sloth unleashed

Planet of the Vampires | Mario Bava | 1965

this is a fantastic film that needs more exposure

Gaze Deeply into THE EVIL EYE (‘63) –  If You Dare! by Nathaniel Thompson

Well, it’s the day after Halloween. This year’s great monster mash is over, and hopefully you’ve gotten to see at least a few scary movies to enhance the mood. But now what? How can you keep that chilly spirit going? Here’s a suggestion: watch an Italian thriller.

Chances are if you’ve ever chatted with someone who’s into European horror films (or better yet, if you’re a fan yourself!), the word giallo has popped up at some point. A subgenre of Italian horror and mystery films, it literally means “yellow,” so named for the covers of paperback thrillers that were all the rage for decades. The term has since become a cult term indicating a film containing things like black-gloved killers, possible supernatural elements, striking and often insidiously catchy soundtracks, dollops of eroticism and of course, insane plot twists. Many directors offered significant contributions to the giallo over the years, most notably Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Sergio Martino and Umberto Lenzi, while American films like KLUTE (‘71), CRUISING (‘80), BASIC INSTINCT (‘92) and RAISING CAIN (‘92) all borrow heavily from the giallo playbook.

However, if you want to see how it all started, look no further than Mario Bava, a director who’s been getting some much-needed love around FilmStruck lately. For decades American critics snootily proclaimed that he was a one-shot wonder who never topped his auspicious debut, BLACK SUNDAY (‘60), but that’s been discredited many times over since around 1999 or so as we’ve gotten to see pristine, uncut versions of his films pouring onto these shores and solidifying his reputation as a world-class filmmaker regardless of genre. So here we have THE EVIL EYE (‘63), which is ground zero for the feature-length giallo and a testing ground for visual ideas Bava would further explore in his later gialli, all of them highly recommended: BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (‘64), FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON (‘70), HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON (‘70) and A BAY OF BLOOD (‘71), plus one segment of his classic anthology, BLACK SABBATH (‘63). Seriously, check ‘em all out. You won’t regret it.

Nobody – and I mean nobody – could light a scene quite like Bava (a cinematographer in his own right) or move a camera in quite the same way. For proof in this film, look no further than the scene early on in which starry-eyed American tourist and whodunit aficionado Nora Davis (Leticia Roman) finds her first night in Rome turned upside down when her ailing aunt expires. Troubled by this discovery, Nora runs into the street in a panic only to be mugged and knocked unconscious. When she wake up dazed and confused, she witnesses a murder. It’s all shot in disorienting, beautifully exaggerated angles and moody lighting that put you squarely in Nora’s shoes as her delirium escalates to a fever pitch, leaving us unsure quite what we’ve seen and what it all means. From there the film manages to balance red herrings, genuine thrills and romantic banter as Nora teams up with a friendly doctor (John Saxon) to uncover a mystery tied to the strange Alphabet Murders plaguing the Roman street (with no direct relationship to Agatha Christie’s book of the same name).

It’s worth pointing out that the exact meaning of what Nora does see on her first night varies depending on which version of this film you see. Personally, I’m really partial to the one you can see here, a longer edition prepared for American distribution via legendary drive-in company American International Pictures (who also released several other Bava films). AIP was fond of lining Bava’s films with American-friendly scores by easy listening legend Les Baxter, and this one was no exception; however, this cut also adds quite a bit of footage you won’t see in the Italian-language version (called La ragazza che sapevva troppo, or The Girl Who Knew Too Much), including a goofy little cameo by Bava himself (as a leering portrait on a wall!), a nifty opening sequence with Nora reading a mystery novel on a plane and a hilariously perverse closing sequence, not to mention some nice little travelogue bits showing off ‘60s Rome in all its glory. The Italian version is much more serious and streamlined, plus it introduces a plot element involving a packet of marijuana cigarettes that explains part of Nora’s wild first night out on the town.

At this point it’s probably worth explaining that the vast majority of Italian films from the ‘60s onward were at least partially shot in English, often without live sound recorded on set and the soundtracks created later by either the original voice actors or dubbing voice artists. This film is a good example of how that process worked, with Saxon and Roman obviously delivering their lines in English (with their natural voices intact) while other supporting characters had to be dubbed to cover up their thick, often impenetrable accents. This wasn’t something limited to Italian genre films, either; many films by Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti and Bernardo Bertolucci were shot with their stars speaking in English, even if the Italian-dubbed version with English subtitles was what audiences in America, Great Britain and so on ended up seeing on the big screen. Don’t believe me? Take a look at films like SATYRICON (‘69), FELLINI’S CASANOVA (‘76) or THE LEOPARD (‘63), whose stars clearly spoke English on camera. Now, whether the Italian and English track is more professionally mixed and effective overall is very much up for debate, but it’s fun to compare how a familiar actor like Burt Lancaster fares when he’s using his real voice instead of tracked with an Italian dubber. What that boils down to here is that I love the English track for THE EVIL EYE, and while it’s fun to watch the Italian version (which also features a killer theme song called “Furore”), it’s the one you’ll find here that I keep going back to the most. It’s not only a creative and visually inventive love letter to the popular pulp thrillers but a highly influential, innovative chapter in the evolution of Italian filmmaking whose full impact took decades to be fully realized. If you’re new to this whole giallo thing, or new to the colorful, phantasmagoric world of Mario Bava, here’s a perfect place to start; just be sure to keep going. You have no idea what kind of wonders await you.

Shock (Mario Bava, 1977)

La frusta e il corpo (The Whip and the Body), 1963

another Mario Bava film

La maschera del demonio (a.k.a. Black Sunday) (Mario Bava, 1960)

Planet of the Vampires | Mario Bava | 1965

this film has the best set and costume design

Planet of the Vampires | Mario Bava | 1965

Evi Marandi, Norma Bengell

I tre volti della paura (1963) dir. Mario Bava