Dario Argento is known for making giallos (bloody Italian thrillers). So one expects something special when you go into an Argento film titled GIALLO. But nothing could be further from the case here. Of all this film's I've seen, this is by far his worst. It's so amateurish it seems like it was a hack trying to make an Argento-esque film.
Giallo (Byron Deidra) is a serial killer using an unlicensed taxicab to abduct young woman, photograph his torture of them then once he's done dispose of their corpse. Linda (Emmanuelle Seigner, FRANTIC) is a flight attendant who has come to Turin, Italy to visit her model sister Celine (Elsa Pataky, SNAKES ON A PLANE). Celine is snatched by Giallo. Linda frantically goes to the police where she meets Inspector Enzo Avolfi, an Italian-American detective, who is feverishly working on the serial killer case out of a basement office at the station.
Bloody torture scenes that are now the prerequisite for so many horror films are here, but they lack the bizarre invention that were part of Argento's work from the '70s and '80s. Now they're just grisly. These scenes are intercut with cliché police procedural and serial killer material. Victims run and are caught again. Relatives get involved in the police investigation like their junior detectives. The heroes have near miss run-ins with the killer. Even the killer is a cliche. He suffers from jaundice, so his yellow skin is where his nickname comes from. He's an ugly beast who nearly slobbers on his victims and kills only for sexual gratification.
It's actually a shame that the film is called GIALLO, because its weak standard plot has nothing in common with his best of that genre. Where is the gender bending appeal of THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE? Of why couldn't it muster the Hitchcockian level suspense like DEEP RED? This film has nothing surprising compared to the twists presented in TENEBRAE. Those films had suspense. We were kept guessing on who the killer might be. Here the killer is introduced right away. Celine is thrown into his clutches with little development, so we have no reason to care about her survival.
SPOILER ALERT:
This might be a spoiler to some, but it's a reveal that actually has nothing to do with the plot, but actually destroys the plot. Brody plays both Avolfi and Giallo. Byron Deidra is an anagram for his name. How Argento handles this is rather incompetently. At first he films, Giallo in shadow, so we begin to believe there is a reason for why we aren't being showed his face. But then he drops this device for no reason. Brody as Giallo is in heavy make-up, but it's obviously him. So we keep wondering if there is any real meaning to this.
Avolfi became a detective due to a childhood trauma, which is the same reason that Giallo became a killer. So like so many detective films before the cop and killer are cut from the same cloth. So when Linda says, "You’re just like him," it comes off as a bad joke. Ultimately having Brody play both characters for not other reason than this is a major distraction. Seeing Brody in a bad make-up grunting and drooling and masturbating makes one laugh a lot.
SPOILER END.
Some have speculated that the Giallo killer is Argento poking fun at his own image. An awkward-looking social outcast who finds joy in mutilating beautiful woman. But if it is a satire of some sorts its not funny in the least and actually really creepy. Strangely, in his youth, Argento had more restraint and made disturbing imagery that enhanced tension. Now at 70, he just indulges in disturbing imagery like a child who thinks he's getting away with something.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
