Welcome back to another edition of Horror History and today we are going to be taking a look at the latter half of the first decade of the 1900’s to see what filmmakers at the time had to offer the genre that we all know (and love) today as horror.
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If you’re anything like me, you’re curious about the long history in which horror has come from and have dabbled through older films and literature but still aren’t able to get the full picture from it. This exact thought has led me to the decision of going right back to the advent of horror films and moving my way towards the future of the industry.
The finale in the Mark Doubt Giallo Series. “The first thing I thought when watching Stage Fright was “I wish I’d watched this in a triple bill with Murder Rock and Opera.” Like Fulci’s Frenzied Flashdance pastiche, Michele Soavi’s Stage Fright is a late foray into Giallo, and focuses on the performing arts. Where Stage Fright differs from (and is superior to) Fulci’s movie is in its creativity and its streak of self-awareness. Murder Rock, while a lot of fun, did feel like Fulci going through the…“
With over 70 credits to his name, Lucio Fulci was a prolific director of films of various genres including Horror (Zombie Flesh Eaters, 1979), Giallo (Don’t Torture A Duckling, 1972), Comedy (How we Stole the Atomic Bomb, 1966) Western (Four of the Apocalypse, 1975) and Musicals (Juke Box Kids, 1959).
Dario Argento, certainly the highlight of the Italian movement and the director who saw the most success outside of his native Italy, would make a slew of fantastic, decadent gialli that still found a place amongst the killer dolls, burnt-face dream demons and hockey mask killers. The US slasher film was of course itself a bastard offspring of Giallo, and Argento knew how to make the conventions of his favoured genre satisfy the bloodlust of horror fans everywhere.
The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh was the beginning of a very prolific period for Sergio Martino in the Giallo genre – over the next couple of years he would go on to direct The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, All the Colors of the Dark, Torso and The Suspicious Death of a Minor.
Born in 1948, French-Algerian actress Edwige Fenech moved from France to Rome in 1968 and found success in many genres of cinema. She is perhaps best known for her roles in two genres – commedia sexy all'italiana (softcore sex farces popular in Italy at the time) and, of course, Giallo. Fenech would star in the films of Mario Bava, Andrea Bianchi and Ruggero Deodato, and in a number of starring roles for director Sergio Martino.
In preparation for this series of articles, I watched over 40 Gialli – some already firm favourites of mine, others I had never seen before. While I have always considered myself a fan of Giallo, I soon realised there was much more to this genre than I had ever understood.