Giallo

The giallo genre originated in Italian literature where cheap crime novels with supernatural (and often erotic) elements were produced as cheap paperbacks. The word ‘giallo’ is Italian for yellow – the trademark background colour of the books’ covers. For Italian film audiences the term became a catch-all phrase used to describe the all thrillers – but rapidly became a sub-genre of its own. Characterised by gruesome murder sequences and stylish visuals, the theatrical and stylised movies reached their high-watermark in the 1970s – and at the forefront of the movement was Dario Argento. Films like Cat O’Nine Tails and Suspiria proved hugely influential – Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan is a clear homage to such pictures. Now, following legal wrangling with star Adrien Brody over pay, Argento’s return to the genre will be released on DVD for the first time.

Set, unsurprisingly, in Italy, the film concerns the hunt for Celine (Elsa Pataky), a model who’s been abducted by a serial killer.

Leading the investigation is Italian-American detective Enzo (Adrien Brody) alongside her sister, Linda (Emmanuelle Segnier). Known only as ‘Yellow’, the killer’s modus operandi is to kidnap beautiful foreign females in his unlicensed taxi before drugging, mutilating and murdering them.

Will Enzo and Linda manage to locate Celine before she becomes another of the killer’s fatalities?

Rarely has a horror movie relied so heavily on stereotypes and clichés. Giallo contains not one single original idea, seeming to hope instead that its association with big names like Argento and Brody, as well as proven talent like Segnier, will elevate it above the competition. Sadly, each of the aforementioned individuals fails to raise their game appropriately.

The acting across the board is dubious. Pataky is required to do little other than scream and shout, whilst Segnier looks harassed and bedraggled and little else. It would be churlish to criticise them for this: there is no sense that either Argento or the film’s writers have made any attempt to craft rounded characters – they merely serve the flimsy plot.

Although a ‘twist’ is not a prerequisite for a horror film, audiences have clearly come to expect one. Giallo fails to deliver in a completely linear narrative. The riddle of the kidnapper’s identity and whereabouts (such as they are) are resolved in one blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment and the action gets no more interesting after that. Arguably, this can be attributed to the decision to introduce the audience to the villain very early in the piece.

Almost from the outset, ‘Yellow’ is seen on screen, initially as a hooded reflection in a rear-view mirror, but soon afterwards in full frontal. Despite being a mass-murdering sociopath, it’s difficult not to laugh at his very presence. Very clearly played by Adrien Brody (despite being credited as Byron Deidra), he hobbles around the set mouthing threats in a hilariously bad Italian accent. His skin is literally yellow – an affliction explained through a torturously hackneyed back-story – and his face looks like a particularly unthreatening Bo Selecta mask. It’s impossible to take him seriously – not least when he’s seen sucking a child’s dummy.

Brody is barely any better in his larger role as the noirish detective. He phones in his performance as the jaded cop so half-heartedly that it’s little wonder people were reluctant to pay him for his role in proceedings. It’s a real shame, as the opportunity to play two conflicting parts would be attacked with relish by most actors. But again, some of the blame for this must lie with the writers who completely fail to capitalise on the interesting notion that the policeman and the kidnapper are two halves of the same coin. It is an idea which is explored to a degree, but it never goes far enough and seems like an afterthought rather than a key plot-point.

With little beneath the surface, the action is extremely superficial. Thankfully it zips along to the predictable conclusion fairly speedily. Occasional graphically violent episodes punctuate the plot – and these vary greatly in their quality. Some are genuinely shocking, others shockingly bad. There also seems to be a preoccupation with ejaculation as the killer towers over Celine watching her blood pumping from her severed finger as he squirts anaesthetic from a syringe. As with many of the themes touched upon here, the killer’s sexual interest in the girls he kills is only partially explored – yet another strand which might have been expanded on rather than trying to jam every hoary old cliché into ninety minutes of action.

Giallo is a hugely flawed movie. With an unconvincing pantomime villain at its heart and a series of one dimensional characters making up the numbers, Argento needed a strong storyline or some original ideas to carry the movie. Instead, he throws every cliché in the book at his production in the hope that some of it sticks – it just makes a mess. Better writing and a more focused figure at the helm might have rescued a half-decent film from the footage on display. Brody will be breathing a sigh of relief that Giallo never made it to the cinema.