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An exploration of where the giallo film has gone and what can be done to bring it back.

I often entertain the thought that I’ll write the next great giallo film, one that hearkens back to the heady days of the late 60s and early 70s, sparking a “yellow revival.” My first attempt at capturing the genre was during undergrad. My senior project (a screenplay) was birthed during long walks downtown accompanied by the soundtracks to Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Tenebre. I had plenty of shots of knives glinting in the moonlight and black leather gloves and the requisite gouts of blood, but I had more than that of course. I tried to have a real relationship between the protagonist and his fiancee, in addition to the dead raised to life, and a religious subtext that captured the complexity of the 21st century Christian experience. The final product was, shall we say, jumbled.

To do a giallo justice, it is necessary to emphasize style and visuals—even at the expense of substance. If it ever becomes a decision between the two, the style must win. I was unable to make this hard choice because I kept thinking of my ability to sell the script at a later date. Most studios want a story with a believable plot they can screw around with, something that is decidedly missing from most gialli. Gialli tend to wrap up with a minor character vaulting to sudden prominence to become the killer. Giallo is the quintessential “The Butler Did It” genre. Since I wanted a more “complicated” story than that I was hard-pressed to write a real giallo film.

It is, of course, possible to write a giallo for independent producers and directors, provided you can find one who’s interested in the genre, but good luck with that. Lots of blood and 70s architecture and and violence to breathy women is no longer avant garde, and the stumped-at-every-turn detective has moved on to straight serial killer flicks (and more recently, to torture porn).

I realize now that I was trying to get at the essence of the genre with an emphasis on the unseen killer (with gloves!) and artistic (or weird) cinematography, only so much of which can go on the page these days. I did not want to degenerate to the titillation of naked women and catharsis of sadism. But that’s what the gialli were apart from a few gems (and even those to some extent). They were meant, like Transformers XXVI: The Land Before Time, to get butts in the seats and money in the coffers.

With these realities staring me in the face, I’m afraid I can’t write “The Great American Giallo.” But maybe that’s the problem. Maybe it’s up to someone else.

I hope so.