Since the release in 1929 of a popular book series with bright yellow covers, the Italian word giallo (yellow) has come to define a whole spectrum of mystery and detective fiction and films. Although most English speakers associate the term giallo with the violent and erotic thrillers popular in the 1960s and 1970s from directors like Mario Bava, Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci and others, the term encompasses a wide range of Italian media such as mysteries, thrillers and detective stories--even comedies and political pamphlets. As films like Blood and Black Lace (1964) and Deep Red (1975) have received international acclaim, giallo is a fluid and dynamic genre that has evolved throughout the decades. This book examines the many facets of the giallo genre --narrative, style, themes, and influences. It explores Italian films, made-for-TV films and miniseries from the dawn of sound cinema to the present, discussing their impact on society, culture and mores.

Italian giallo films have a peculiar allure. Taking their name from the Italian for "yellow"— reflecting the covers of pulp crime novels—these genre movies were principally produced between 1960 and the late 1970s. These cinematic hybrids of crime, horror, and detection are characterized by elaborate set-piece murders, lurid aesthetics, and experimental soundtracks. Using critical frameworks drawn from genre theory, reception studies, and cultural studies, Giallo! traces this historically marginalized genre's journey from Italian cinemas to the global cult-film canon. Through close textual analysis of films including The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963), Blood and Black Lace (1964), The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), The Black Belly of the Tarantula (1971), and The Case of the Bloody Iris (1972), Alexia Kannas considers the rendering of urban space in the giallo and how it expresses a complex and unsettling critique of late modernity.

Beloved among cult horror devotees for its signature excesses of sex and violence, Italian giallo cinema is marked by switchblades, mysterious killers, whisky bottles and poetically overinflated titles. A growing field of English-language giallo studies has focused on aspects of production, distribution and reception. This volume explores an overlooked yet prevalent element in some of the best known gialli--an obsession with art and artists in creative production, with a particular focus on painting. The author explores the appearance and significance of art objects across the masterworks of such filmmakers as Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Sergio Martino, Umberto Lenzi, Michele Soavi, Mario Bava and his son Lamberto.

With the exception of die-hard aficionados of European or Italian horror cinema, most people may not have heard of giallo cinema or have seen many films in this subgenre of horror. Most academic film studies tend to ignore horror cinema in general and the giallo specifically. Critics often deride these films, which reveal more about the reviewers' own prejudices than any problem with the works themselves. As a counter to such biases, Mikel J. Koven argues for an alternative approach to studying these films, by approaching them as vernacular cinema—distinct from "popular cinema." According to Koven, to look at a film from a vernacular perspective removes the assumptions about what constitutes a "good" film and how a particular film is in some way "artistic." In La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo Film, Koven explores the history and evolution of this aspect of cinema, and places these films within the context of Italian popular filmmaking. He addresses various themes, motifs, and tropes in these films: their use of space, the murders, the role of the detective, the identity of the killer, issues of belief, excess, and the set-piece. In addition to being the first academic study of the giallo film in English, this book surveys more than fifty films of this subgenre. In addition to filmmakers like Mario Bava and Dario Argento, Koven also looks at the films of Lucio Fulci, Sergio Martino, Pupi Avati, Umberto Lenzi, and others. In all, the works of twenty-five different filmmakers are considered in this book. Also explored are the inter-relationships between these films: how one influences others, how certain filmmakers take ideas and build off of them, and how those ideas are further transformed by other filmmakers. Koven also explores the impact of the giallo on the later North American slasher genre.

The Italian giallo film genre--the equivalent of the American whodunit but incorporating extreme violence and sex--was based on popular British and American fiction of the 30s and 40s, adapted to the explicitly liberal filmmaking of 1970s and 1980s Europe. Seldom released in American theaters, these films were usually distributed as redacted bootlegs, awaiting digital technology to be restored to their original content and pristine visual form. This book analyzes the censored sex and violence of giallo films, finding in them an inherent beauty and tracing their literary antecedents to the elements of the fairy tale as described by Russian folklorist Vladimir Propp. Each chapter covers a film and its director, from 1962 to 1987. The author argues that despite their formulaic production and designation as "Euro-sleaze," these films are works of individuality and artistic virtue.

An anthology of original strange stories at the intersection of crime, terror, and supernatural fiction. Inspired by and drawing from the highly stylized cinematic thrillers of Argento, Bava, and Fulci; American noir and crime fiction; and the grim fantasies of Edgar Allan Poe, Guy de Maupassant, and Jean Ray, Giallo Fantastique seeks to unnerve readers through virtuoso storytelling and startlingly colorful imagery. What's your favorite shade of Yellow?