Saturnalia (2025) is on VOD

In 1979 a young woman is sent off to a prestigous, if mysterious academy, after the death of her parents. She quickly learns that things are not as they seem.

How you react to the film is going to be determined by how you feel about form over content. The film leans heavily into the stylized notions of giallo, in particular the look and feel of Dario Argento's SUSPIRIA which it seems to ave used as a template in story and style. This is a film where intentionally not a lot is explained.

Personally I admire this film more than I like it. The problem for me is that it seems more shiney outside and little on the inside. Yes, it has some great moments but the film never generates suspense since it's too focused on making everything look good, it never generates anything narratively. I never felt danger or even a need to continue watching past a certain point because I wasn't fully invested.  Though to be fair the fact that it's using SUSPIRIA, I film I've never particularly liked, as a template probably doomed it in my eyes.

To be fair, I have read a number of glowing reviews for the film, so if you're a giallo or SUSPIRIA fan, give it a shot.

The Seeing Eye Dog Who Saw Too Much (2025) SXSW 2026

A blind violinist is put in danger by a killer.

This  is an over the top of English dubbed giallo films, that is intentionally badly dubbed. It's a film that looks and feels like a giallo from the 1970's. It's a film that doesn't let go of the conceit at any point, even through the credits.

I was amused.  I was particularly amused by how the film nails the genre... and the bad dubbing, perfectly.  This film truly gets it.

I particularly appreciate that the film is only about 15 minutes. This is a joke that is funny, but what makes it funny is not something that would survive then played longer what's here.

Because I like giallo films, I do have to say that not all film in the genre are this over the top. Actually a lot of them are not, they just seem that way because they are badly dubbed. I also think that if you don't know the genre  this film may not work for you.

Worth a look for giallo fans

DEATH CYCLE (2026) is now on VOD

In the wake of a car accident that killed one woman and injured another, a figure in black riding a motorcycle is killing anyone connected to the accident or the cover-up that followed.

this is a giallo influenced thriller that takes a by the number plot and turns it into something special. This is a small hidden gem with a great cast and wicked visual style that lifts the film up from any number of  by the numbers inde thrillers and makes it something you'll want to sit on the couch and watch.

I'm not going to lie and say there is anything new plot wise, because there isn't. Instead I'm going to say that the film builds suspense and mood by creating a visual style that actually works. It works so well that even the over used drone shots that now seem to be part of every film seem  new and deliught the eye. (Seriously there were a couple of shots that had me say out loud that they looked cool). This is a modern day giallo which does what the form frequently did which was take an okay narrtive and spice it up with the visuals.

I shouldn't be down plasying the plot, it isn't as messy as giallos from the 70's, but at the same time you'll know who is behind it all almost instantly.

Definitely worth a look on a night on the couch DEATH CYCLE is now on VOD

The Strangler (1970) NYFF 2023

Paul Vecchiali's THE STRANGLER is an odd film. A psychological examination of a killer who only kills unhappy looking women is not what you would expect. 

Told in a mannered, almost art house style the film is very much concerned with not being a typical thriller. I went kind of blind into the film thinking I was going to be getting giallo via France and instead I ended up with something different. It's a film that is more akin to some of the thrillers of the last few years which look to show murderers as people in order to mess up out expectations. I can only imagine how this played when it was released in 1970 because it is asking more of the audience than being mere spectators to the carnage.

Oddly, while I was hooked on the film and stayed to the very end I never felt any suspense. In large part this due to out knowing who the killer is, but it's more because Vecchiali is using the thriller tropes simply because its the nature of the film. I suspect that he couldn't have gotten financing had he not done so. There is nothing wrong with there not being suspense, rather it just makes for an unexpected experience if you think it should be there.

I liked THE STRANGLER. I liked its atypical way of telling it's story. It forced me to look at and reconsider other similar films and ponder what I would have thought had they been told differently.

Worth a look

In Brief: THE EDITOR (2014) Fantasia 2015

Life and art merge as an editor of giallo movies begins to have trouble with reality, his wife and the film he's working on. Could he actually be a masked killer?

