John Everson's 21 NIGHTS OF GIALLO

EDITOR'S NOTE: John Everson is an American author of horror, dark fantasy, science fiction and fantasy. His novel Covenant won the 2005 Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association for Best First Novel. His sixth novel, NightWhere, was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award in 2012. My first introduction to his work was Violet Eyes, a squeamish tale of a spider invasion that left me itching for more. His latest, Five Deaths For Seven Songbirds, a homage to giallo films, will be published on March 22, 2022. John has been reviewing his favorite giallo films on his website and has granted permission to feature them here. I'll let John explain it all to you  . . . . .

     I AM A HUGE FAN of Italian giallo films and own over 100 of them on DVD and Blu-Ray. Thanks to that affinity, my 13th novel, due out on 3-22-22, is called Five Deaths For Seven Songbirds. Giallo fans will no doubt recognize just from the structure of the title (not to mention the look of the cover) that this is a giallo homage, so I hope those who love these movies will check out the book… it’s truly my love letter to the form! To lead up to the release of the book, over the first 21 days of March, I’m going to review a classic giallo film each night. And on the 22nd day… Five Deaths is released!

If you’re not familiar, giallo films were Italian murder-mystery-thrillers whose popularity peaked in the ’70s. There’s a good Wikipedia entry that offers background on their history and I did a column reviewing 10 Giallo Films for Halloween last year (I’ll try to avoid repeats here!). 

Mario Bava, Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Sergio Martino and Umberto Lenzi are some of the best known directors of the giallo form, while composers Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai, and the band Goblin all did numerous evocative giallo film scores. Often the scores of these films have truly elevated the visuals in a profound way and without them… the movies would have had much less of an impact. Gialli typically involve a mysterious killer stalking women for some revenge/psychosexual motive, and there were several actresses who became known for appearing in the genre, including Edwige Fenech, Carroll Baker, Nieves Navarro (as Susan Scott), Rosalba Neri and Anita Strindberg. You’ll hear about all of them in the reviews to come. So let’s get started with tonight’s reviews:

Click on this link to read the reviews . . . . . .  21 Days Of Giallo

NIGHT #1:
Deep Red

Directed by Dario Argento
Written by Argento and Bernardino Zapponi
Music by Goblin

NIGHT #2:
The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh

Directed by Sergio Martino
Screenplay by Ernesto Gastaldi, Eduardo Brochero and Vittorio Caronia
Music by Nora Orlandi

NIGHT #3:
So Sweet…So Perverse

Directed by Umberto Lenzi
Story by Sergio Martino, Screenplay by Ernesto Gastaldi
Music by Riz Ortolani
(1969)