All the Colors of Giallo

Currently available on Tuvi, this documentary directed by Federico Caddeo is a top-level overview of Italian giallo (what else?) films which primarily focuses on Mario Bava (The Girl Who Know Too Much, Blood and Black Lace and A Bay of Blood), Dario Argento (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, The Cat o' Nine Tails, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, Deep Red, Tenebrae and Giallo), Lucio Fulci (One on Top of the Other, A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, Don't Torture a Duckling and The Psychic), Umberto Lenzi (So Sweet...So Perverse, Orgasmo, Paranoia, Knife of Ice, Spasmo and Eyeball) and Sergio Martino (The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key and All the Colors of the Dark). But also includes references to other directors (Aldo Lado (The Short Night of the Glass Dolls and Who Saw Her Die?), Giuliano Carmimeo (The Case of the Bloody Iris), Duccio Tessari (Death Occurred Last Night and The Bloodstained Butterfly) and Luciano Ercoli (Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion, Death Walks on High Heels and Death Walks at Midnight)).

Fairly talkative (or, in my case, readative (is that a word?) since it is in Italian with English subtitles) as it is mostly narrated by a historian. But it does include interviews (some archived, most not) with many of the aforementioned names plus various screenwriters and actors (Barbara Bouchet, Edwige Fenech, George Hilton, Nieves Navarro and Daria Nicolodi). But still fairly interesting and would serve as an ideal introduction (albeit with some spoilers) to someone new to this genre or, in my case, an ideal reintroduction to someone who hasn't really watched any of these movies since the 1970s. And definitely provides one with a nice list of what movies to start with.

There are several reasons why I fanatically seek out documentaries about my favorite genre (and subgenres) of horror. For starters, in the hope of stumbling upon some unknown and obscure new titles to discover, even if only just one or two. Secondly, to celebrate and honor all the main contributors of the genre, like directors and other crucial crew members, and learn more about their visions, motivations, and challenges. Thirdly, and most importantly, simply to relive the clips and highlights of my favorite movies, and to witness how other people are talking about them as enthusiastically as I do! Based on those three reasons, there are documentaries that I genuinely rank as brilliant viewing experiences, like "Eurocrime! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films that Ruled the '70s", "Not Quite Hollywood! The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!", "The Man Who Saw Frankenstein Cry", and "Forgotten Scares: an in-depth look at Flemish Horror Cinema".

What I absolute don't seek in (horror-)documentaries is: dull and endless lectures by an anti-charismatic film historian, a simple summing up of the most obvious and widely acclaimed film titles everybody knows already, a severe shortage of clips and footage taken from genre movies, and a complete lack of joyful spirit, insignificant but fun little anecdotes, and an overall tangible love for the genre. Well, guess what. This paragraph sadly describes "All the Colors of Giallo" to the fullest...

I genuinely cannot fathom how this could have happened! How can you focus on a horror subgenre that is so versatile, exhilarating, and wonderful as the Italian Giallo, and yet make such a dreadfully boring documentary out of it?!? With all due respect - not - for the knowledgeable movie historian Fabio Melelli, I don't want to watch and listen to his monotonous talking for approximately half of the running time! If that would be interesting at all, I might not have dropped out of college, neither.

To make matters worse, Melelli's dull monologues only get interchanged by other dull monologues of personal heroes of mine. "All the Colors of Giallo" features Dario Argento, Umberto Lenzi, Lamberto Bava, Ernesto Gastaldi, Barbara Bouchet, Sergio Martino, Edwige Fenech, and voice recordings of Lucio Fulci, but they all behave as if they are giving a speech at a funeral. I didn't sense any love or nostalgia for the heydays of Italian cult & exploitation cinema at all.

Honestly, undergoing "All the Colors of Giallo" was close to painful. There's so much greatness to show and tell about the Italian Giallo, but this thing only features the bare minimum. Of course, there are landmarks the pioneers that deserve more attention than others. It's only logical to spend more time on "Blood and Black Lace" by Mario Bava, "The Bird with Crystal Plumage" by Dario Argento, and "Don't Torture a Duckling" by Lucio Fulci. But what about all those other great people in the industry, and the numerous gems and hidden treasures they directed? Lamberto Bava is interviewed, but he only gets to talk about his father. How disrespectful is that, when he also made several great gialli himself ("A Blade in the Dark", "Midnight Killer", "Delirium: Photo of Gioia"). What about Pupi Avati ("The House with Laughing Windows"), Massimo Dallamano ("What have you done to Solange?, "The Coed Murders"), Emilio Miraglia ("The Red Queen Kills Seven Times"), Paolo Cavaro ("Plot of Fear, "Black Belly of the Tarantula"), Luigi Cozzi ("The Killer must Kill Again"), Alberto de Martino ("Formula for a Murder"), Antonio Margheriti ("Seven Deaths in a Cat's Eye"), Tonino Valerii ("My Dear Killer"), and so many more!

Delving deep into the symbiosis and origin history of "giallo" cinema and the myriad of burgeoning artists that were at the forefront of an entirely different style of filmmaking.

Definitely recommend!

This was a documentary that I heard about and it went on a list of ones to check out. I saw that this was streaming on Shudder so I decided to give it a watch while working. This turned out to be a bad idea. I'll get into why. Don't think that this is a bad documentary though, that's not the case.

What I'm alluding to is that his is mostly in Italian, a language that I don't speak fluently enough. It was difficult to read the subtitles while trying to work. I'm not going to hold this against the documentary as this is well done. I just thought it would be more of the experts on the genre talking about it. We get filmmakers.

I'd say that this is de facto led by Fabio Melelli who is an Italian movie historian. He gives good insight and leads us into the different major players. What I love here is that we get interviews with directors like the great Dario Argento, Sergio Martino and Lamberto Bava talking about his father, Mario. There is an archive interview of Lucio Fulci which was great. There are even lesser directors here like Luciano Ercoli and Umberto Lenzi. That's not to say they didn't do great work in their own rights. They aren't just as known household names as others. We also get to hear from Ernesto Gastaldi, who did writing of many gialli. There are also actors like Barbara Bouchet, Edwige Fenech, George Hilton, Daria Nicolodi and Nieves Navarro.

Despite me not knowing what I was getting, this is informative about this great subgenre of film. There were quite a few movies that I've seen. There are also titles that I haven't yet and will be moving up my list after seeing this. An interesting look at the origins and how this subgenre influenced others going forward. I'd recommend it to fans for sure.

My Rating: 7.5 out of 10.