Okay horror comedy will probably best appreciated by those who know the giallo genre. Done in the style of a 1970's film the film gloriously apes the look feel and sound of the films it's paying homage to and sending up. While not a bad film it's not a great one (and as such kind of got lost in my crushing schedule of Fantasia films)

Worth a look if you're interested if not at the festival then on home video

The film plays at midnight tonight. For more information and tickets go here.

house with laughing windows (1976)

An art restorer is brought to a small island off the coast of Italy to repair a painting of a mad genius that was painted during the second world war. However once the restoration starts weird things begin to happen in the town and people begin to die.

an oppressive slice of darkness I'm not sure whether to call this an giallo or a horror film since the film seems to blur the line. I mean is what happens pure madness or is there something supernatural about it?

This is a creepy little film. Its a film that makes even the daylight seem ominous. Where most gaillo and Euro horror films are very good at making what lurks in the dark scary here everything is scary. We simply don't know what is lurking where so we don't know when the next bad thing is going to happen.

This film is a real treat for horror lovers.

What I like most about the film is that the payoff is truly chilling. It send you out into the night feeling creeped out.

Definitely worth seeing

Strange Color of Your Body's Tears (2013) New Directors New Films 2014

The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears will exhaust you.

I’m being serious here watching the film there will come a point where the film will simply overwhelm you and leave you by the wayside unable to keep up. This film is a case of too much of a good thing being way too much, and you’ll feel like you’ve just eaten the entire Godiva chocolate factory and you’re moving on to Hershey’s with Dove following right after that.

Half way into the film I was broken and done. I wanted to throw up my hands and ask for the film to be paused so that I could pick it up later. There was simply too much going on, too much to take in and process and my brain exploded.

I say all of that in the best possible way.

The plot of the film has a man returning home from a business trip to find his door locked and chained and his wife missing. After calling the police and finding that they won’t help him, he begins to search the building for her, and thus running into the various residents some of whom have strange stories to tell.

Taking all of the tropes of the 1970’s giallo films, even to the point of lifting bits of the scores from several of them, the film takes the notions of amped up visuals, manipulated soundtracks, and dream like logic to the nth degree to play out a film that is disorienting, overwhelming and amazing in equal parts. There are psychological impressions, digressions, split screen, a killer who isn’t seen except for his or her hands, and a lots of equating sex with death.

Most of it doesn’t make a lick of sense except in the moment- but so long as you’re in that moment with the film it’s a glorious magical moment.

I feel I should mention something that I ran across after I saw the film and that is a kind of negative feeling toward the film in some quarters. People don’t like the fact that the film is very much form over substance. There is a feeling that the story doesn’t make enough sense and people feel disappointed at the end. To be honest I completely understand the feeling, but at the same time that’s what many films in the genre are, they are form over substance- just less so than this homage.

I really did love this film. It’s a funny scary thriller that just pulls you along. I also freely admit that I was largely done by the half-way point. As I said its too much of a good thing. I found I started to close my eyes simply to end the sense of drowning.

If you like giallo films. If you like films that do wondrous things that only film can do and if you don’t mind things being more about the form, I highly recommend this film.

Put it on my lists of finds of the year

Giallo's Humor: Berberian Sound Studio in the midnight lineup of the 2012 New York Film Festival (50th Anniversary)

While most films call for the viewer to suspend disbelief and look at what is onscreen as one seamless, unbroken conception of reality, Berberian Sound Studio, the alchemical creation of Peter Strickland, strips away the layers of a feature film and zeroes our attention in on one aspect in particular, sound. The movie brings us to the set of a 1970s Giallo (term commonly used for exploitation suspense, mystery and horror films made in Italy that flourished most in the ‘70s) with a pronounced absence of digital technology. We are confronted with the methods that came before: heads of lettuce and watermelon hacked and ripped asunder, frying pans sizzling, and real life damsels confined to cramped booths shrieking. These are some of the means of simulating the audio component of terror that are shown accompanying the visuals, all recorded onto large, unwieldly cylinders of celluloid, which clicks and hums its way through giant steel projectors.

We come upon this recording session by way of a British sound engineering pro, Gilderoy as he arrives at the Italian production company's offices, having been recruited to carry out the recording of the latest film by a notorious Italian B horror director, Santini. The quizically titled production is called The Equestrian Vortex, and one of Berberian's early delights is the showing of a tantalizing trailer for the film within the film, immaculately capturing the playful yet macabre tone and spirit of just that sort of movie that was made in those times) It soon becomes apparent that Gilderoy's assignment will not be an easy one. Along with the trials associated with the meticulous and time consuming recording processes of the times are the volatile conditions of production under the lead of the unscrupulous Santini,whose excessive urges are met with little restraint, and his shrewd yet domineering producer.

The sensory pleasures of arcane production methods being lovingly brought into our consciousness is one mode that Berberian Sound Studio functions in. The other details a descent into madness that blurs the line between real life and onscreen invention for its put upon protagonist, and by extension, the audience. In a brilliant bit of casting, Gilderoy is portrayed by Toby Jones. His is a name that may not be readily associated with many lead roles, but he has worked the full spectrum of fantasy genre films, lending his character acting skills to Captain America: The First Avenger, The Hunger Games, and various others. 

Here he channels a plight parallel to that of the lead from Barton Fink, trapped against his will in the midst of a suffocating production with an increasingly fractured perception of reality. Add to this a dash of the sort of chaste outsider figure that appeared as the unwitting lead in The Wickerman who, once stranded in a foreign land, is besieged by the unrepentant hedonistic ways of those he is surrounded by.

Director Strickland makes great use of the aforementioned sound forging techniques, as well as disorienting visuals, which finds the darkened work space where most of the film takes place becomes more and more claustrophobic as the film progresses. In a near cyclical fashion, screams ring out from a screen that is eclipsed by pitch blackness. Several times this threatens (or for those not faring well with the film’s rattling effects, offers a false promise) to bring the film to an end. The sequences that turn the film we are watching and the one Gilderoy has been drafted to complete inside out are quite extraordinary, some of the most imaginative I have seen employed.  This is truly a film you experience, and not one you watch comfortably to follow a plot through to its logical conclusion.

And what of the humor hinted at above? It is certainly there, but black as can be and as dry as one could hope from a British production. There is Gilderoy’s awkward interactions with his hosts’ fantastically exotic mannerisms, letters from home that detail a saccharine countryside quaintness before taking a gruesome turn, and the over the top wretchedness depicted in Santini’s film (which we only learn of via production notes) plus the nonchalant explanation of its rather curious title. No instance is entirely innocent, and for every time a chuckle emerges from somewhere in the theater, there are bound to be shudders rippling through those who feel genuine discomfort and disgust.     

As the credits rolled, I was taken by surprise (although it makes good sense) to see the UK band Broadcast was responsible for much of the film’s soundtrack. They were a wonderful group (for most of their career a duo) that dabbled in all manner of psychedelic, analog electronic and vintage pop sounds until activity was halted by singer Trish Keenan’s devastating and untimely death. Their most recent activity found them collaborating with Julian House (another individual who worked on this film) on sounds that explored themes of witchcraft and the occult. It was nice to be able to view Berberian Sound Studio, in part, as an extension of this work. In fact many a staple of Britian’s experimental music scene, including Nurse With Wound, contributed to the soundtrack, which according to Strickland, should be released by Warp Records early next year. I cannot wait to experience the film again, the next time focusing more on surprises like this that caught me off guard the first time around.

After the screening Associate Program Director of The Film Society of Lincoln Center Scott Foundas discussed the film with Strickland before turning the questions over to the audience. Below are a few clips from the earlier part of their discussion. He discusses musical influences, such as vocal artist Cathy Berberian (no doubt referenced in the movie's title), his passion  and curiosity toward these earlier film making conditions, and coming to work with Toby Jones.