Troy Howarth
Author of So Deadly So Perverse: Vol.1; The Haunted World of Mario Bava and more.
You can count the number of informative and detailed books covering gialli on one hand and so it was with great excitement a few months ago when we discovered a new one coming out and we were not dissapointed.
In So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films (Volume 1: 1963-1973), writer Troy Howarth has lovingly put together something that is detailed, informative and yet still accessible (to the non-academic) and it may find itself becoming the go to guide covering this period for all fans of the genre.
We were lucky enough to chat to Troy to find out a little about the book and his love for the genre.
CP: So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films (volume 1) has been met with a fantastic reaction, what made you decide to finally take the plunge and write the book?
TH: I had been toying with the idea for years – probably nearly 10 years, in fact. The sheer size and scope of it scared me off, frankly. I figured I would have to have a co-writer to shoulder the burden and indeed I did approach a writer about doing it sometime around 2013 or 2014 – but he proved to be unreliable, so I decided that was enough of that! I had finished with the revisions of the expanded edition of the Bava book and wanted to launch into another project, so I decided it was time to finally plunge into the murky waters of the giallo.
CP: In it you define the giallo as of being exclusively Italian in origin (production or co-production), is this your personal opinion towards the genre or simply one employed in order to keep the book focused?
TH: It’s subjective, of course. Every such study will reveal the author’s personal biases and so forth. Part of it was practical: if I opened it up to reviewing every single giallo-esque thriller ever made, I’d still be working on it. Part of it was also based on my own conviction that this is a specifically Italian genre; as such, for me, a true giallo must be Italian. Some will differ with me on that point, which is fine. Differences of opinion make it more fun!
CP: Of all the films you had to watch, which would be your recommendation as a gateway to the genre?
TH: I hate to sound boring and conventional, but I think DEEP RED and BLOOD AND BLACK LACE are cornerstones of the genre for good reason. They really do epitomize what we love about these films: the baroque style, the beautiful women, the catchy music, the brutal but eerily beautiful murder sequences. I’d say if you watch those two films and are not impressed, the giallo is probably not for you.
CP: I am very glad that you have a section covering “Borderline” gialli where you mention personal favourites of mine, Antonioni’s Blow Up and Petri’s Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, how important do you think the context of what was happening in Italian cinema was to the giallo genre?
TH: Nothing is created in a vacuum. The mistake a lot of genre fans make is in being snobs. They figure that because the arthouse stuff is so well regarded, it is not worthy of their attention. Indeed, this is the same mistake the mainstream critics make with regards to “our” films! Being able to have a better sense of the big picture of Italian cinema is very important and it also helps people to avoid some of the assumptions they may be prone to making otherwise. For example, it has been said that certain things in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST “must” be Argento’s work because they were repeated in his later films. Well, why could it not be that Argento took those elements FROM this film, having learned from the experience of working with Leone and Bertolucci on it so early in his career? Many genre fans tend to have too narrow of a focus, honestly. They also tend to think that the “serious” films will be like homework… that is a pity. There is much to learn – and yes, enjoy – from Petri, Fellini, Visconti, De Sica and so forth. The Italian commercial scene was steeped in what was going on in mainstream cinema, so to see and understand where they were getting their reference points from can be very instructive.
CP: In his book ‘La dolce morte’, Koven talks about using ebay to track down some of the more obscure gems of the genre, and how missing out on some meant their omission from the analysis. Which film did you find the hardest to track down a copy of…and was it worth it?
TH: I lucked out in that some very obscure titles like YELLOW: LE CUGINE and DUE OCCHI PER UCCIDERE showed up on the grey market circuit just as I was finishing work on the book. This enabled me to determine for myself whether these were true gialli or just titles mistakenly lumped in because they sounded like gialli. Neither film had been widely in circulation for many years. In the case of the former, it did indeed prove to be a giallo; in the case of the latter, I would say no, it’s not a giallo. It is always worth actually seeing these films if you’re in the process of writing about them, if it is at all possible.
CP: The book simply looks fantastic, thanks to the almost lurid colour scheme of the genre and the use of poster images and film stills. Is there a particular film poster that sums up the genre for you?
TH: I think the Italian poster artwork for BLOOD AND BLACK LACE sums it up about as well as anything: again, the beautiful colors, the beautiful women, the fetishized approach to violence and its aftermath.
CP: Due to the nature of chronology, we can start to see the changes in the genre trends very clearly in your book (which no doubt will hit the even sleazier heights…or should that be lows, of the mid to late 70s), do you think this almost Italian obsession with emulation actually helped the genre in terms of innovation or merely kept it ticking over in the local Italian cinemas?
TH: Let’s be frank: a great many of these films are pretty unimaginative. A handful of innovators in the genre – notably Bava, Argento and Fulci, as well as some less heralded but still significant filmmakers like Dallamano and Martino, and not forgetting key writers like Gastaldi – did their best to come up with clever variations on the theme. Argento and Fulci took it to a certain sense of finality in 1982, with TENEBRAE – the ultimate self-reflexive giallo – and THE NEW YORK RIPPER – the ultimate in ultra-violent gialli. The genre would continue to limp on past that point and some very good ones would come out sporadically over the subsequent years, but there’s been a real sense that virtually everything that there is to be “said” within the genre was said by the late 80s. The problem with viewing these films in progression is that it becomes less and less rewarding as time goes on, but it also helps to put this crisis into focus.
CP: From this, a lot of giallo fans are split over the acceptance of ‘neo-gialli’ like Amer where only the tropes of the genre exist outside of narrative. Where do you stand on this…is it not a logical extension of what Fulci would go for in the (unofficial) Gates of Hell trilogy where atmosphere, feeling and style would overrule narrative?
