Italian giallo is a subgenre of horror as visually slicing as it is brutally bloody. But at the heart of giallo films is mystery. Bodies are mangled, sliced to bits, or to the police’s chagrin, disappear into thin air with nothing but missing posters and heartbroken hanger-ons. But as the body count grows, a hand will once again wield the knife. Eyes go wide. A shallow gasp before a blade slashes across the victim’s throat. Music swelling as candy apple red blood pools on the floor. Our killer, masked or shadow obscured, will circle our heroine, the music will crescendo, only for one last final battle before the detective close on the killer’s tail kicks down the door.
How Do Modern Horror Films Incorporate Giallo?
While there are many parallels between giallo and American slasher films, the latter often abandons that signature blend of horror and mystery so commonplace in giallo, instead opting for a high body count and choreographed kills. While giallo remains an influence for modern filmmakers like Luca Guadagnino and James Wan, modern parallels in non-slasher horror films and giallo provide intriguing information on how giallo shapes the stories we tell in horror.
Last Night in Soho (2021)
Edgar Wright’s 2021 film Last Night in SoHo follows smalltown dreamer Eloise Turner (Tomasin Mackenzie), a first year fashion student at a London fashion school, as she finds herself spiraling into a sparkling, neon nightmare as she inhabits the body of 1960s lounge singer Sandie (Anya Taylor Joy) as she desperately seeks fame. Visually, Last Night in SoHo’s giallo influences are clear. Glowing neon lights flood Eloise’s vision, eyes growing wide and even more unhinged as her grasp of reality becomes unsteady.
But the film draws parallels with the stories we’ve seen time and time again in giallo films. Notably, the trope of the giallo heroine being a fish out of water, often in a strange, foreign land. She’ll find herself at the heart of a mystery hidden beneath the façade of her own precious dream. Be it Susie Banon’s arrival at the famed dance academy at the center of Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977) or Liza Merril’s lucky inheritance of a cursed inn in Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond (1981), giallo films frequently throw our heroines into the unknown, luring them with the promise of what they’ve always wanted. Eloise’s abandonment of her small-town life to achieve her fashion goals in London aligns with the tradition of giallo films while incorporating supernatural and psychological elements to modernize the film.
Blending Detective and Heroine Roles
As Eloise becomes more enamored with this sexual, violent 1960s, she becomes attached to her avatar Sandie, developing an intense need to discover what happened to her. Eloise inhabits the role of your classic giallo detective and heroine in one world, while losing her grasp of reality in the other. Haunted by Sandie in the modern world, Eloise has no option but to find answers, even if that means putting herself in harm’s way. Edgar Wright creates a modern horror film that draws inspiration from giallo without trying to imitate it.
Giallo is a genre conveyed in pieces. The glaring shine of a knife. A gasp from a parted, lipstick-painted mouth. Manicured fingernails scratching at the floor as the knife pierces skin. Again. And again. The killer’s crime hidden from the viewer by the absence of all the details, the victim reduced to little more than a body for a disillusioned detective to ponder over. Giallo is a genre whose violence is incompressible in its entirety.
Under the Skin (2013)
Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin (2013) shows an alien invader whose malevolent appetite is concealed beneath the guise of a beautiful woman (Scarlett Johansson) stalking the Irish countryside for rides and the men who provide them to her. The alien invader draws the attention of the male eye, entices them to slow to a stop and let her into the car. When small talk proves tedious, she seduces them, drawing them in with sex. She undresses, a naked woman upon inspection. Her victim’s gaze falls upon the curve of a hip. An uncovered breast. She draws them in to consume their very essence.
Unlike a classic giallo where the lack of the whole obscures our killer, Under the Skin’s use of imagery in pieces is one grounded in the familiar. A naked body, no matter how beautiful, is something that we as human beings recognize. But the horrifying thing about Johansson’s portrayal is that even if we were to see her in her entirety, the thing that is deadly and violent about her is beneath the skin. Under the Skin may not be a giallo movie, but it engages with the visual styles so popular in the subgenre, creating a film that is hypnotic and erotic.
The Beauty of Brutality in Giallo and Modern Horror
Intense and violent murders are frequently featured in giallo films, but giallo also juxtaposes brutality with beauty. Characters meet their ends in settings with striking, original architecture, neon lit backdrops, and exquisite, detailed set dressing only deserving of a gorgeously shot murder. But modern horror films tend to be more fixated on the uniqueness of the kill. Be it a bread slicer or paper shredder, the settings in many modern slashers tend to just be dressing to set up the kill. However, Peter Strickland’s In Fabric manages to do both, juxtaposing violence with beautiful imagery as a beautiful dress causes her life to spin into a dizzying spiral.
In Fabric (2018)
Sheila (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is a recently divorced mother of artistic hanger-on son Vince (Jaygann Ayeh). Caught up in the humdrum of her job as a bank teller and her uneventful social life, Sheila finds herself drawn in by a bizarre television advert marketing a new boutique. Enraged at the news that her ex-husband is dating, Sheila sets out to find her very own revenge dress, or more accurately, find something she can wear out on a date. And as a strange shop merchant walks Sheila through the boutique’s inventory, she comes upon a dazzling red dress.
Even as she finds her fingers flitting over the dress’s skirt, her eye adoring the red fabric demarcated by nothing more than a single black slash at the hip, she wonders aloud if it’s too provocative yet allows herself to be led to a dressing room. Even though Sheila admits she could never fit into a size 36, the dress fits. It’s almost like it was made for her, predestined perhaps.
While the date leads nowhere except disappointment, Sheila dreams visions of the dress’ twirling skirt, stirred by a ghostly wind. The garment constricts against her body as she gasps in, the red striking against the intricately designed interior of the restroom. When she removes the dress, it harms her too, leaving Sheila with a painful rash then later turning her washing machine into a bucking, feral interloper on Sheila’s domestic solitude.
Giallo’s Mystery and Visual Extravagance
In classic giallo fashion, the story behind the dress and its many victims threads through the film. Just when we come to know Sheila, she dies at the dress’ hands. She’s just another death for the dress’ next investigator and victim to stumble upon. In Fabric is a neo-giallo meets existential dilemma, as the dress mystifies and transforms its wearers to the point of madness and inevitable death.
Why Giallo Continues to Inspire Modern Horror
Giallo is a genre of strange machinations and dangerous mysteries. A dream becomes entangled in a deadly plot, a question the only thing between a heroine’s redemption and her unfortunate death. Giallo is a tense & thrilling genre of horror, neon-soaked extravagance setting the scene for extraordinary violence. It’s no wonder that modern filmmakers find themselves drawn to take influences from giallo. After all, in an era where everyone’s eyes are on the next big thing, you need to find a way to catch your audience’s attention. Add a dash of mystery to your horror, and make it big, beautiful, and brutal all around, and you’re set.