Italian horror films - search & destroy

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I've been watching some of these flicks courtesy of Anchor Bay's DVD releases.

Dario Argento.

Search: Suspiria & Inferno. Deep Red. Bird With The Crystal Plumage.

Destroy: Sleepless, Phantom Of The Opera.

Lucio Fulci.

Search: The Beyond.

Destroy: New York Ripper.

I've not watched any of Mario Bava's movies and I don't think I'll ever be able to see Cannibal Holocaust and its ilk, even for the novelty value of being able to say I've watched it.

Would Salo count as a horror film?

― Ben Mott (Ben Mott), Sunday, 12 January 2003 12:51 (10 years ago) Permalink

salo wouldn't count as horror to me. its not er...wacky.

search: suspiria soundtrack. I didn't like the movie really.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 12 January 2003 13:07 (10 years ago) Permalink

Suspiria? Really? That film cost me £19 when I managed to lose it somewhere between my house and the video shop (about 20 yards). I really didn't enjoy it much, and the soundtrack was really only good for the way it made all of us crack up laughing at regular intervals.

WITCHESSSSSSSSS...

― Mark C (Mark C), Sunday, 12 January 2003 19:06 (10 years ago) Permalink

Suspiria is really one of my all-time favorite films. Unreal visually; wild set design, crazy lighting, awesome camera work. I love it. Interesting, international cast is also Argento's best; most of the time the strange casting choices and often obvious dubbing leave you scratching your head... here it all adds perfectly to the off-beat aura of the whole film. Oh yeah; really creative, shocking, bloody murder scenes. And the soundtrack is genius. I do also recommend Deep Red and Tenebre... the latter being interesting viewed after Suspiria one's all crazy colors, the other is all white!

Please also search Mario Bava. Black Sunday with the other-worldy beauty Barbara Steele memorable in a dual role is perhpaps his best. Haunting, atmospheric, perhaps a bit creaky. Another great one from the prolific Bava is Blood and Black Lace, murders at a fashion design house, with a drug-use subplot. Great color photography here; and obvious inspiration for Argento. The Whip and the Body and the dreamlike Lisa and the Devil are also recommended.

I am a huge Italian horror fan and have more recommendations, but have to eat breakfast; I'll be back!

― Sean (Sean), Sunday, 12 January 2003 19:18 (10 years ago) Permalink

Killer Nun is nicely silly, rather than out and out gore. But... it's a lesbian killer nun, and that can't be a bad thing.

― James Mitchell (James Mitchell), Sunday, 12 January 2003 19:24 (10 years ago) Permalink

I love Suspiria too, Sean, even though it's more surreal than scary.

Suspiria's greatest assets as you've written is its casting and design. Jessica Harper is wonderfully fragile in the sympathetic Snow White/Nancy Drew role, Stefania Casini convincingly wearied as her friend, Joan Bennett suggests tawdry faded grandeur as the dance academy principal and Alida Valli adds a distinctly Aryan edge to her part as the stern, imposing and perpetually grinning dance teacher.

Suspiria, I think, is the closest anyone's really got to the cinema of phantasmagoria. The film is so rich, decadent, hallucinogenic and allusive touching on ghastly mittel-European folk myths (The film's co-writer and Argento's partner Daria Nicolodi states that she was inspired by the fairy tales told to her when she was a child) and other films such as Snow White & The Seven Dwarves, The Red Shoes etc. On repeated viewings it does come off as a little too arch and prefabricated that it doesn't actually scare me at all - the opening murders are fairly obviously telegraphed and so overdone they spill over into camp. Still a great sensory film experience, and I love Argento's controlled and deliberate direction. For sheer baroque intensity, Suspiria's hard to match.

Might I ask, Sean, what you think of the sequel Inferno? A rather more conventional film I feel, but not without its diverting moments. The underwater basement scene for instance is far more unsettling than anything in Suspiria.

― Ben Mott (Ben Mott), Sunday, 12 January 2003 21:17 (10 years ago) Permalink

James, is Killer Nun the film with Anita Ekberg? The one where she shoots up from behind and repeatedly stamps on an old lady's dentures??

― Ben Mott (Ben Mott), Sunday, 12 January 2003 22:06 (10 years ago) Permalink

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Sunday, 12 January 2003 22:14 (10 years ago) Permalink

Has anyone actually seen Cannibal Holocaust? Any thoughts?

― Ben Mott (Ben Mott), Saturday, 18 January 2003 15:08 (10 years ago) Permalink

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 18 January 2003 15:16 (10 years ago) Permalink

This thread turned demonaic.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 18 January 2003 15:17 (10 years ago) Permalink

i saw trauma, it was pretty bad (argento)

― ron (ron), Saturday, 18 January 2003 17:54 (10 years ago) Permalink

TENEBRE! The Italians really know how to score some horror films, let me tell you - Americans think it's supposed to be scary, when it's really supposed to be a rawk opera. Also: blood is the payoff, not a set piece.

― Tom Millar (Millar), Saturday, 18 January 2003 18:05 (10 years ago) Permalink

"Tenebre" is pretty scary, though. The "blood against the wall" scene towards the end is eye-popping! And for a real rawk opera, see Argento's "Opera", his last masterpiece. Superb cinematography by oscar-winning Ronnie Taylor. And talk about eye-p(r)opping! Hobbled as per usual by acting/dubbing, but at least here it's better than in some others. Some of the characters have English accents, which is at least different. And great pre-digital gore effects. And heavy metal on the soundtrack! Much better than "Phenomena" (aka Creepers) which is a flop, IMHO.

I could go on a some length about other Itallian horror films; is anyone interested?

― Sean (Sean), Saturday, 18 January 2003 19:16 (10 years ago) Permalink

I meant that the soundtrack in US horror (and Japan's too) is usually along the lines of JAWS or Psycho or Halloween, whereas Tenebre is all plodding rock that doesn't so much build tension as it makes it seem like it'd be really cool to murder people.

― Tom Millar (Millar), Saturday, 18 January 2003 19:22 (10 years ago) Permalink

And yes please do.

― Tom Millar (Millar), Saturday, 18 January 2003 19:22 (10 years ago) Permalink

Go for it please, Sean.

― Ben Mott (Ben Mott), Saturday, 18 January 2003 20:17 (10 years ago) Permalink

What is the state of affairs with Italian horror now? Are there any budding Argentos or Fulcis coming out of the woodwork?

― Ben Mott (Ben Mott), Saturday, 18 January 2003 20:19 (10 years ago) Permalink

Cemetary Man is Really good

― A Nairn (moretap), Saturday, 18 January 2003 22:53 (10 years ago) Permalink

Cemetary Man was fine, but the genre is dead.

More thoughts later.

― Sean (Sean), Monday, 20 January 2003 01:18 (10 years ago) Permalink

Agree that both Tenebre and Suspiria are crucial. Sean yes let's hear it.

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Monday, 20 January 2003 02:00 (10 years ago) Permalink

Mario Bava retrospective happening in Chicago right now.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 20 January 2003 02:12 (10 years ago) Permalink

OK, go see "Black Sunday" for sure. Really. Then maybe "Black Sabbath" (confusingly named similarly although they're nothing alike). The others I don't rate as highly. A Bava retrospective was in SF a few months ago, but they showed a different line-up of films. I mentioned it upthread, but search "The Whip and the Body" (US title "What!"); really nutso S&M theme (I'm not kidding when I say the theme is explicit, it's actually kind of shocking) with an almost handsome but definately scary Christopher Lee, and obvious Barbara Steele stand-in Dahlia Lavi. Again, Bava's photography and lighting effects are clear precursors to "Suspiria". I hate to say it, but the other titles in the retrospective are much less essential.

Barbara Steele also featured in several other Italian films by key Italian horror directors. Seach "The Horrible Dr. Hichcock" (UK title, and uncut, as "The Terrror of Dr. Hichcock"), probably her best after "Black Sunday" but sadly not available yet restored or widescreen. It's got a genuinely creepy necrophilia theme; this movie is actually pretty scary if you pause to think about what's going on onscreen. Good color photography. Also worth seeing is Antonio Margheriti's "Castle of Blood", but unless you're a Steele fanatic it's a bit dull and old-fashioned, and the camera work doesn't make up for it (at all). It is available in a nicely restored DVD though.

I forget who directed it at the moment, but "The Night Evelyn Came out of the Grave" is a pretty good Italian shocker, with a glamorous lead actress.

― Sean (Sean), Monday, 20 January 2003 02:27 (10 years ago) Permalink

7 years pass...

xxp - I will never forgive Deodato for the turtle scene.
― in movie 2001 resurrect thread on planet jupiter (Pillbox), Tuesday, June 8, 2010 11:07 AM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark

"I will never forgive Deodato for the turtle scene."
this is a hard scene to take but they ate the turtle right? hakuna matata and all that.
― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, June 8, 2010 11:17 AM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark

Moving this over here from the Psycho thread..

[Spoilers for goddam Cannibal Holocaust - like yr going to watch it if you haven't already..]
To date, Cannibal Holocaust is the only horror film I've deliberately stopped watching out of actual "horror." I get CH & I'd read about the animal-torture scenes prior to having watched (about half of) it. I figured that my limits might be tested & yeah, they were: This movie basically had the Funny Games effect on me (much more so than that film tbh), which I suppose can be correlated w/ the Deodato's intent to some degree.

I understand that certain Amazonian folk probably eat aquatic turtles as a matter of ritual & (possibly) necessity, but the relish with which the camera dwelt on the agony of that poor turtle, delighting in its *actual* pain, made me feel so nauseous that I almost vomited (but didn't) & then I had an immediate onrush of guilt for having participated in the whole spectacle. Still, I stuck around up until the point when the "documentarians" blithely started raping women & subsequently burning them alive, but by that point I had been so disturbed by the realism of the turtle scene that it made what followed all the more visceral & yeah, I couldn't do it. To this day, that weird lite-synth melody from the score gets stuck in my head from time to time & creeps me the fuck out.

