In honor of the upcoming Halloween holiday. (And to me it is a holiday, as it's a national day of celebration of sorts) I am posting some trailers from my favorite Italian films in the genre known as 'Giallo". Here's the definition via Wikipedia.

Giallo (Italian pronunciation: [ˈdʒallo], plural gialli) is an Italian 20th-century genre of literature and film, which in Italian indicates crime fiction and mystery. In the English language it refers to a genre similar to the French fantastique genre and includes elements of horror fiction and eroticism. The word "giallo" is Italian for "yellow" and stems from the origin of the genre in Italy as a series of cheap paperback mystery novels which all had trademark yellow covers.

I got turned onto Giallo films in the late 70's via a book called the Psychotronic Encylopedia of Film. Here's an article about that awesome reference book and it's author Michael Weldon.

Many of the movies considered "Giallo" have been directed by guys like Dario Argento and Mario Bava. They are represented here. By the way, almost all of these Italian "Giallo" movies have an American actor as the lead and are very cheesy by today's standards..

Anyway...my favorite "Giallo" movies, in trailer form.  How many of these have you seen?

First Michelangelo Antonioni "Blow Up".  If you took film class you may have sen this as it is heavy on the artsy aspect and technical brilliance.

Dario Argento's "The Bird With The Crystal Plumage"

Mario Bava's "Blood and Black Lace"

Mario Bava's "Hatchet For The Honeymoon"

Dario Argento's "Deep Red"

Umberto Lenzi "Eyeball"

Sergio Martino "Torso"

Well, as you can see these films are not for everyone.  They are high on style and short on substance as many Italian movies are.  These movies were certainly derivative of Alfred Hitchcock, yet inspired great modern day film makers like Quentin Tarantino.

 

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