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GIALLO

2009/Director: Dario Argento/Writers: Jim Agnew, Dario Argento

Cast: Adrien Brody, Emmanuelle Seigner, Elsa Pataky, Robert Miano, Byron Deidra

God knows I have tried to like Dario Argento. His name pops up everywhere in the horror world and yet I have to admit I have cared for very little he has ever done. His sycophantic supporters say that even if his newer work is weak we must acknowledge the genius of his ‘high period’ when he helped to usher in the great giallo films of the late 60’s and early 70’s as well as his unique brand of horror. And that may well be unarguable. Some of his films from the period, that I have seen, are Bird With the Crystal Plumage, Tenebre, Deep Red, Suspiria, and Phenomenon. While these are classics of some sort, I guess, I have to admit that  all of these films are some of the most confusing and haphazard movies I have ever sat down to watch. When the killer and her motives is finally revealed in Deep Red (some minor female character who had about two or three minutes of screen time earlier in the film) I was so disappointed. Not to say that that is a reason to pan a film and not see it but I seem to missing something that hordes of other people are getting and don’t know what it is. Why is Deep Red (Profundo Rosso) considered to be one of the great giallo films of the 70’s? It is a mediocre film at best. One defense I have read of Argento (and most Italian giallo and horror in general) is that one must not look for a linear story in the Hollywood fashion and instead you have to let yourself go along with the surreal quality of the film and receive its messages on an almost unconscious level.  One is to not watch and analyze the film as a whole but you have look for those special moments that cannot be found in any other genre. I am not sure about all that but as time has gone on I have to admit I have developed a liking for Italian horror and suspense films I did not have when I was younger. I liked Italian post war dramas and pepla and spaghetti westerns for some reason but was confused by Italian horror until I explored Mario Bava’s work. Then I read that Bava was an inspiration for Argento and the men even worked together on some projects at the end of Bava’s career. I decided there had to be something there my Cro-magnon mind could not fathom. Years later I finally concluded some of the stuff is okay after all though I can still be at a loss and typically cannot finish an Italian made horror or crime film in one setting.

Now what totally surprises me is how much I enjoyed Argento’s latest film Giallo. In fact when I bought the DVD I did not actually know it was an Argento film. Shows how out of touch I am I guess. I could tell by the title and cover art that it was going to be an homage film and I like both Adrien Brody and Emmanuelle Seigner so figured it had to be a decent enough film for an evening’s viewing. In fact I watched it after watching the really disappointing remake of The Taking of Pelham 123. I picked up the box and noticed for the first time it was a Dario Argento film and my heart sank. I had recently rewatched Suspiria (which I mostly enjoy) and had not seen anything recent by Argento since the TV movie Do You Like Hitchcock. In that case I expected an homage type film with lots of clever references to Hitchcock’s work but I was so disappointed that I went back into another long period of Argento loathing. I do not understand why I liked Giallo but I simply did. I have read scathing reviews of the film online and how the old master has lost his touch. I guess for me I never thought he had much of touch to begin with so I did not expect much. After seeing it I decided to find some other recent Aregento works, like Mother of Tears, I have dismissed in advance in a childish, judgmental fashion not appropriate to a purveyor of trash cinema. It is time I rethink this bias and deal with it and lay it to rest.

Giallo tells the story of a ugly, tormented and more than slightly demented man who suffers from jaundice, ergo the nickname ‘Yellow’ or giallo. The charcter of yellow is played by Byron Deidra. It is also the story of the eccentric and focused cop, Enzo Avolfi (Brody), who is obsessively on the bloody trail of Yellow. Avolfi does things his own way and is left alone by the department for the most part as he has a history of results. The name Byron Deidra happens to be a clever little anagram for Adrien Brody and both Avolfi and Yellow are played by Brody. Some sites have totally panned Brody’s performance but I feel it is pretty good. The lines he is given by writers Jim Agnew, Sean Keller and Argento are the most inspiring and he delivers them in a dead pan fashion that recalls troubles film noir detectives more than the classic giallo style detective who often lacked any dimension at all. Also coming into the mix is the American Linda (Emmanuelle Seigner aka Mrs. Roman Polanski) who is in Milan with her fashion model sister Celine (Brody’s real life fiancée Elsa Pataky) who suddenly vanished the night before. Seems Celine took the wrong taxi, driven by Yellow, and is now held captive in a creepy basement with what is left of Yellows last victim Keiko (Valentina Izumi). There the bitter Yellow engages in his hobby of torturing and disfiguring beautiful women before brutally killing them in various fashions, like pounding a hammer through their foreheads. Celine is a little more resistant than his last victims and eventually causes him a bit of trouble.