TH: From my perhaps unduly simplistic point of view, AMER is not a proper giallo. It’s not an Italian film. It’s also, I would argue, far less clever and innovative than the filmmakers seem to think it is. Some of the images are great, but there’s something smug underlining it. I prefer the more honest approach of the Italian journeymen of the 70s and 80s: they knew they were making a product and that they had to hit certain notes, but beyond that, they were free to work in their own personal touches and flourishes, if they so desired. The best of the filmmakers did precisely that, whereas others just churned out soulless product. I don’t think that the problem with films like AMER is in the foregrounding of mood or style over narrative… indeed, I think we can argue that some of the giallo filmmakers, notably Bava, was resolutely disinterested in conventional narrative tropes. Bava seldom played by the rules, but he certainly introduced some new ones. But the obsession with meta-cinema and with being terribly self-aware… that’s not something that appeals to me. I’d say that this has been a problem with a lot of Argento’s films from the 2000s, if it comes to that.
CP: Similarly, it appears that since the eighties only Argento proved to be a bankable film maker in the genre, with this continuing into the new millennium. Why do you think he has been able to endure while the likes of Martino were relegated to TV and newer directors such as Puglielli (Eyes of Crystal) would follow the same fate?
TH: Argento is a master of publicity. There is not a humble bone in his body, I’m sure, and he’s gone out of his way to establish himself not only as a filmmaker but as a “presence” in the Italian social consciousness. He cultivated an image like that of Hitchcock in America in the 50s and 60s, where everybody knew him thanks to his ironic appearances in his films or on his own TV show. Argento followed the same route. It also helped that he had a powerful producer father who enabled him to break into directing when he was still very young. Salvatore Argento protected Dario and gave him the freedom to create some admittedly beautiful films. After Salvatore died, Dario didn’t have that restraint imposed upon him – he made some audacious choices and only some of them paid off. The Italian film scene was crumbling around him anyway, but sooner than conform to what was expected from him, he went off and did a very costly version of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, which proved to be a flop. Incidentally, I like that film – but it was a fatally misguided vanity project in some respects, and it really put the pinch on his resources for future projects. Argento, like Carpenter and Romero in America, has been able to sustain himself based on past glories – but even he is not being given adequate funding anymore and the results suffer for it. These younger directors like Puglielli and Infascelli showed great promise, but they didn’t have the advantage of a publicity machine behind them and they never really had a chance to establish a “trademark” with the public. Thus, some good little films have been overlooked, while a mediocre or even poor Argento film like GIALLO or DRACULA 3-D will get a lot of attention based on the fact that it is, ultimately, an Argento film. In the end, the established “brand” will always win out.
CP: You previously have written ‘The Haunted World of Mario Bava’ and are currently working on ‘Splinted Visions: Lucio Fulci and His Films’, while Bava’s influence is undisputed how you do feel Fulci’s contribution is seen by the wider horror and the giallo communities?
TH: Fulci is terribly underrated. Firstly, he made his first giallo before Argento: PERVERSION STORY was released in 1969, while BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE came out in 1970. Fulci also had a hand in writing Freda’s DOUBLE FACE, a fantastic giallo which also made its debut in 1969. These films rode on the success of Guerierri’s SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH, which set the stage for what I call the “sexy gialli” of the period – these films were based more on DIABOLIQUES than PSYCHO, and they focused on elegant, affluent people playing psychological mind games with each other in lush surroundings. Argento took a different approach, but even so – Fulci worked in the giallo first. Fulci was a journeyman, but he brought his personality and vision to every project he ever worked on. Far from being an imitator, he was nevertheless in the position of making films which capitalized on the success of other pictures. ZOMBIE would not exist were it not for NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD; A LIZARD IN A WOMAN’S SKIN would not have been made had it not been for BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE. Yet, within that, Fulci made his own films in his own way – and I think there is a passion and commitment to his films, especially his best ones, which is far more interesting than the more studied approach of Argento. I love Argento, don’t get me wrong, but I prefer Bava and Fulci, personally.
CP: You have just released a review index for volume one, where can fans get hold of this online?
TH: It has been uploaded for people to print out. It really should have been included in the first place, but these things happen. Proper indexes will be included in volume two and also the Fulci book. Those looking to print the index for volume one need only click on this link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1rAreslbTmVdThJMGZOX1FTMXM/view
CP: Now we are all waiting on volume two, for which you have just released the cover, how much of a challenge was it to fit the remaining years into one book? Even with the dearth of releases from the eighties onwards?
TH: Well, I should clarify: the book was never intended to be cut in two. I wrote it as one book. However, because of the way Midnight Marquee does things, we had to do this. Their books are printed on demand, and the site that they use only allows so much data per book. We COULD have included everything in one big book, but it would have reduced the number of images dramatically. When I realized that we would have to split it in two, I looked at where it would be good to make the cut – and while it seemed odd to have one book devoted to 10 years and another devoted to 40, in terms of page count, it worked out about perfectly! The fact of the matter is, the genre was at its most prolific during those first ten years; by the 1980s, the Italian film scene underwent a crisis and production slowed dramatically from that point forward. I would say that every film gets fair coverage, though inevitably I have more to say about certain films than others.
CP: When can we expect the second volume to come out?
TH: The Fulci book should be out around August, then volume two of SO DEADLY will follow not too long after… I’d say it should be out by September or so, but that’s not set in stone as of yet.
We would like to thank Troy for taking the time to correspond with us and we heartily recommend his book to all fans of the genre, both old and new.