Is it giallo? Is it horror? Is it both? In Italian cinema, the line between giallo and horror is often blurred, to the point it becomes insignificant. Thus it is with The New York Ripper, one of Lucio Fulci’s 1982 films. It has the most important tropes of giallo — women in danger, a serial killer on the loose, lots of nudity, and more blood than American audiences are used to in thrillers. It also has the feel of a slasher flick. Shoving the film into one category or another doesn’t do the viewer any good. And, if it ain’t horror, it can’t be part of the October Horrorshow. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: The New York Ripper, aka Lo squartatore di New York”
Some of Those Responsible: Luigi Kuveiller
Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Deep Red, aka Profondo rosso
One guarantee for viewers of a Dario Argento film is a gorgeous experience. Argento is a master of the visual, with an artist’s sense of palette and a designer’s sense of space. His films take the ordinary streets of urban Italy, or wherever he has chosen to shoot, and turn them almost surreal, or liminal. The characters that occupy these worlds never seem to notice how uncanny their surroundings are. In Deep Red, Argento, along with cinematographer Luigi Kuveiller, takes the bustling city of Turin and turns it into a lonely, cavernous place seemingly built by giants, and now occupied sparsely by their diminutive descendants. Interior spaces are crowded not with people, but art, and none of it is remarkable to anyone who floats through these spaces. To them, the world might as well consist of blank walls. Everything shown on screen is not for them. It’s for us. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Deep Red, aka Profondo rosso”