Linda seeks the help of the police and is sent to Avolfi’s isolated office in the police head quarter’s basement area. Of course Avolfi is rude and wants to be left alone but soon he drags her into the case and even starts showing her graphic crime scene photos and asking her for her opinions of them. Maybe not the choicest thing to do a woman whose kid sister is being held by the same killer that sort of thing happens a lot in mystery films. Of course a connection forms between Linda and Avolfi and at one point she invites him to spend the night at her place but in true lone wolf fashion he passes on the offer and sulks off into the night to brood over the case more. The violence in the film is pretty graphic,  as it is in most all of Argento’s work,  and there is a strange scene of Yellow choking his jaundiced chicken while looking at pictures on his laptop of his past victims. He is sucking on a baby pacifier at the same time and you can’t help but wonder what the hell Argento is really like as a gray haired man in his twilight years. There are of course inferences to past giallo flicks and while this film has it flaws I can’t help but hope it inspires a trend in this type of movie making for a while. The film score by Marco Werba is suitable and is an improvement on the type of scores that usually accompany Argento’s films, though I do like Goblin.

I am not saying that this is a great film and many of the criticisms are applicable. But if you go into with the idea that there will be some cheesy moments, perhaps intentionally cheesy for all I know, and that the leads are hamming it up here and there then I don’t think you will be all that disappointed. My wife watched it along with new The Taking of Pelham 123 and said she preferred Giallo of the two movies. I was happily surprised. I will probably give it another watch or two in the future and I feel Argento did well enough here. Definitely an improvement on things like The Phantom of the Opera and Do You Like Hitchcock.

GIALLO TRAILER

PLACER SANGRIENTO

1967/Director: Emilio Vieyra/ Writers: Jack Curtis (English-language dialogue), Antonio Rosso

Cast: Alberto Candeau, Ricardo Bauleo, Mauricio De Ferraris, Susana Beltrán, Gloria Prat, Emilio Vieyra

AKA:
FEAST OF FLESH
THE DEADLY ORGAN

Argentinean director of B-Sleaze and horror Emilio Vieyra is probably best remembered for his 1971 exploitation classic The Curious Case of Dr. Humpp (La venganza del sexo), which starred dark haired and dark eyed Gloria Prat. Prat had previously worked with Vieyra (aka Raúl Zorrilla) in his sort of sexy but not really sexy enough  vampire thriller Blood of the Virgins (Sangre de vírgenes) and in an even lesser known film than the practically all but unknown Dr. Humpp called Placer Sangriento (Feast of Flesh or The Deadly Organ) which is the subject of this Uranium Café post. I would like to see a little more of Vierya’s work (I actually found a DVD copy of Blood of the Virgins in a small DVD shop in Jilin City in Northeast China while I worked in that area one very bleak and freezing winter… long story) as well as more of Gloria Prat’s work but this type of stuff is really hard to find. I should quickly add that these films star the lovely Susana Beltran as well and both gals appear to be regulars in Vieya’s films. To be honest in these films I sometimes get confused as to who is who and what the hell is actually going on most of the time. This is made harder in this case since there are no end credits on the film version I have to confirm who is who. If it adds anything Prat is also executive producer of this film.

I actually had searched for some time online for a good Bittorrent or Rapidshare file before finding this pretty good dubbed version on one of my “secret sites”. This film originally played as a double feature with Rene Cardona’s Night of the Bloody Apes and both are available as a double feature DVD by Seattle’s infamous Something Weird Video. I had originally intended to do a double feature post on Night of the Bloody Apes and Feast of Flesh but nixed the idea when the first version of Feast of Flesh I downloaded was in Spanish with no subs. I finally got a nifty English dubbed version that is pretty watchable if you’re the type of person that can watch a film like this in the first place regardless of the print quality. It seems to be that while the film is pretty spacey and downright incoherent most of the time it is the type of movie I like watching at about two in the morning on the sofa when my mind is half in this world and the next anyway and the effects of such a film act like a psycho-tropic drug on what few brain cells are still functioning.

The movie is easy to pan and deride, as it usually is to extreme degrees, but it has some really interesting moments and is a creepy stalker film that seems to be working with a psycho-stalker formula that is more derived from the Italian style Giallo style films than any of the suspense thrillers from America or Britain at the time. The film was made in 1965, but not released in the States until ’67, and while shot in some small but swanky coastal town in Argentina the dubbed version I watched infers the action takes place in Los Angeles. Actually what happens is a police officer mentions that the character Betsy, played by Beltran, is from a small town south of LA but the tone of the conversations seems to imply that they are all near LA themselves but is not clear really. Beltran’s character is nameless at IMDB but credited as Luisa, not Betsy, at a Spanish language film site called Cineconional . I will assume this is the name of the original character before being dubbed. Furthermore she is confusingly nicknamed Bebe or Beba in the film, her character’s real name sounding like Besty Lou or something as equally out of place, but Gloria Prat’s character (Prat plays a small supporting role in this film actually) is listed at IMDB as Laura ‘Beba’ Villegas. More confusing is the fact that it is after one in the morning and I am actually researching this mess as if in the end I will have cleared up some arcane and yet profound mystery. In any case I am certain the lead character is Susana Beltran and she is called something that sounds like Beba in the film, regardless of what it says at IMDB who, as I said, lists no name for her character on the movie page there. What’s up with that?

