In a way, Dario Argento is like an absentee father for horror fans. No matter how many times he forgets our birthday, bounces a child support payment, or not show up to take us to the zoo, we still love him because…he’s Dario! Just watching 5 minutes of Suspiria or Bird with the Crystal Plumage and we forget all about…well, just about every other picture over the last 10 years.
The above still appeared recently on Shock Till you Drop and it’s from Dario’s newest (still in production) film, Giallo. Now, titling an Italian film “Giallo” is like Wes Craven calling a film “American Slasher Film” – which could be a good idea, but probably wouldn’t. Giallo means “yellow” in Italian, but cinematically speaking the word defines a broad spectrum of horror films that combined whodunit plots with occasionally graphic violence. Why yellow, you ask? The term originally referred to a series of pulp paperbacks published by the Mondadori company in the 1920s that all had yellow covers.
Argento has been bedeviled by distribution problems throughout his career (of late, his second biggest problem) so hopefully, the presence of Oscar winner Adrien Brody will help actually get this into theaters and away from the bootleg tables at Chiller conventions.
