Giallos: More Fun, More Kool-Aid

I simply cannot get enough of Giallo cinema. You would think that after watching as many as I have I would get tired of them, but somehow the flashy Italian fashions, the ultra-mod furniture, and the bright candy apple red fake blood just get me very time. Here are three Giallo films I watched recently. They aren’t Deep Red by any means (and really, how much really can be?), but they are good examples of the genre.

The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave

In this Giallo, a wealthy lord is having trouble getting over his wife’s death. He is obsessed with her as much as he was when she was alive and he was worried she was cheating on him. He tours the local bars, finding red-haired women to come back to his castle and fool around, where he later tortures and kills them. Later, his doctor friend convinces him to marry again, this time to a blonde, hoping it will help heal his slowly rotting mind. Of course, due to the nature of the Giallo, it really doesn’t help at all. There’s the gloved killer murdering women in gruesome ways, the creepy castle, the crazed lord who may or may not be killing people, and of course the beautiful women getting sliced and diced. It’s one of the better Giallos out there, once you move past the masters of the genre, and it’s well worth checking out.

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times

Two sisters have a past, with a secret tragedy and a horrible fairy tale that haunted their child hood. Even to this day, they remember the tale of the “Sisters in Red,” two murderous sisters will return on April 6, 1972 and continue their lethal behavior. So when the day arrives, they aren’t terribly surprised to have people around them dying, and a young woman in a red cloak being present at the scene of the murders. This Giallo was almost as good as The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, in fact it makes a good double feature, and this once stars the very lovely Barbara Bouchet.

The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail

This Giallo is heavy on the mystery – a very rich businessman dies in a plane explosion, and his unfaithful wife is the beneficiary of 1 million dollars. The insurance company wants to investigate before they actually pay out the weeping widow, so an investigator arrives on the scene to determine if the widow had anything to do with the murder. A mysterious black-gloved murderer steals the money and leaves a trail of bloody bodies in his wake.

If you are a Dario Argento or Mario Brava fan but are looking for something more, maybe you haven’t seen these. Check them out. If you want to know what Giallo is, I would start with some others, like Deep Red or The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, and then, if you like those, move on to some of these Giallos.

Rating: 4 1/2 Purrs for nice Giallo cinema. Gotta love those titles and those very lovely pantsuits.