Whoever she is and where ever she is from does not really matter one way or the other since this story seems to take place in another world altogether anyway. For example, if Beba grew up south of LA why does she have a thick Blanche Dubois style southern drawl? The actors use hip lingo, calling each other “cat”, and act mod and liberated but look like the typical thirty or over adult that is the norm for movie teenagers of this time period it seems. The camera work and lighting is not really too bad and the scenes are usually shot in a sharp contrast that I prefer to something grainy, washed out and gray looking. The outdoor night shots are done well enough and there is well controlled back lighting through mist effects in many of the night scenes. Of course the film has plenty of problems and I am certain most people will just not get it (if there is in fact anything to get other than vertigo) but connoisseurs of unintentionally bad films will eat this baby up. And speaking of eating it up the US title of Feast of Flesh is pretty misleading as there is no gore in the film and while there are some sexy moments (including some over the sweater boob groping and girls rubbing other girl’s breasts over bikini tops) you could hardly say there is anything overtly lewd in the film. The original title of Placer Sangriento seems to translate as Pleasures of Blood or Bloody Pleasures and even that is not doing the film justice. The other US title is the double entendre loaded The Deadly Organ and that too is a tad goofy in my opinion. While there is some trance inducing music in the film, except for a couple scenes  it is not really a solo organ for the most part but rather some slow, spacey lounge music that seems pretty innocuous for the most part. I used the original Spanish title  for the post since it sounded mysterious and foreign.

The story is a simple enough Giallo inspired whodunit type thriller with a masked killer luring pretty young girls to their deaths with the above mentioned “deadly organ” bossa nova tune. They become entranced somehow from the music and wander with a zombie like stare in their eyes to their seductions and eventual deaths at the hand of the guy with not only a rubber mask but matching rubber gloves as well. It is never explained how it is the music gains this effect over the girls. The means of death is a lethal injection of heroin that is rammed into the victim’s chest with a huge hypodermic needle. There seems to be a period of seduction and courting between the killer and victim and they all speak longingly of him during subsequent police interviews. And that brings me to the topic of the cops themselves and in particular lead detective Inspector Ernesto Lauria who has arrived to assist in the investigation of the recent murder of a girl on the beach. We are treated to the murder in the opening moments of the film along with a couple of clueless and hip talking locals. We also get to see a swinging party where Beltran’s character does a topless go go dance to some wild bongo laden pop music. I guess no swinging party was complete without bongos back then. At the party the camera pans over the faces of spaced out party revelers, any who could be the killer I guess. The film really tries to juggle way to many characters and Inspector Lauria quickly only seems interested in juggling Beba’s bountiful assets. In one scene she is actually in the process of being raped by the beach victim’s fiancée and Lauria only watches from a distance and not only does not intervene but chastises her for being a tease. He does turn his back while she gets dressed so he is okay. In another scene he somehow concludes he must use “lysergic acid” (LSD) as a truth serum on a girl who is one of the killer’s hypnotized concubines. Does not seem to help much.

I have to be honest I really could not always follow what was going on and who was who. Almost every minor female character, and one male, introduced in the beginning of the film is killed off by the masked man who seems to have little trouble getting away with one brutal homicide after another within walking distance of his beach side bungalow. I mentioned above that the film is similar to the influential Italian Giallo (yellow) films that were still in their infancy after Mario Bava’s groundbreaking Blood and Black Lace and while some people reject this comparison I feel it is accurate enough. You have a masked and mysterious killer who will no doubt be reveled in the films final moments to be either some major character who you are not supposed to suspect but usually do or some minor character who had two lines of dialog in the first twenty minutes of the films and then vanishes until the end when their mask is pulled off. The killer may or may not use a specialized weapon in the murders but usually they do. The camera often focuses on the gloved hands of the killer with the weapon and the death scenes typically focuses on the lurid aspects of the death and its details to a gratuitous degree. The stories are often too complex for their own good and atmosphere plays more of a role than does cogent narrative. All those elements are here and while the storyline is mostly vague and even downright goofy at times there is a strange and surreal quality to the film that I enjoyed at times. I never found myself disliking the film.

Beltran is great to look at and the scenes of the cops playing the 45 rpm record looking for clues and significance and suddenly all but exclaiming “eureka” are some classic bad movie police moments, but far from the worst I have seen. And how bad can these cops be? They give innocent, potential witnesses free LSD and let pervs molest girls on the beach while they watch. The killer winds up being a less than minor character in the film but it is no surprise really. Beba becomes a target for the psycho after her new cop boyfriend Detective Lauria decides to use her as bait. Gives witnesses LSD, watches passively as Beba is molested and blames her then uses her as untrained bait in a homicide case. This guy is a keeper in my book. She winds up wandering in a hypnotic daze as the not really that strange music plays on the beach on a quaint little portable record player. This was the anestor of the Walkman and iPod I guess. The killer gets blasted and his mask is removed as we are treated to unnecessary flashbacks of dialog that tie it all together as Beba and Luisa walk off into the night arm in arm. The movie is only 77 minutes long and not as terrible as most people make it out to be. It is certainly a good film for late at night right before bed when the mind is at its most receptive for such an experience.