GIALLO
Sub-Genre- Um... Giallo.
In Attendance- Me.
Cast Members of Note- Adrien Brody, Emmanuelle Seigner, and Elsa Pataky.
Directed by Dario Argento.
What's it About?- A creepy killer named Yellow is on the loose in Italy, and it's up to a stewardess and an American detective to stop him... and his odd post nasal drip induced wheezing. It already sounds like a nightmare, doesn't it?
Yeah, terrifying. You see, Yellow is a retarded looking cab driver whom was teased by the other children for looking retarded when he was little... so naturally, he grows up and decides torture and kill women to "get his revenge." Now wouldn't you think he'd grow up and kill kids, since it was kids who drove him to be a murderer in the first place? Like take out a playground with a flamethrower or something... maybe get a job as an ice cream man and poison all of the neighborhood kids...
Adrien Brody is an American detective, and his story is even better; as a child he witnessed his mother being stabbed to death, he went nuts, tracked down the killer, stabbed him to death, and the cops made him a junior detective on the spot. So naturally he would take on the case of an American stewardess (who isn't American at all, and lives in Italy) whose slutty model sister goes missing... I have no idea what happened. Let's just move on here...
Will they find the whore sister before Yellow can do away with her? Why is Elsa Pataky dating Adrien Brody in real life anyway? Will Argento ever be a relevant director again? We may never know... and quite frankly, I'm fine with that.
The Good- This felt like neither a Giallo film, nor an Argento movie to me. It had its moments, and wasn't truly horrible, but I wanted to giggle more than I wanted to tense up and close my eyes, and that made it a crap experience for me. Some of the blood was fun, Italy as a backdrop always looks nice to me on film, and Elsa Pataky was good too. Sexy good. The rest, not so much...
The Bad- Why do women scream so much in horror movies? Sure I get that its natural instinct to scream when terrified, but does it have to be over and over and over again? Or at times when you really shouldn't be calling attention to yourself, like when hiding? Best of all, when restrained in a dingy basement, with corpses of other chicks all around you, make sure to scream mean things at the killer, over and over and over again. That's a real good idea. Maybe learn to shut up ladies, and you might live through more of these ordeals.
The Downright Horrendous- The worst part of the whole thing was that the killer, Yellow (Giallo), was not frightening at all. In fact, he was so goofy looking and odd, that he seemed to be more comic relief than anything else. And then at the end, he kinda turns out to be honorable and nice??? Fuck that. Italian horror pussed out on us with this one!
The Gory- As is usually the case with Gialli film and Argento flicks in particular, there is plenty of violence to be had here, though most of it not very captivating or exciting. It seemed well placed and deliberate, rather than intense or cringe inducing. Meh.
The Naked- Nope, and I'm pretty sure that it's not hard to get Elsa Pataky naked either.
What did we learn?- Even Dario Argento can swing and miss sometimes.
The Master Says- D+(4.5/10) Man it hurts me to rate an Argento movie so harshly... The guy has given horror fans so much, that I just feel guilty not liking something of his. It really should be more in the DO NOT WANT range of the grade scale if I'm being fair, but sentimental value (along with a few promising aspects of the film itself) prevent me from dismissing it totaly. Where many hated it, I really liked Mother of Tears... the fact I fell that this movie sucked says volumes.Final Thoughts- Good God is Elsa Pataky hot or what?
