So this time, I'm going for an Italian theme.
My good friend Staci Layne Wilson recently posted up an article at Horror.com, dedicated to the Italian Giallo film genre...
...where your's truly received a special "Thank You" nod alongside horror screenwriter Jace Anderson and noted Dario Argento actress Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni!
Here's a snippet from Staci's article:
Giallo is the Italian word for yellow....
When the word is used to describe the horror subgenre it's literal, because
in the late 1920s the popular Mondadori publishing company used
bright-hued covers to attract the lowbrow readers' eye: their lurid
pulp fiction promised that a thrilling and mystery-driven story would
be found inside. In the movies giallo means the same thing, but often
with a slashery twist offering up plenty of bloodletting, gratuitous
nudity, and the ever-present wily killer. (Staci Layne Wilson)
in the late 1920s the popular Mondadori publishing company used
bright-hued covers to attract the lowbrow readers' eye: their lurid
pulp fiction promised that a thrilling and mystery-driven story would
be found inside. In the movies giallo means the same thing, but often
with a slashery twist offering up plenty of bloodletting, gratuitous
nudity, and the ever-present wily killer. (Staci Layne Wilson)
Click on the image BELOW to read the whole article at Horror.com!
You can also check out Staci's latest blog here, which features links to her other recent articles that have been posted up on various sites!
I also googled myself recently (no harm in that, you can't go blind, right?), and I came across an Italian review for my Horror short "(spek.ter)" - I don't know who posted it on this site (I have my suspicions), but whomever it was, I "Thank You" very much!
Here's the Italian text and the strangely worded English translation that Google provided:
Cortometraggio d'esordio per il regista americano Terrence Kelsey.
Durando solo 14 minuti, il film per forza di cose ha una trama
abbastanza esile e sviluppata alla svelta, ma alla fine credo che il
cortometraggio vada preso più come un saggio delle capacità di Kelsey,
che se la cava veramente bene, con uno stile al contempo moderno e
retrò, fermi immagine, uso del B/N per enfatizzare alcune sequenze e
musiche usate in modo adeguato. Discreta l'interpretazione delle
attrici, qualche nudo integrale di troppo, buoni effetti speciali. Cool!
Short film debut for director Terrence Kelsey American. Lasting only 14 minutes, the film inevitably has a fairly thin plot and developed quickly, but in the end I thinkthe short film to be taken more as a test of ability to Kelsey, that if the quarry really good, with a style to both modern and retro, still images, use of B & W to emphasize certain sequences and music used in an appropriate manner. Fair interpretation of actresses, some full of naked too, good special effects! Cool!
I also just found out in my friend Ben Thornton's latest blog...
...that Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In The West (story co-written with giallo maestro Dario Argento and art house favorite Bernardo Bertolucci) will be playing on the big screen at the San Francisco International Film Festival on Sunday, May 3rd at the Castro Theater.
And I MUST try and go to this, being that this epic Neo-Western is my favorite film of ALL time!
Yeah, I love the Man With No Name Trilogy, that Leone did with Clint Eastwood (The Good, The Bad & The Ugly being the best),
but for me, they don't have the emotional gravitas that OUATITW has. TGTB&TU comes close, but I think that film served as a blueprint to what Leone wanted to achieve with WEST and he succeeded in spades, taking his epic storytelling to even greater heights with his final film Once Upon A Time In America!!!!!
Also Federico Fellini's Nights of Cabriria also plays at the festival on Sunday, May 3rd (5:00pm at the Castro Theater) and Tuesday May 5th (8:30pm at the Pacific Film Archives Theater in Berkeley).
For the underground Metalheads, my friend's in the Italian Black Metal/Doom band Forgotten Tomb have some new releases coming out soon that you should keep you're eyes & bleeding ears out for. They have a new live-in-the-studio recording of songs from their previous releases, titled "Vol. 5". And they have a new opus, titled "Under Saturn Retrograde" coming sometime afterward.
The band had let me use their somber guitar instrumental "Springtime Depression" in my Horror, "(spek.ter)" for a pivotal scene. Band leader and principal songwriter Herr Morbid with his epic, dark (almost cinematic) songs of despair was a major inspiration for my short (and the now-abandoned feature script that the short was based on) - their CDs were what I mainy wrote along to, going way back to 2002. For me, what Dario Argento is to the giallo genre, Herr Morbid and Forgotten Tomb are to the underground metal scene - very dark, brewing with virtuoso style & brevity.
In addition to Forgotten Tomb, both Herr Morbid and bassist Algol also have individual several side projects, such as Tombstone Highway and Hiems respectively (click on their myspace links for more info.)
And lastly, since I mentioned Mr. Argento - horror fans by now should already know about his upcoming thriller, coming on the heals of Mother Of Tears - his ultra-violent & depraved conclusion to the Three Mothers Trilogy, consisting of Suspiria (1977) and Inferno (1980), with the simply titled Giallo (starring Adrien Brody, who also served as one of the Executive Producers and also features Emmaneulle Seigner). No US release date has been announced. But be on the look out nevertheless, especially if you're an Argento fan!!!
And that's all folks! Thank You for Reading! VIVA ITALY!!!
