You know what my favorite horror movie is?
No, not that favorite. Not that favorite. No, that's not one of my
favorites anymore. But it might be a favorite next week.
Well, yes. They do tend to migrate. But a whole bunch of them are
the sort that will never be nominated for an Academy Award, and if
you ever find yourself trapped in an elevator with an actor who has
gotten one of those little statues and you mention these films, that
poor unfortunate is likely to scream themselves to death. One man's
trash is another man's treasure.
Different countries have different ideas about what elements fit in
films. I think it was in Rue Morgue a few years back that I read how
a lot of the classic films from south of the border contain action,
horror, comedy, and even a dance number or two, just to give their
viewers as much variety as they can. That's the form down there, and
the formula. European cinema got a bit of a head start on us over
here in the States, and it's had more time to season and mature, and
to develop different formulae. Hence, they have a type of film that
you don't (or didn't used to) see over here: The Giallo.
The name comes from the Italian word for yellow, and a bit of
grade-school level research tells me that the films are called that
because the crime thrillers that the genre grew from were a series of
paperbacks with yellow covers. I can see that. But if a case of
mass amnesia suddenly hit the world, these movies would probably be
named after a different color, red.
These movies are like multi-frame works of art. Shots are staged and
set to say something, not just 'Here's the street our heroes are
walking down.' The long, empty hallway with bare light bulbs
swinging to and fro is the single path our heroine can take, and in
one way or another, it leads to death. The fact that the driver of
the coach sits up so rigidly, has those cold, noble features, and
that the camera is never on him when we hear his voice is a sure sign
that he's one of the blood-drinking undead. A soft drink machine in
an ancient castle that's being rennovated isn't a sign of progress,
it's a source of garish light in the choking darkness and a reminder
of modern man's impotence in the face of all those forces lurking in
the castle which spill and feed on blood.
Oh yes, the rich, red blood. It spurts, flows, and spatters over
everything. It runs down walls, sprays on ceilings, and gathers in
pools for unsuspecting victims to step in and notice just a second
too late. In the world of the Giallo film, the human body contains
over a hundred gallons of it, and its sole purpose is to exit that
body in the most gruesome fashion possible. This is art painted with
a sharp instrument.
One point to make is that, as art, realism takes a back seat to
effect. My own speculation on why these films don't have wider
appeal in the U.S. is because we're not used to suspending our
disbelief to the point of perceiving a story as a homogenous idea,
like an animated tarot card. Here plot is secondary to image, and
human motives are stripped down to their base elements and plugged in
like batteries to power the movie. In some ways they're more simple,
but more mature than what we're used to. It doesn't help that some
of the dubbing from Italian to English sounds like it was done by
actors who were rejected from soap opera auditions for being too
dramatic, either.
I don't see myself writing anything like these. My ideas are drawn
from a different deck of cards, and I don't think the printed word is
an effective medium for the kind of expression that we're talking
about. I like to wander through tales where not only do things
change, but the whole feeling can change. In a Giallo if there's an
interesting character who isn't the hero or heroine,you can usually
count on them dying, and I've already told you how the blood is going
to come out. What about a story with two villains and no hero? How
about one that starts off with telling you no one is going to get
killed? Horror is a wide field, with room for everyone.
That's where I write.
