Voto:
In 1970, Argento arrived with "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage" and changed the game regarding the entire Italian giallo genre, which at the time was filled (sometimes simultaneously) with explanations in the style of Agatha Christie, settings in Swinging London, gothic elements, satanic influences à la Polanski, Hitchcock, Les Diaboliques, and plenty of Lenzian eroticism. Bava was the first to shift the paradigm, of course, with "Six Women for the Murderer," but it was just some elements of an evolution that was still incomplete. With Argento's bird (haha), we reached a visual apex. Fulci, a great director, but he always arrived late in genre films (except for horror, where he was a pioneer): by '71, Argento had already shot a semi-masterpiece, a mediocre film, and a third film that was stylistically perfect but had a few too many missteps (albeit visually very interesting missteps); in '71, Bava shot the masterpiece "A Chain Reaction," another step forward toward a gory-splatter giallo with slasher elements, but still not entirely aligned with a specific genre; on the other hand, Bava had too personal and auteur-like a style, and classifying him into any sub-genre would diminish his work; while Fulci, in '71, closed the loop with his last giallo still typically old-school, the splendid "A Lizard in a Woman's Skin," whereas the finished masterpiece would come a year later with "Paperino" (in addition to shooting one of the very last noteworthy giallos, "Seven Notes in Black," in '77, the year of "Suspiria"). One who copied quite a bit, albeit with excellent directorial style, was Sergio Martino (the one of "The Coach in the Ball," "Giovannona Long-Thigh," but also "All the Colors of the Dark," "The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh," "The Scorpion's Tail...") who, thanks to this knack for utilizing others' "details," in 1973 directed what could possibly be defined as the FIRST complete slasher: the brutal and erotic "The Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence" (Torso), a year before Hooper and five years before Carpenter; coincidentally, the final girl in this slasher is Suzy Kendall. So, we arrive at 1975: true fear. Of course, it should be viewed through the vintage eyes of 1975; what sense does it make to compare "Deep Red" to "Martyrs"?! Rather, it should be compared with the various "Red Cats in a Glass Labyrinth..." It must be noted that during that period, police films had already started to take over the giallo genre, dictating the rules of cinematic fashion. No giallo film (murderer films without esoteric-fantasy elements) had ever been so terrifying until then. Perfectly shot (the tracking shot in the corridor, come on... the murder in the dark in the house), with a screenplay that's rich in little nonsense (what kind of film are we talking about?) but holds up in terms of solidity, with an unmatched raw violence accompanied by moments of genuine unease (like the children's song and, more generally, the soundtrack). Then Argento would shift, and quite effectively, to horror, before returning to giallo with "Tenebre," which I personally prefer to the contemporary Fulci's "The New York Ripper," which was not a total masterpiece. And finally, so much, so much crap for a director at the forefront of a genre revered everywhere (a little less in Italy).
