Putty Up

Let's get this out of the way: I like--not love--Dario Argento.

I understand and appreciate his contribution to genre cinema. Suspiria is something of a masterpiece. His support and connections helped make Dawn of the Dead be all that it could be. I’ll admit that I’ve yet to see some of his more respected early efforts (Deep Red, The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, Four Flies On Grey Velvet among them) but regarding his middle-career streak (Tenebre/Phenomena/Opera), I come up in a rather scandalous category of meh.

Maybe I should just wait to reserve any complete judgment until I see his long-awaited Dracula 3D. Word on the street is it’s a hit!

Quick Plot: A young model named Celine is abducted by a yellow tinted mad man with a thing for disfiguring and killing beautiful women. Luckily for his latest soon-to-be victim, Celine's sassy flight attendant sister Linda will stop at nothing to save her. For Linda, that mostly means tracking down Adrien Brody's tortured Inspector Avolfi to crack the case before it's too late.

Giallo is, I guess, a giallo, save for the fact that doesn't really tease you with a mystery to the killer's identity. 

Well, maybe it does?

See, for some sort of creative/silly/yet sort of entertaining reason, Brody does double duty as the earnest hero and mumbling murderer. Now anyone who's ever caught a glimpse of Adrien Brody only to feel as though his one-of-a-kind schnozz has poked them in the eye might be wondering 'How can you possibly disguise a man with a face as singular as Adrien Brody?'

Well...

I'll spoil a question that you might otherwise be distracted asking for Giallo's 90 minute runtime: no,  Putty Brody is not the secret long-lost twin of Non-Putty Brody. Nor is Putty Brody supposed to be Non-Putty Brody in a putty disguise. Nope. He's just playing two parts a la Paul Dano in There Will Be Blood or Frank Morgan in The Wizard of Oz. 

Except with about 85% more putty.

You’re probably now thinking “how can you possibly get back to a semi-serious discussion of this movie when all I can think about no wis putty?” I feel your pain. And answer simply with this:

You can't.

High Points

Dummy violence! It's a giallo and it has dummy violence! THAT'S A GOOD THING!

Low Points

So. That was an note of ambiguous hope to end on eh?

Lessons Learned

Italian policemen were never taught how to take a pulse

The more puttied your face is, the further back your memory goes. This calculation does indeed lead to the conclusion that if your face is made entirely of putty, you can remember your life in your heroin addicted mother's womb

When considering what to be when you grow up, remember a hidden bonus of the occupation 'fashion model': you'll probably be skinny enough to squeeze through a chained door when trying to escape a mad putty-faced serial killer

Perhaps it explains my clumsiness as something blood-related: Italians are not very good at walking, at least if it involves passing another person without crashing into them

Randomly Aggressive Product Placement

Because watching a movie about a man who slaughters pretty young women ALWAYS puts me in the right mood for snappy Diablo Cody dialog

Rent/Bury/Buy

Look, I'm not calling Giallo a good movie. But unlike a lot of other gialli, it didn’t bore me. Many diehard Argento fans will call it a true shame, but as someone who’s never been overly impressed by the filmmaker’s output, I don’t see it as being THAT bad. It’s more that he never quite improved from where his run ended in the mid-80s. Fog up Giallo to make it look like it was made in 1987 and try to tell me it’s that much worse than Opera. 

Or just don’t watch it and save yourself an argument. The choice is ultimately yours.

Kissy kissy.

Let's Ride An Italian Stallion To Stationary Independence!

If you’re like me this summer, the word 'vacation' has no meaning. Isn't that awesome? Think of all the stab-happy hillbillies you won't have to flee, the cell phone signals in your office so strong they'll leave bruises, and the now unnecessary adorable but sickle-wielding Amish kids who hate you because corn told them they should.

That’s right, think positive. We're not talking about all the pina coladas we're not drinking, the fanny packs not usefully serving as storage and belly fat coverup or the license plate keychains we don’t even get to search through for our names. If you mention such glories of vacation, I'll have my cell phone signal punch you in the face.

So to combat the utter sluggishness of, you know, not going anywhere, let's GO somewhere! Virtually! It's like a futuristic road trip without the leg cramps and motion sickness.

First, break out that gold chain and spray tan for The Blood Sprayer's Italian Invasion! The always busy horror site is busting with special posts on giallo, Bava, cannibalism, and more. It's way better than Domino's pizza, unless you're drunk and Domino's pizza is then way better than just about anything in the world that ever existed ever. If you need a starting point, head yonder here for my own review of my frenemy Dario Argento's 1987 pseudo-Phantom adaption, Opera. 

