Horror Movie Mini-Reviews: Blood and Black Lace (1964) and Magic (1978)

* Blood and Black Lace (1964)

Models in a fashion house are murdered by a masked assailant. Everyone involved is suspicious of each other, but all have secrets and ulterior motives. There are secret abortions, drug addictions, affairs, sex work, blackmails, and a growing stack of bodies. This is the first giallo film I've seen with an ensemble cast. No one person has more precendence than another. Each of their stories are woven together seamlessly. The cinematography supports the writing in this way with the camera tracking each main character through the dressing room of the fashion house. Everything just works together perfectly despite the many suspects and victims.

Much of the film feels like a thriller or murder mystery, but the aspects that take it to giallo are the color and composition of scenes as well as the kills. Each scene is so artfully directed and staged with pops of bright pink to contrast the dark colors. Even though the dubbed over dialogue can make the actors seem a bit stiff, the direction distracts from that a bit. The kills of mostly beautiful women are incredibly stylized and surprisingly brutal for the time with some biting commentary. The ending feels nihilistic rather than triumphant. Blood and Black Lace is an early giallo film that was a financial flop, but is cited as one of the first to create the formula. It's a beautiful watch, but not as developed or complex is later giallo films.

My rating: 3.5/5 fishmuffins

* Magic (1978)

Corky has been trying to break into the magic scene, but is continually frazzled by hecklers and bored audience members. He spices up his act with Fats, a ventriloquist dummy who irreverently makes fun of everyone with baudy jokes and biting commentary. His act catches the attention of  a TV station that wants to give him his own show, contingent on a psych evaluation Corky knows he will fail as Fats' persona threatens to take over. Corky then retreats to the Catskills to recoup only to run into his high school crush Peggy.

I hadn't heard of this film until it came up on Shudder and I don't know why people don't talk about it more. Anthony Hopkins takes on a dual performance of Corky and Fats. One is intorverted, unsure of himself, and bumbling while the other is confident but biting and cruel. As the film goes on, the Fats persona takes over Corky more and more until he's threatens to take over entirely. Hopkins embodies both personas convincingly. Corky is conflicted because he realizes that Fats is a problem, but Fats can also be his ticket to fame and fortune. Getting help or exposing the problem might dash his dreams forever, so he escapes to postpone the inevitable. It's a sad world we live in that he sees this as his only choice and it's even more impressive that it was made in the 70's.

The horror elements don't truly get rolling until the last third of the film, but establishing the background and dynamic of Corky and Fats is important to set up. Corky (through Fats) grows increasingly more deranged while he reconnects with his high school crush, giving rise to more drama as she's married with a jealous, borderline abusive husband. The ending has some unexpected twists and is completely worth your time. I would honestly love to see this remade because the themes are completely relevant to today.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

Horror Movie Mini-Reviews Italian Edition: Torso and Suspiria

* Torso

A group of girls are targeted by a masked killer at an Italian college and go to a local villa to get away from him. Torso is an Italian giallo film that focuses on eroticism and slasher kills. The characters are pretty frivolous and basically interchangeable. All of the women are kind of vapid and idiotic. The film very often focuses on their beauty, their nonchalant sexuality, or their over the top sexuality. I couldn't name any of them individually except for Jane, the unlikely final girl. The men are all vaguely or overtly threatening. Any one of them could be the murderer or at the very least rape one of the women. They definitely objectify these women, either stalking them and staring with intensity or literally chasing them down with motorcycles threatening to kill them. Believe it or not, the latter isn't even the real murderer. The gender portrayals are unflattering on all sides, but the film has some merits.

The real success of the film is the last section. After a predictably sapphic couple of days in the idyllic countryside, Jane wakes up from her upstairs room to all of her friends dead. Giallo and slasher films typically show these kills in extreme closeup with focus on the women's bodies and whatever mutilation is being done. This scene is uncharacteristically restrained. In the scene previous, the audience knows the murders are going to happen, but we only see the aftermath. We are put in the same situation as Jane, confused about what happened and struggling to put the pieces together. The killer had no idea Jane was even there because she didn't travel with the others. When the killer steps out, she desperately tries using the phone and escaping the house, but he's cut off every means of communication or escape. Even through her shock and horror, she decides to cover any trace of herself in the house, but of course she makes a fatal mistake. The best scenes of the film are when she is hiding in the house after finding her dead friends, struggling not to make any noise while the killer goes about disposing of their bodies in the most gruesome way. Torso is not the best slasher or giallo film. However, it breaks conventions, making the ending extremely effective.

My rating: 3.5/5

* Suspiria

Ballet student Suzy Bannion arrives at a German ballet school, only to see a raving woman leave and being refused entry. She comes back and everything seems fine for a while until other students go missing or end up dead. I watched Suspiria years ago and I remember completely hating it. The Girls in the Back Row podcast inspired me to watch it again with their beautiful descriptions and their behind the scenes information. The aesthetics are amazing. With new eyes, the Snow White and fairy tale influences are obvious and eerily beautiful. Bold pink, red, or blue lighting illuminates many scenes, giving the sets an otherworldly quality. The wallpaper, tile, and interior and exterior paint lend to this quality with bright colors (mostly pink) and surreal patterns. The facade of the Tanz Academy looks like it was taken right out of a fairy tale with its red paint, gold trim, and ornate detailing. Even blood looks bright pink rather than deep red. The dream logic extends to other aspects of the film as well.

The time period is kind of murky because of all the different fashions. Suzy and the other dancers wear fairly modern clothing. The owner of the academy wears glamorous dresses out of the 50's while the main teacher could have been from the Victorian era. The mishmash of different fashions gives it a timeless, dreamy feel. The visuals and the tense atmosphere are the stars of the film. The music by Goblin ranges from a sweet almost lullaby like melody to jarring sounds and angry, almost unintelligible whispers. The kills are visually interesting with a typical giallo focus on closeups. These deaths are even more stylish and well framed within the scene. The woman falling through the plate glass window is the one scene I remembered from watching years ago because of it's striking beauty for something so macabre. The characters are pretty childish and one dimensional because they were meant to be quite a bit younger. The plot is also pretty thin, but all of the other aspects pale in comparison to the gorgeous visuals and the tense and dreamlike atmosphere.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins