An attentive reader will have noticed that I’ve watched a few gialli here and there. But it all started when I watched Suspiria in 2021, and the first handful of gialli I watched were all Argento’s.

It’s surprising in a sense that I’ve never watched this movie before, but the explanation here is simple: I totally thought I had. We bought it on disc at the same time as the others, and up until I built this site to be searchable and indexable by director/country/etc., I would have sworn that I’d watched it. Whoops!

So the fun thing is coming back to Argento after spending years watching gialli from lesser talents. Because immediately it is clear that this dude is just working at a whole other level. The imagery is amazing, the Goblin soundtrack is great, the camerawork is dynamic, the locations perfect. You can just sit back and appreciate watching a master do his thing.

But it’s also clear that this master is maybe not entirely right in the head, because what this shares with these lesser gialli (and also Argento’s other work) is that the plot is completely bonkers, the character motivations absurd, and the twists and turns incredible. I say all of that as praise, to be clear. It’s a giallo! This is what a giallo should be. If I were looking for low-key realism, I’d watch some other movie, you know?

I actually think this might be a good movie to watch as your intro to giallo. I like Suspiria better, but it’s less of a classic giallo; Tenebrae is in the quality ballpark, but I think this one is just a little more over-the-top fun. Either way, it’s an easy recommend to anyone who isn’t allergic to the genre — this is one of the best working at the peak of his powers.