I don't necessarily think that CH defeated me as a horror fan (if so, it was through the cheap, lazy device of animal torture for fucks sake) nor am I entirely adverse to its possible merit as an exercise in forced self-awareness. It totally fucked with me & I do kind of respect it for that, but in the end they celebrated the torture of a beautiful, full-grown (& probably decades-old) river turtle & seriously, fuck them for that.

― 5 x 15-second shits, max fart (Pillbox), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 16:27 (3 years ago) Permalink

found the animal torture in CH disgusting, but i always find animal torture (or even just killing) disgusting, and still tolerate a number of films in which it appears. my real problem with CH was deodato's hypocrisy, not his methods. the film pretends to deliver a condemnation of ghoulish atrocity-seeking, but the "message" is just a cheap pretext for ghoulish indulgence of the basest sort. sometimes i like the dissonance you get from these kinds of exploitation film hypocrisies, but in this case i just found the whole thing depressing.

― the other is a black gay gentleman from Los Angeles (contenderizer), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 19:33 (3 years ago) Permalink

"Tenebre" is pretty scary, though. The "blood against the wall" scene towards the end is eye-popping! And for a real rawk opera, see Argento's "Opera", his last masterpiece... Much better than "Phenomena" (aka Creepers) which is a flop, IMHO.
― Sean (Sean)

sad to see phenomena so casually dismissed. i won't argue that it's argento's most accomplished film, but it might be my favorite. though the cinematography is a bit murky, i love the cartoonish, MTV-style lighting, with colored fluorescent tubes liberally strewn about the sets, as they might be an ordinary part of everyone's decor. and the maiden and motorhead "video" that show up within the film for no real reaon. i love the utterly absurd plot conceits, like the girl who can commmunicate with insects following this one specific fly to the scene of a crime. and the vengeful monkey. it's jammed with wonderful and exceedingly bizarre character moments, and the music is (of course) spellbinding. the two man themes (one techno-pop by goblin's keyboardist, the other an oldfield-esque piece by bill wyman) are both fantastic. i think it's one of the most entertaining and imaginative dark fantasy film ever made.

― the other is a black gay gentleman from Los Angeles (contenderizer), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 19:46 (3 years ago) Permalink

That was the girl that talks to insects one? I've seen 3 Dario films and all the right ones apparently (Suspiria, Deep Red, the insect one)

― CaptainLorax, Tuesday, 8 June 2010 20:28 (3 years ago) Permalink

see tenebre next!

― the other is a black gay gentleman from Los Angeles (contenderizer), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 20:44 (3 years ago) Permalink

Okay :)

― CaptainLorax, Tuesday, 8 June 2010 20:48 (3 years ago) Permalink

2 weeks pass...

I have Tenebre coming in the mail. I'll have to check out the other Italian horror dudes next

― serious nonsense (CaptainLorax), Sunday, 27 June 2010 19:02 (2 years ago) Permalink

Shit dudes, I just realized I've only seen Suspiria, Deep Red, and Bird w/ the Crystal Plumage. I really should see Tenebre and Opera and maybe Phenomena shouldn't I?

― cynthia batter blaster (Stevie D), Sunday, 27 June 2010 20:19 (2 years ago) Permalink

I first saw Tenebre on some local station's midnight movie program, with a fake Vampira lady & everything. It was great.

― breaking that little dog's heart chakra (Abbott), Sunday, 27 June 2010 20:31 (2 years ago) Permalink

5 months pass...

I saw House Of The Laughing Windows for the nth last night, and despite some silliness here and there it is still probably my favourite Italian horror.
It's not baroque, flashy or surreal as Argento or Bava work, but the slow, deliberate building of the plot is truly terrifying, as the authentic rural feeling of the story and the characters (a friend owns a recording studio in the same area the movie was shot, places where you wouldn't want to be after dark).

― Marco Damiani, Friday, 24 December 2010 11:25 (2 years ago) Permalink

have you seen Il profumo della signora in nero?

― silent ouzo eclipse (Mr. Hal Jam), Friday, 24 December 2010 15:56 (2 years ago) Permalink

Another one of my faves!
Obviously Polanski-inspired in its hallucinatory atmosphere, but with several nice touches: it's a shame Francesco Barilli directed only another movie, I think he had the knack. "Il profumo..." stands apart among the many Italian horrors of the era.

― Marco Damiani, Friday, 24 December 2010 17:52 (2 years ago) Permalink

1 year passes...

The DIY Giallo Kit: http://www.braineater.com/misc/giallo.html

The Salamander on a Blue Satin Pillow
Directed by
Xerxe Silveri
A priest is strangled in the style of a killer who terrorized the neighborhood many years ago. His best friend investigates the killing. When another person is found murdered, she is caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse with a maniac.

― Elvis Telecom, Sunday, 16 September 2012 04:43 (9 months ago) Permalink

found that here btw: http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/forgotten-gialli-a-scot-in-the-dark

― Elvis Telecom, Sunday, 16 September 2012 07:26 (9 months ago) Permalink

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