Monday Morricone Madness!!!
Danger: Diabolik (Mario Bava, 1968) Hands up who likes Austin Powers? Well, I know I do! Not the wretched sequels of course, but the first film in the series, which was an incredibly smart and rather heartfelt parody of a period of filmmaking stretching from the mid to late 60s. With the Cold War approaching its 20th [...]
Film of the Day – Hatchet for the Honeymoon (Mario Bava, 1970)
Back when Days Are Numbers ran its giallo special, we rightfully acknowledged the great Mario Bava as the indisputable godfather of the Italian slasher-cum-murder mystery. Perhaps less correctly, however, we listed the horror/sci-fi/fantasy/sex comedy maestro’s contributions to the genre as numbering four; The Girl Who Knew Too Much, Blood and [...]
Banned for Glory (part one)
(Cue Alfred Hitchcock Presents music: Good evening. I’m trying something different this time round. In my continuing effort to cement a reputation for myself as the Nigel Slater of film blogs, I present for you today another semi-autobiographical investigation of a chosen cinematic subject, this time British film censorship. As [...]
Giallo Fever!
As a bit of a bonus follow-up to our indepth giallo investigation (Yellow Peril, see below), I thought it might be nice to put up a few magic moments from everybody’s favourite Italian murder mystery/horror hybrid subgenre. A late-night trawl through youtube surprisingly yielded some excellent clips, and if anyone [...]
Yellow Peril
Like just about every fellow aficionado I have encountered, I was introduced to the fiendish allure of the Italian giallo when I first saw Dario Argento’s Profondo Rosso. A confirmed fan of the maestro already, this mesmerising, mind-bending murder mystery was like nothing I had ever seen before. Henceforth, I [...]