So speaking of gialli, this definitely does count as one. Structurally, it’s kind of a slasher mystery thriller — there’s this guy who writes mysteries, and now someone is killing people in real life just like in his books, what’s up with that?

The resolution of the mystery is baroque and bloody, not to mention implausible. But it’s super-stylish on the way there, in the way that you’d think a Dario Argento movie would be. An easy recommend to giallo fans, but not something that’s going to change your opinion of the genre if you’re not.

Two random notes:

  1. The “Fire It Up” main theme is like one of the top five movie theme musics of all time.

  2. In one scene, there are two plumber brothers, one of whom is tall and skinny and the other is shorter. My memory might have falsely filled in that they were wearing overalls, but I think they actually were. This movie is from 1982, and (un-Super) Mario Bros. didn’t land until 1983, so it seems unlikely to be a reference, but… it really felt like it.