's not a typical giallo but once you know that it's a damned good thriller.

[Tom Clark Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Tom Clark]

I remember reading reviews of it at the time where people praised that aspect: I think it was a case of Argento preaching to the converted and gaining 'easy' points from his loyal audience by referencing his earlier films and thus framing NONHOSONNO as a 'return to form' after the initial critical disappointment surrounding PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, THE STENDHAL SYNDROME and TRAUMA.

There were also plenty of reviews moaning about that very same thing, that it was just a "greatest hits" type of film. This is after years of people complaining that he hadn't made anything like his older films, so he does, and they complain that its too much like his older films! Damned if he did, damned if he didn't. I've always found Sleepless to be one of the strongest of his post-Opera films. That whole train sequence is classic Argento, the Goblin score is rockin and the kills especially nasty.

Totally agree on Stendhal. Excellent film and the best of his later output from where I'm sitting. It still seems to be somewhat contentious but its nice to see it getting some love around here.

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

I don't know guys. If NonHoSonno could be considered "good" then Fulci's Cat in the Brain was robbed for best Oscar for a foreign film. Just saying.

[The Silly Swede Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close The Silly Swede]

Well, I like it. And I consider it the last real film he did, which like Paul L says, is very very much a try to return to what made him good. And as that, it works for me.

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

I don't know guys. If NonHoSonno could be considered "good" then Fulci's Cat in the Brain was robbed for best Oscar for a foreign film. Just saying.

Come to think of it, there are quite a few similarities between CAT IN THE BRAIN and CINEMA PARADISO, the Best Foreign Language Film winner that year

[slizwiz Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close slizwiz]

I love Sleepless. Gets better with every viewing.

[IanIcon Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close IanIcon]

Huge Sleepless fan here. It's not Suspiria or Tenebre, but it's better than anything after Opera. I need to revisit Stendhal.

Watched these gialli in the past few days:

Black Belly of the Tarantula - It was OK. Kind of unremarkable. I didn't hate it while I was watching, but I doubt I'll remember it well a month from now. Has anyone noticed that gialli almost always have someone dying by falling from heights (miraculously, they always transform into a really bad dummy from one shot to the other). Whenever there's a scramble up to the roof or in mountains, you just know one person is doing to fall!

My Dear Killer - Totally enjoyed this - silly and convoluted as hell, but lots of fun. George Hilton's pornstache is the stuff of legend.

[Ian Jane Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Ian Jane]

88 just confirmed that they're bringing Lamberto Bava's Delirium to Blu-ray.