Tenebrae

aka Unsane

Everyone loves Peter Neal's new novel, Tenebrae, but someone has taken their love of the book too far. A series of murders, inspired by the novel, leave the police scratching their heads. But, after the killer starts sending notes to him, Peter decides to start looking for the murderer himself. Dario Argento's Tenebrae is a return to straightforward giallo after the supernatural themed films Suspiria and Inferno. The atmosphere and cinematography in Tenebrae are on point, which shouldn't be too surprising. And the score is fantastic. The main theme slaps, as I assume the kids would say.

Rating: 73%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Psychic

aka Seven Notes in Black

After seeing visions of a murder, Virginia discovers a skeleton hidden inside the walls of her husband's country home. With the help of a parapsychologist, Virignia tries to unpack her premonitions and find the murderer. Stylish, with a great soundtrack, The Psychic is a fairly straightforward giallo. Despite being directed by Lucio Fulci, the movie, surprisingly, has very little gore. Although a sequence early in the film, where a woman's face is repeatedly smashed against the rocks while she falls down a cliff, goes pretty hard.

Rating: 65%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Phenomena

aka Creepers

If you're wondering whether or not you should check out Phenomena, I can help you make your decision with just six words: Donald Pleasance plays a Scottish entomologist. Chances are you're either tracking down a copy of the movie right now or you don't like cool stuff. No, but seriously folks, Phenomena kinda took me by surprise. I'm not an expert on the films of Dario Argento by any means, but I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the cinematography of Phenomena. It's a weird movie about a girl, played by a young Jennifer Connelly, who tries to use her ability to communicate with insects to solve some murders. The movie's soundtrack is all over the place, switching back and forth between Goblin's funky score and random tracks from Iron Maiden and Motorhead. It's an odd film, for sure, but well worth a watch.

Rating: 72%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Blood and Black Lace

A masked killer stalks and slays fashion models while trying to get his black gloved hands on an incriminating diary. Mario Bava's stylish giallo is a proto-slasher that revels in creative kills. The masked killer looks like The Blank from 1990's Dick Tracy movie. And, much like in Mario Bava's A Bay of Blood, almost every character in the movie is a scumbag.

Rating: 65%

(Image from Wikipedia)

A Bay of Blood

aka Twitch of the Death Nerve

An old lady is murdered and then, within seconds, her murderer is murdered. And that pretty much sets the tone for A Bay of Blood. Every character in the movie is either a murderer or someone who's about to be murdered. Also, there are at least two kills in this movie that were ripped off by Friday the 13th Part 2. So you know it's gotta be good.

Rating: 71%

(Image from moviepostershop.com)

The Beyond

Lucio Fulci is a great Italian horror director who prefers to assault the reader with surreal moments of intense violence or beauty rather than create any sort of narrative. In The Beyond, one of his most beloved (?) films, there's, like, a house in Louisiana with a door to the titular the beyond? I'm not entirely sure and I've seen it a few times. Well, some spiders eat an eyeball out of somebody's face and there's some zombies and etc, what more do you want?

RATING: 79%

Black Belly Of The Tarantula

As you can imagine, this movie doesn't really live up to the awesome title, as is the case with so many giallo movies (the best titled of course being Your Vice Is A Locked Room And Only I Have The Key). Oh well! The plot is there is a serial killer and a cop has to stop him. I think the tarantula is a metaphor, but I was reading and there was a nature video about spiders at some point when I looked up. Also, I got really excited when I saw that Ennio Morricone did the music but it sucks too, so don't get your hopes up like me is what I'm saying.

RATING: 31%

City of the Living Dead

You gotta feel a little bad for Lucio Fulci - in the 70s and early 80s, he was an Italian horror movie director at the same time as Dario Argento, and it seems like Fulci always lost whenever they were compared. It's easy to see why; Argento's movies are pretty straightforward, linear narratives shot in bright colors, while Fulci's movies are disjunctive, shadowy affairs which eschewed plot in favor of more expressionistic imagery and tonal atmospheres. On VHS, Fulci's movies looked terrible, but I've found as an adult I appreciate them a lot more than Argento's movies. As far as this one goes, there's like some gates of hell that might be opened and some dudes try to stop it? I'm not exactly sure, but there's a scene where a lady pukes all her guts up and also a scene where live maggots pour from the windows into a house, what more do you want?

RATING: 68%

Black Sunday

People do a lot of stupid things in horror movies, sure, but here's how this movie gets started: two travelers' carriage breaks down, so while it is getting fixed they a) explore a decrepit tomb nearby, b) accidentally break open a witch's coffin in said tomb, c) accidentally destroy the crucifix affixed to the coffin, d) remove the satanic mask attached to the witch's corpse, e) accidentally bleed on the corpse's face, f) accidentally steal a creepy miniature triptych from the witch's coffin on their way out. The movie was too boring to finish, but I assume whatever vengeance was visited on these people was appropriate.

RATING: 24%