Left in the Dark

Hovering somewhere between haunting past and menacing present, or perhaps even better described as a fever dream leaning more towards a feverish nightmare, the Sergio Martino (The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail; Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key) 1972 giallo All the Colors of the Dark – sometimes known as Day of the Maniac and They’re Coming to Get You! (both titles also work quite well), transports its audience into a paranoid mystery. This Italian film moves abroad to London, England, following tortured Jane Harrison (Edwige Fenech – Strip Nude for Your Killer; Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key), a woman with a rather rough not wholly revealed past.

If you’re in the mood for more persistent rational determination in the face of much adversity, then you are in luck, for our driven protagonist is back for his second near impossible mission in writer/director Jalmari Helander’s Sisu: Road to Revenge (2025). Following a somewhat similar path to its predecessor, this Finnish, over the top action packed adventure once again follows the rather unlucky Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila) and his trusted dog. With the last adventure finding numerous pesky Nazis in his way, this time World War II has come to an end and it finds the man returning to his home that is now located in territory ceded to the Soviet Union as part of the peace treaty.

Not to be confused with the famed Eugene O’Neill play, nor the tv movie and theatrical film that were released and based upon it (1960 and 1972 respectively), the Hong Kong actioner The Iceman Cometh (1989) – sometimes known as The Time Warriors, directed by Clarence Fok, jumps into a go for broke time travel narrative that covers many a varied genre. Dramatically starting in the Ming dynasty (the sixteenth century), a vile murderer and rapist, Fung San (Wah Yuen), has forsaken the Emperor (Anthony Yiu-Ming Wong) by killing his beloved Princess (Yin San Lai) and stealing the magical artifact known as the Black Jade Buddha.

One of the trends of the gialli, when possible, was for the film making team to attract a formerly successful Hollywood star who had aged out of his heyday a bit... think The Pyjama Girl Case who nabbed Ray Milland, The Cat O’Nine Tails starring Karl Malden, or The Killer Is On the Phone featuring Joseph Cotten... and, with today’s example, Farley Granger leading So Sweet, So Dead (1972). Directed by Roberto Bianchi Montero, the feature, which is also known as the less subtle The Slasher ... Is the Sex Maniac! follows a small city detective, Inspector Capuana (a mustached Granger – They Live by Night; Side Street), who has recently moved to a larger locale in southern Italy.

You know you’re in for a doozy of a caper when you’ve got dead bodies piling up, a mysterious black cat wandering around (with all that revolves around the creature and its unlucky curses), a disappearing wicker basket (simply suspicious), and a seemingly occultist person wandering around whilst wearing a striking white cape... remember what George Costanza once said in the comedy Seinfeld – “I bet you he is mixed up in this. I don't trust men in capes”. Without further ado, we look at co-writer/director Sergio Pastore’s Italian giallo The Crimes of the Black Cat (1972) – sometimes also known as Seven Shawls of Yellow Silk. Clearly influenced by Dario Argento’s 1970 hit The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, and part of the massive gialli boom that happened soon after, things start off in Copenhagen, Denmark (it was actually shot there)

What at first would seem to be your prototypical poliziotteschi (an Italian sub-genre infusing action and crime), Cry of a Prostitute (1974) – its more subtle titles: Love Kills and Guns of the Big Shots), directed by gritty film maker Andrea Bianchi (Strip Nude for Your Killer; Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror), actually holds more in common with the classic spaghetti western. Taking inspiration from Shakespeare’s Capulets and Montagues, the real life Hatfields and McCoys, and perhaps most importantly, films like Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars (1964), you’ll probably note that each reference relates to two feuding families... which is the main element of the story here.