Giallo: A Review

It pains me to say this, but the truth will out.

The movie Giallo sucks. Just plain, flat out bad film making in nearly every aspect.

From "Italian horror master" writer/director Dario Argento, this movie plays out more like a bad made for television yarn than anything worthy of a cinema showing.

I'm familiar with Argento by reputation, as a gore-fiend horror director who apparently pushed boundaries with his over the top bloodfests of the 70's. But I've never actually seen one his films, such as the famous Suspira. Based on Giallo, however, I'd say he's still working with same 1970's cameras, filmstock, and laughable special effects.

Following the anemic, by the numbers tale of a cop trailing a serial murderer, we are treated to a host of plot turns that range from cliche (our cop is a loner with PTSD-worthy skeletons in his closet) to the ridiculous (in Italy it's apparently par for the course to show a potential victim's sister all the grisly photos of what the perp does, like slashing throats and cutting off lips---yay!).

Adding insult to injury, this movie doesn't even bother to treat the viewer to any sort of procedural sense. We are the Law & Order generation, weaned on Silence of the Lambs and the X-Files. Don't you dare flash an FBI logo jacket (from New York FBI???) and then fail to use basic terms like, oh, I don't know, sociopath, UNSUB, signature, M.O. or anything else even remotely police-like. For the love of Agent Starling, our detective doesn't even use the word serial killer to describe our killer. He's a pattern killer. What? That's not what it said on the DVD label. Seems the marketing guys had some info they didn't let you in on, ABrods.

The lighting is off and inconsistent. There might have been an attempt at thematic use of color, very blatant, but it was undercut by the constant changes in film quality.

The framing of the film even seemed amateurish, with shots and angles that looked like one-offs or like the second unit director let his film school nephew run around for a day.

The ADR is probably the only truly terrifying thing about the whole film. And I don't think having Adrien Brody do loops for various characters that he wasn't playing was a wise choice. If you've already got the dude ~SPOILER ALERT~ doing two characters in the film, don't have him voice over a third. WE WILL KIND OF NOTICE.

On the whole ~SPOILER ALERT~ front, how amazingly unclever to have ABrods play both the detective and the the prosethically challenged killer. Wait, what's that? The credits list a "Byron Deidra" in the villain's role? I could have sworn that was Brody, underneath about six ounces of Max Factor pancake makeup and an bad Bruce Springsteen wig.

Wait a minute. "Byron Deidra." "Adrien Brody." I C WUT YOU DID THAR, D'ARGENTO. And fuck you.

And to top off the bad dialogue, glacial pacing, and Seriously Questionable Wardrobe Choices (which could be a whole entry on its own), we have a director who seems obsessed with the notion the Ultimate In Gore and Horror is achieved via the use of gratuitous amounts of ReCockulously Fake Ass Blood. This shit was so fake looking, I kept expecting penne and rotini to spout out of the victim's wounds.

It was really creepy, because there was the hint of sexual aspect to the maiming, with lots of stabbing, and tons of spurting. Apparently one of the victims carotid artery was located in the finger she had lopped off. Bitch bled buckets, shot blood across the room, blood *rained* down on her. All from a snipped finger.

It's called corn syrup and red dye, Argento. Try it out sometime. Beats latex tomato sauce any day of the week.

But really, all you actually need to know about this movie is that it is this monstrosity manages to obfuscate one of the Great Universal Principles--it makes Adrien Brody look like he can't act. This is patently false, and by physics as I understand it, this movie should actually implode on itself and cease to be. ABrods can act. We've all seen it. I, more than many, perhaps. Imma go testify behind it and tell it on the mountain.

This movie manages to negate that Universal Invariant. What next? Land wars in Asia?

If you would like to see the lovely ABrods in a thrill-kill movie, do yourself a favor and watch Oxygen instead.

Post Script---I still heart you Adrien. Call meeeeeeeeee!