For horror fans, giallo films are among the most unique yet treasured options they can enjoy. Peaking in the 1970s, this subgenre is highly stylized and cerebral, relying on dream-like sequences and lots of color to ramp up the tension. When blood flows in these movies, audiences see the red. The cinematography can feel tight and plenty of close-ups are used to either throw the audience off or accentuate a gruesome moment.
Brilliant minds like Dario Argento, Mario Bava, and Lucio Fulci became masters of the genre as the genre became more prevalent. While the heyday of giallo films is in the past, that doesn’t mean that their influence isn’t still felt today. Plenty of movies that have come out recently have shown tropes or style choices that are similar to that of the popular horror films. These kinds of films have resonated and many of them still feel like fever dreams.
Here are 9 must-see recent horror movies that are clearly influenced by giallo cinema.
9
‘The Editor’ (2014)
- Release Date
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September 11, 2014
- Runtime
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95 minutes
- Director
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Adam Brooks
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Laurence R. Harvey
Father Clarke
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The Editor comes from the duo of Adam Brooks and Matthew Kennedy, who wrote, directed, edited, produced, and starred in the film. The movie also features Paz de la Huerta, Laurence Harvey, Conor Sweeney, Udo Kier, and Samantha Hill. The Editor centers on Brooks’ character Rey, a one-handed film editor who lost his fingers in a freak accident. He becomes the prime suspect in a spree of murders, all because the victims have severed fingers similar to his own injuries.
What appears to be a straightforward story about a murder investigation unfurls with a chaotic web of cinematic choices that bring the audience on a ride through time and space. It is an homage to giallo films as it goes in and out of being a straight narrative film and diverts into expressionistic, color-splashed horror. For any fan of giallo films, they’ll recognize the admiration Brooks and Kennedy have for the genre.
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8
‘Berberian Sound Studio’ (2012)
- Release Date
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August 30, 2012
- Runtime
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92 minutes
- Director
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Peter Strickland
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Susanna Cappellaro
Auditionee
Berberian Sound Studio is set in the time and place of many giallo films, making it an obvious product of the subgenre. It stars Toby Jones as Gilderoy, a British sound engineer working on a film in Italy and the lines between art and real life begin to blur for him. The sound engineer can never get a straight answer from the director as to whether or not this is a horror film they are shooting, despite the Foley work he is forced to do for torture scenes.
Jones, as always, gives it his all with his unique mannerisms and consistent presence as Gilderoy’s life spirals as he struggles to make heads or tails of his situation. Is he a part of the movie? Is he working on the movie? The ending leaves it ambiguous, paying homage to the genre it depicted.
7
‘Strange Darling’ (2023)
Delivering a tour-de-force performance, Willa Fitzgerald is enigmatic in the non-linear Strange Darling. Released in 2023, the film jumps back and forth to unfurl the story of a one-night stand, how it came to be, and how not everything the audience sees is to be believed. Co-starring Kyle Gallner, Barbara Hershey, and Ed Begley Jr, the film is set in the Oregon wilderness and writer/director JT Mollner depicts plenty of gore and violence in a serene setting.
The motel scenes are soaked in neon lights, giving more meaning to Fitzgerald’s character’s choices. The film provides an uneasy feeling throughout, a staple of giallo cinema, and the twist keeps the audience replaying what they’ve seen over and over again. The film looks like a throwback to older cinema, thanks to being shot on 35mm by Giovanni Ribisi in his first film as a cinematographer.
6
‘Dark Glasses’ (2022)
Just because he’s 84 doesn’t mean Argento isn’t still working. In 2022, he directed Dark Glasses, his first film in a decade. He cast his daughter, Asia, as one of the main roles in this giallo (this may be cheating a bit, but it’s important to acknowledge that one of the main directors of the subgenre is still working). The film stars Ilenia Pastorelli as an escort who is attacked and blinded by a killer known as the Cellist thanks to their choice of cello strings as a murder weapon.
After she survives the possible kill, the Cellist stops at nothing to finish the job. She uses a small boy to be her eyes in order to run and stay out of further harm’s way. While it may not be his best film, Argento still shows he has the chops to craft a decent giallo that offers some throwback vibes for audiences.
