Night Terrors

And suddenly, a new contender arises. . . and by that I mean for all-time great giallo titles. Evoking the very essence of the Italian genre, 1975's The Police Are Blundering in the Dark, directed by one-and-done film maker Helia Colombo, may not have the sheer audacity of a title along the lines of Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, or the more macabre imagination of Death Walks on High Heels, but it is murder mystery cool personified. With the police only arriving for the final few minutes of the film (making it all a bit misleading). . . the title is actually in reference to a newspaper headline highlighting the incompetence of the fuzz in rural Italy. With four nude models having recently been murdered (by way of scissors or some other sharp instrument) – oh, the humanity!!! – all roads somehow lead to the Parisi estate.

With a title like The Caller (1987), one would perhaps have a preconceived notion that the Michael Sloan written (the co-creator of the television series The Equalizer), Arthur Allan Seidelman directed film would be something along the lines of the much more popular When a Stranger Calls (1979, or, if you prefer, the 2006 remake), yet, like its misleading title, nothing is what it seems. A cerebral horror tinged mystery thriller (that may just have an unexpected dose of sci-fi), Seidelman, who would seem to be aptly named, immerses the viewer with a quarter of an hour of what amounts to a chilling silent game of stalker cat versus female mouse. Taking us from an eerily quiet town to the even more isolated rural woods, our protagonist, simply known as The Girl – reminiscent of the basic names characters were given in the silent film era (Madolyn Smith Osborne), lives in a home that, in lesser hands, would likely resemble the cabin found in the Evil Dead franchise.

A giallo that mostly forgoes the prototypical violent splatters and liberal amounts of nudity for a good old fashioned Agatha Christie style murder mystery, 1972's Knife of Ice, also sometimes known as Dagger of Ice and The Ice Pick (memo: ice does not play any part in this motion picture), is the fourth and final time Italian film maker Umberto Lenzi (Seven Blood-Stained Orchids) and American actress Carroll Baker (Baby Doll; The Game) would work together. Baker stars as Martha Caldwell, a woman who has been mute since she was thirteen (it all stems from the fact she was rescued by her parents during a horrid train crash, only to then witness them burn to death – in many ways, the occurrence has stunted her at that very age). Opening with a fantastic sequence in which she attempts to conquer her fears by waiting at the train station for her incoming cousin, Jenny Ascot (Evelyn Stewart – The Psychic), it very much sets the mood – a tense, classical style intro (somewhat reminiscent of the many works of Hitchcock) that makes us feel for our struggling main character.

Expect some lowlifes in the highlands – after all, don’t they say, ‘expect less rather than moor, and you won’t be disappointed’; also, look for some individuals who put the clan in clandestine. Another warning, when dealing with crypts, loch it up and throw away the key. . . okay, enough with all of this wacky wordplay and welcome to one of those intriguing gialli that uproots from their native Italy to a foreign destination (if you haven’t yet guessed Scotland, my kilty pleasure of quirky puns was for naught); namely, Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye (1973). Directed by Antonio Margheriti (though you will see his English name, Anthony M. Dawson, in the credits), we are transported into the gothic world of the Scottish countryside alongside Corringa (Jane Birkin), a young woman that is part of the ancient family of MacGrieff – though MacGuffin might be a better name with all of the trickery found in the plot. Making the trip to her clan’s ancestral home (actually a gothic castle named Dragonstone), what she doesn’t know is that a murder has been committed in the cavernous basement of the abode (a location that would make Bruce Wayne jealous).

You know you’re in for a giallo when the word is literally in the Italian title. . . La Ragazza Dal Pigiama Giallo, simplified in English by being called The Pyjama Girl Case (1978), the word giallo, if you recall, is in reference to the garish yellow used on the covers of many of the books writers pulled from to create the films’ narratives – in this case, it is referencing the distinctive colour of the pyjamas the murdered girl was wearing when found. Written and directed by Flavio Mogherini, and based on a real case (the unsolved murder of Linda Agostini in 1934), this is a very rare giallo set in Australia, Sydney to be specific. A narrative about foreignness, nearly everyone in this Down Under landscape is an immigrant searching for a better life (though, as you will see, this isn’t always the outcome).

An Americanized twist on the Agatha Christie murder mystery, Rian Johnson writes and directs Knives Out (2019), an entertaining crime-centric dramedy that earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Centred on the suicide (or is it murder – cue the dramatic music) of famed crime writer and patriarch Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), he was the centre (and benefactor) of his entire family. Though this is the genesis event, the main player is actually his kind-hearted and thoughtful caretaker/nurse, Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas) – someone who is constantly reminded by Harlan’s relatives that she is a part of the family (despite them claiming she is from Ecuador, Cuba, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil – definitely part of the family). With a really weird disorder, she vomits anytime she attempts to lie – not good in a murder mystery.