Part of our on-going series Notebook Soundtrack Mixes.Forever on the edge of one's seat, giallo is the provider of all the glamorous and hallucinatory emotions. The film genre and its musical sister is somewhat a crown jewel when it comes to detailed niches, sub-genres, and die hard fans. Original LP records from the giallo genre can cost a hefty sum and the blossoming vinyl reissuing industry (an exciting addition over recent decades) proves how enduring the genre and its sub-genres are. This giallo bonanza comes in just shy of two hours and you will find both influential and cherished moments and secluded moments on the sidelines. That, for me, showcases its textures and ultimately what a fun, trippy genre it is. The work of the masters is in full swing, beloved composers such as Bruno Nicolai, Nora Orlandi, Riz Ortolani, and Goblin all have turns. And of course, the...
- 7/29/2020
- MUBI
By 1976, giallo cinema had already reached its peak, and different postwar paranoia icons increasingly replaced the black-gloved killers of the past. Coming off a co-screenwriting turn (uncredited) for Pier Paolo Pasolini's controversial masterpiece Salò, director Pupi Avati brought Italy's social and political unrest from the period to the countryside for his community terror tale, The House with the Laughing Windows. The filmmaker wanted to channel the pastoral, Catholic fears from his childhood for his low-budget horror film, but the influence of previous rural-set gialli like Sergio Martino's Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key and Fulci's Don't Torture a Duckling are present. Avati introduces us to Stefano (Lino Capolicchio), who has been sent to an Italian village to restore a church fresco that depicts the death of Saint Sebastian — or so he thinks. A strange cast of characters greets him, including the mayor...
- 5/31/2013
- by Alison Nastasi
- FEARnet
Taken together, the above two cues underscore the opening 5 minutes of Pupi Avati's The House with the Laughing Windows (1976).
It’s a miracle that any movie would even have the guts to attempt an unironic shift between such irreconcilable emotional tones as these in under 30 seconds, but Avati's giallo sleeper classic is just that kind of miracle. The film's first cue accompanies the material perfectly. Visually, the opening title sequence is a punishingly blunt, unannounced salvo of graphic violence. Grainy, sepia-tinted, stuttering slo-mo photography obsesses over a bloodcurdling depiction of an aestheticized ritual torture. Though what else would you expect from Avati? He co-wrote Salò! Considering the intensity of these images, he was lucky to find a fittingly sadistic composer to compliment them. Amedeo Tommasi crafted a soundscape that is proportionally grisly to Avati’s titles, utilizing little more than a simple piano refrain, one repeatedly sampled scream, and...
It’s a miracle that any movie would even have the guts to attempt an unironic shift between such irreconcilable emotional tones as these in under 30 seconds, but Avati's giallo sleeper classic is just that kind of miracle. The film's first cue accompanies the material perfectly. Visually, the opening title sequence is a punishingly blunt, unannounced salvo of graphic violence. Grainy, sepia-tinted, stuttering slo-mo photography obsesses over a bloodcurdling depiction of an aestheticized ritual torture. Though what else would you expect from Avati? He co-wrote Salò! Considering the intensity of these images, he was lucky to find a fittingly sadistic composer to compliment them. Amedeo Tommasi crafted a soundscape that is proportionally grisly to Avati’s titles, utilizing little more than a simple piano refrain, one repeatedly sampled scream, and...
- 9/28/2012
- MUBI
The first in a short series on Italian horror-thrillers of the sixties and seventies.
Are these all true gialli, or am I stretching genre definitions to breaking point? It might be more interesting to ask, What elements must be present, in what concentration, to make a film qualify as a giallo?
...Hanno combiata faccia (1971) translates as They've Changed Their Faces. Bear that in mind.
Director Corrado Farina made short subjects for Italian television, including a couple of looks at the fumetti (comic strip) industry. His better-known feature (of the two he made in his short, almost abortive career), Baba Yaga (1973), spins off from an erotic comic series by Guido Crepax, and is a surreal, pop art fantasia involving S&M nazis and Carroll Baker.
(It's worth noting in passing that Crepax's bdsm porno strip, starring a heroine based on silent star Louise Brooks, won the enthusiastic approval of Brooks herself,...
Are these all true gialli, or am I stretching genre definitions to breaking point? It might be more interesting to ask, What elements must be present, in what concentration, to make a film qualify as a giallo?
...Hanno combiata faccia (1971) translates as They've Changed Their Faces. Bear that in mind.
Director Corrado Farina made short subjects for Italian television, including a couple of looks at the fumetti (comic strip) industry. His better-known feature (of the two he made in his short, almost abortive career), Baba Yaga (1973), spins off from an erotic comic series by Guido Crepax, and is a surreal, pop art fantasia involving S&M nazis and Carroll Baker.
(It's worth noting in passing that Crepax's bdsm porno strip, starring a heroine based on silent star Louise Brooks, won the enthusiastic approval of Brooks herself,...
- 8/30/2012
- MUBI
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