5
‘Amer’ (2009)
Much more in tune with its visuals than its storytelling, Amer is an out-there cinematic choice made by Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani. The French husband and wife crafted a surreal story following a woman, Ana, through different stages of her life. The story shows Ana experiencing fantasies in three phases as she is exploring what arouses her sensually. Ana is played by Cassandra Forêt as a child, Charlotte Eugène Guibeaud as a teenager, and Marie Bos as an adult.
The score took music and compositions from previous giallo films and built them together to create a memorable addition to the visuals. In the giallo-style, the color palate is vibrant and lurid, displaying all of Ana’s inner thoughts for the audience to see. The directors were praised for committing to their vision and bringing the audience through Ana’s life and the horrors that arise in her mind.
4
‘Last Night in Soho’ (2021)
Edgar Wright is a cinephile who loves to pay homage to filmmakers before him. In Last Night in Soho, he puts forth a time-traveling, color-splashed masterclass in thriller and suspense. Thomasin McKenzie’s Ellie is a fan of the Swinging Sixties and aims to become a fashion designer in London. While boarding in a bedsit, she is transformed to the 1960s and witnesses the escapades of Sandie, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, whose lure and presence attracts men in ways Ellie can’t dream of. What becomes an intoxicating escape for Ellie turns too realistic as she finds herself yearning to follow Sandie more and more.
Wright encapsulates the time period perfectly and mixes in distinct horror tropes with bits of violence and gore that keep both thriller fans, fans of horror, and admirers of the age satisfied. Also starring Matt Smith, Diana Rigg, and Terence Stamp, the audience is forced to try and figure out if what they are seeing is all in Ellie’s head or really happening.
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3
‘Malignant’ (2021)
James Wan is a master of horror and Malignant is one of his most gruesome creations, as he brought Akela Cooper’s screenplay to gory life. The film stars Anabelle Wallis as Madison, a woman who starts to see horrible murders in her mind but comes to find that they are happening in real life. The victim of an abusive relationship, Madison must work through her own mental health struggles to try and stop the killer from continuing their spree. The film is a sign of Wan’s growth as a filmmaker and portrays the inspiration giallo films had on him.
Malignant costars Maddie Hasson, George Young, Jacqueline McKenzie, Michole Briana White, and Jake Abel. The classic feature of descending the audience into the mind of the main character, only to show that what is inside there is murky and disorienting is a classic giallo trope. Wan does that in the film in spades, as Wallis’s performance leaves audiences rattled.
2
‘Censor’ (2021)
Premiering at Sundance in 2021, Censor stars Niamh Algar as Enid Baines, a censor working for the British Board of Film Classification. Set in the 1980s during the “video nasty” movement, which saw low-budget slashers and thrillers being produced and not submitted to the censors to avoid controversial ratings, Censor depicts a feeling of unrest and surrealism that is felt in many giallo films. The movie follows Enid as she is asked to screen a film that eerily evokes memories of her younger life and her sister’s disappearance.
As the events spiral into a mix of fantasy and reality, Enid descends into madness trying to figure out if the film is really her memories or not. Directed and co-written by Prano Bailey-Bond, the film even has a self-deprecating final shot that sums up the setting perfectly. It is one of the best horror films of 2021 and is still haunting a few years later.
1
‘Bliss’ (2017)
Jerrold Tarog is a Filipino composer, writer, director, and editor who has made his mark in cinema in a variety of ways. His 2017 film Bliss was a full auteur experience, as he did all of the above roles for it. In doing so, he had complete control over the mood and tone of the film, jumping from audacious shots and matching them up with heightened audio to dramatic dialogue. The film stars Iza Calzado as Jane Ciego, a famous actress who is injured on the set of the first film she’s producing.
Left disabled, she holes up in her home to avoid media attention. She’s under the care of her husband Carlo (TJ Trinidad) and a sadistic care nurse, Lilibeth (Adrienne Vergara). The film is filled with violence and nudity, earning an X rating from the Phillipines Movies and Television Review and Classifications Board (it was later changed to R-18.) The cerebral feeling as Ciego drifts in and out of her psyche garnered Calzado critical acclaim for the role.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
