Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (72)

The title is a mouthful and a bit convoluted, however in the early days of Italian slashers (Giallo's) director Sergio Martino made a film that was head and shoulders above what was in Italy at that time. Your Vice is loosely based off of Edgar Allen Poe's The Black Cat starring the saucy thesp Edwige Fenech (a staple vixen for Giallo films), the abused wife Anita Stringberg and her villainous husband Luigi Pistilli.

A burnt out, writer/cheating husband humiliates his wife in front of guests during one of  his drunken parties then begins having hallucinations of his dead mother. The downward spiral of the inebriated husband becomes more unbearable as the wife becomes more afraid for her life, dead women start piling in the house and the police start questioning.  Fenech's role is a breath of fresh air to the cruel and foreboding atmosphere that looms over the villa. She plays a mysterious lovelorn and bi-curious character who brings unanswered questions from her past. The black cat plays his role admirably (named Satan) and the he plays the same plot device as Poe's story. Yet the "Black Cat" plays a red herring in this mystery for the viewer as well ,the storie's twist comes unseen as the victimized show their true deceptive motives.

 
Beautifully executed by Martino's masterful direction in a gorgeous Italian Villa. Martino's style is different then Argento's or Bava's surrealist approach to the genre nor is his violence as over the top as Lucio Fulci, Martino's focus on his stories is character struggle mixed with sensuality (see Strange Vice of Mrs.Wardh and  All the Colors of the Dark) Watch also for the hilarious placement of J&B bottles within the house. (Green J&B bottles are as much a character in Giallo films as a black gloved killer). 9 out of 10.

Torso

This particular Italian slasher features a large roster of beautiful college girls that get killed off particularly quickly, with little time for any character development or attachment. But Torso sets it self higher than most other films of this nature. The killer, a dapper and perverse psychopath, donned with a gray ski mask and a handsome silk neck scarf creatively eliminates each victim in the oh-so elegant ways of murder that the scenes are gore-tacular artistry.What makes Torso stand out amongst slashers films with the same premise is the odd camera angles and perspectives, which could have been an influence on John Carpenter for Halloween and I think even more so for Alexander Aja's High Tension. Halloween is praised for its credit for what it did for slasher films but I think credit should established to Italian director Sergio Martino ( Your Vice, All the Colors of the Dark) .

Concerning the blood and gore of the film, for 1973, hack-sawing limbs off of dead corpses and close ups of blood pools slowing draining in the muddy water while a minimalistic score seems pretty bold for the time and place of where this film was in the world of horror. Fortunately, the recent release of Torso on DVD may increase popularity along with the rise of in popularity of the Giallo genre, one would hope a 70's gem like this could be talked about in the next decade as one of the great contributors to horror. 9 out of 10

Black Belly of the Tarantula

1971 was a good year for the Giallo genre. All Giallo films have the haunting score, a good majority by  Ennio (genius) Morricone, and most Giallo's have the bold camera tricks, black gloved killers, colorful back drops, excessive blood-letting and oh-so-beautiful victims, but director Paolo Cavara (Mondo Cane) had the right elements with the film to make it one of the best of the genre.

The story's perspective isn't the typical Hitchcockian framed man caught in the middle of a murder while proving his innocence but instead follows a brooding inspector, who lost heart in his profession, yet follows the killer's bloody trail. The victims are viciously killed by being debilitated with a poisonous needle in the back of the neck and then cut open by a scalpel in the stomach. Black Belly has the right elements to transcend similar films within the genre by its ominous and hypnotic tone. The atypical cheese that comes with 70's European horror films is not present and the end leaves you feeling melancholic. (Which was also present concerning context in Dirty Harry of the same year) If you like Hitchcock or even the 70's films from Brian De Palma you should start you Giallo viewing with this particular film. 9 out 10.

Give it to the Italians!

Giallo's are unlike anything else in the world or horror.

The rich colorization, hyper-editing, odd camera angles'& POV's, beautiful woman, psychedelic murders, non-linear story telling and red herrings and oh, the titles of the films, the titles alone are a story on there own. Combining these rich artistic elements can either make a normal horror viewers head spin and shake your fist at the screen or only cry out for more.

The Godfather of this movement came from Mario Bava. He exploded on the scene in 1960 with moody and thick atmosphere black & white supernatural masterpiece Black Sunday, then moved into rich color and lighting with Black Sabbath and Blood and Black Lace. These films had the suspense of a Hitchcock film but also incorporated a level of Art House horror by paying attention to special set and lighting details.

In 1970 Dario Argento, who was heavily influence by Bava, redefined the Giallo films with Bird with the Crystal Plumage. The financial success of that film created a frenzy of Italian film makers to shoot more colorful and gory films. Which launched the success of other Italian film-makers such as Sergio Martino and Lucio Fulci and then later Lamberto Bava (son of Mario) and Michele Soavi, who many credit his film Dellamorte Dellamore 1994 to be the last of the true Giallo films.

 Thanks to the cult following of these films, many of the reputable films have been beautifully transferred to DVD and and have come out of obscurity. Now, Giallo fans can clutch onto copies of their favorite Italian Slashers that have the clarity and color treatment those films deserve.

Recommended Giallo's and Supernatural Italian Horror.

Black Sunday
Black Sabbath
Blood & Black Lace
The Whip and the Body
Twitch of the Death Nerve
Bird with the Crystal Plumage
Cat O' Nine Tales
Four Flies on Grey Velvet
Suspiria
Inferno
Tenbre (Unsane)
Opera
Two Evil Eyes
Macabre
Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only Have the Key
The Strange Vice of Mrs.Wardh
Case of the Scorpion's Tail
Case of the Bloody Iris
All the Colors of the Dark
Black Belly of the Tarantula
Torso
The Red Queen Kills Seven Times
Seven Blood Stained Orchids
Who Saw Her Die?
What Ever Happened to Solange?
The House with Laughing Windows
Short Night of the Glass Dolls
The Beyond
A Lizard in a Woman's Skin
Don't Torture a Duckling
Stagefright
The Church
Dellamorte Dellamore