Yup, this happens.

My, that was exotic! International even! We need to balance this virtualation with some good old fashioned American moviedom, namely, a bunch of indie flicks over at Rogue Cinema.This month, I reviewed the found footage horror Evil Things and the unique mystery Dogs Lie. There's plenty more in the August Issue, including an interview with Tim "Doll Man" (or more excitingly to me, Gangland) Thomerson.

He's the one that reallllllly wants to get to Arizona.

Wasn’t that fun? And look, there was no humorless fondling by TSA agents or socially awkward hitchhikers to make us feel uncomfortable with the stat of Texas. Heck, nobody even broke into our house when we were gone to steal our famous jewels and then get stuck inside an evil death trap orchestrated by our no-good exterminator! 

Maybe vacations aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

Keep telling yourself that Emily.

Repo! The Aggressive Opera!

As a firm believer in organ donation, a lifetime lover of musicals, a proud owner of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Seasons 2-7 (because I refused to pay the same price for the shortest season, even if i did get all the others at a bargain price of $16.99), and, in case you haven't guessed it, a fairly enthusiastic fan of horror, the concept of Repo! was almost too good to be true:

Quick Plot: In the near dystopian future, the demand for fresh body parts has grown so large that a corporation has started a megamillion financing company to pay for those transplants with very steep interest rates. Paul Sorvino and Sarah Brightman lend operatic cred, Anthony Stewart Head provides the eye and soulful voice candy, and the director of Saw 2 tosses in all the leftover bits from Tobin Bell’s autopsy. The casting of Paris Hilton was almost a relief; nothing could be perfect.

And Repo! isn't. But I still love it.

Maybe you will. Maybe you won't. This could be the dictionary definition of a polarizing film because there's no way to enjoy it if you can't get past its rock opera-iness. Or the ridiculous plot, brain squishing, grave robbing, Spy Kids alum, and Bill Mosely’s dance moves. Anybody that says they hated this film, I can't argue. It's loud and crass, messy and cheap, over-the-top and proud of itself. But c’mon: there’s an exclamation point in the title with no real logic (Repo! The Genetic Opera makes me want to rename some past titles like Pinball! The Who’s Tommy, Barber! Sweeney Todd’s Victorian Tale and fix Broadway’s Spring Awakening to Fuck! The Teen Sex Musical). I normally don’t approve of aggressive grammar, but this one just tries so hard and hey, maybe it’s an homage to past musicals of yore like Oklahoma! and Oliver!

High Points:
Sarah Brightman has always been a kind of dark-haired step-child of the theater world, but she is right at home in the world of this film, with an incredibly haunting voice and gorgeous look.

Picture the Nixon mask Patrick Swayze wore in the opening scene of Point Break. Now cut out the mouth and listen to it sing with a wacky and foppish Italian accent. That’s Ogre’s Gabi, and it’s kind of a beautiful and horrifying thing.

Seeing Anthony Stewart Head singing and in black leather is sort of like fan fiction wish fulfillment pornography for the Buffyverse...and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that

Low points
Of all the musical lines this film, the single one I can’t get out of my head is Bill Mosely's “I will find a hole and fuck it.” That’s a tad inconvenient in real life.

Lessons Learned:
The near future will kind of suck, but at least opera will make a comeback

Much like today, the lending crisis will yield some rather serious consequences for the general public, with dismemberment and gutting replacing foreclosure and bankruptcy.


It is possible for goth guys to be kinda hot, providing they have rich singing voices

Rent/Buy/Bury
Buy it, if nothing else, to send a message to studios that horror fans crave and will accept something different. As much as I'm giddily counting the days left to see Jason’s rebirth*, I would much rather get a Repo! cycle or surge in crossover genre experiments than another 12 films with the same story and stock characters for the next 12 years. If people complain that Saw is the same recycled garbage Halloween after Halloween then those folks need to prove that they want and will pay for something else.


*Generally, my opinion on remakes is one of disdain and annoyance, but the Friday the 13th series has never actually been good (despite the softest of spots I hold in my heart for Part 8, where Jason takes over a Canadian New York City) so as far as “reimagining” goes, I say go for it. It can’t be worse than Part 5, and maybe 12 times is the charm.