GIALLO FEVER

Literally translated from Italian, giallo means yellow. Referring to the genre of film and literature focusing on themes of crime, mystery, horror and eroticism. Film pioneers such as Mario Bava and Dario Argento adapted these thrillers starting in the 1960's from a series of cheap paperback mystery novels that featured yellow covers. A fan of Argento movies for many moons, my interest was renewed in this genre last week when the Anthology Film Archives featured the giallo festival, showing such gems as Deep Red, The Bird with Crystal Plumage, The Girl Who Knew Too Much and Blood and Black Lace.

I got to see a couple of these films on the big screen and Bava's Blood and Black Lace(1964) was absolutely the star of the show. Also known as six women for the murderer, it is regarded as one of the original and most influential giallo films. The plot revolves around the stalking and gruesome murders of models at a premier fashion house by a masked killer. Concerned with recovering the first victim's diary, the women are brutally murdered one by one in exaggerated and often comical ways. Below is the trailer featuring a few noteworthy scenes.