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Horror, like any genre, contains multitudes of subgenres and styles, and of course our individual tastes will gravitate to some more than others. But do you have a particular subgenre that you feel like you really should enjoy, but in reality, leaves you feeling flat to the point where you feel like you’re somehow watching it the wrong way? For me, such is the case for the giallo, our Italian forefather to the slasher. I love a good slasher as much as anyone, but when I try and translate that to something like Suspiria or Bay of Blood, something is always missing. I’d chalk it up to just not being my thing, but when I hear passionate fans discuss it, I can’t shake the feeling that if I catch one at the right time, the gears will fall into place and the majesty of the giallo will be revealed.

We're back with another installment in our Italian thriller feature series, this time with an often overlooked little 1983 gem from Lamberto Bava. If that name sounds familiar, it should: Lamberto is not only the son of horror icon Mario Bava, who arguably kicked the giallo genre into high gear with his incredibly stylish Blood and Black Lace, but since then he's developed his own cult following thanks mainly to the success of the Demons trilogy, produced by Dario Argento and featuring some of Italian horror's most surreal set-pieces and gruesome makeup effects. Before Demons, Lamberto was honing his craft on giallo fare, including uncredited work on his father's final film Shock in 1980. Shortly following Mario's passing, Lamberto helmed his first film Macabre, an oddball psychodrama inspired by Roman Polanski's Repulsion. That one has its fans, but it was really more of a practice run. In my view, he entered...