Being Film #20 for Hooptober 2025 After seeing Luigi Bazzoni's debut film The Possessed earlier for this marathon, I was even more eager to check out The Fifth Cord, his second foray into giallo, particularly as that film straddled the line between dreamlike noir and paranoid Lynchian nightmare more than what we would come to... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 12.0 – The Possessed (1965)
Being Film #4 for Hooptober 2025 Films like The Possessed, or La Donna del Lago in its original Italian, are the reason I constantly try to seek out new films whenever Hooptober comes around. A proto-giallo that also functions as an Italian noir evoking the dream-like narratives David Lynch would forge just over a decade... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 11.0 – The Iguana With The Tongue Of Fire (1971)
Being Film #22 for Hooptober 2024 Sometimes a film is so generic, so typical of its genre trappings without standing out there's very little to write about. I'm actually kind of curious as what the two critics on the audio commentary for Riccardo Freda's The Iguana With The Tongue Of Fire would talk about, because... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 11.0 – The Night Evelyn Came Out Of The Grave (1971)
Being Film #2 for Hooptober 2024 Last May I went on a big giallo kick, and out the vast number of new films discovered one of my favorites was The Red Queen Kills Seven Times, a great title for a gothic tale that had all sorts of twists and turns and some truly gorgeous cinematography.... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 11.0 – Two Evil Eyes (1990)
Being Film #1 for Hooptober 2024 Despite having worked together on Dawn Of The Dead, it still feels a little odd putting George A. Romero and Dario Argento together on a film. Those are two styles and aesthetics that just don't taste right bumped up against each other. That would imply Two Evil Eyes, their... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 10.0 – Strip Nude For Your Killer (1975)
Being Film #31 for Hooptober 2023 And so we come to end of the 10th annual Hooptober Marathon. And it had to end with a giallo, the mixed up genre I've been feverishly catching up on this year. The second I saw the title Strip Nude For Your Killer I knew I needed to see... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 10.0 – V/H/S/85 (2023)
Being Film #28 for Hooptober 2023 Oh V/H/S franchise...after so many entries have you finally gotten to the point where there's nothing left to say? The rapidly diminishing returns of the shorts, the frayed ends of commitment to the format...all of that caused me to drop out after the initial run of film that ended... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 10.0 – Bay of Blood (1971)
Being Film #27 for Hooptober 2023 NOTE: Using this opportunity to revisit a review I wrote for this film fifteen years ago, slightly cleaned up and reflecting my recent re-watch of this classic. Although now armed with with experience of many of the Master's films, prior to my first viewing of Bay of Blood, aka... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 10.0 – The Suspicious Death of a Minor (1975)
Being Film #14 for Hooptober 2023 And so I come to end of my giallo journey with Sergio Martino, whose films I started digging into back in May when I went on a spree with the Italian killer flicks. The Suspicious Death of a Minor was the last of Martino's films to really have anything... Continue Reading →
Hooptober X #4: Knife+Heart
Film can represent the external and internal life of humanity in ways no other art form outside of maybe comic books. Films can attempt to mimic every day life and they can attempt to mimic the imagery of dreams. The two can exist both separate or together on the silver screen. The modern giallo horror... Continue Reading →
