Review of Giallo (2010) by Al M — 22 Oct 2010

I am a huge Dario Argento fan and have seen all of his films. Unfortunately, Giallo ranks near the bottom of his oeuvre alongside The Card Player and Do You Like Hitchcock? In fact, Giallo is more miserably boring and unoriginal than either of those films, which at least have a decent premise.

Giallo's only real cleverness lies in the fact that it names itself after the genre and then features a yellow killer, thus causing the title to become a double entendre. But even this premise proves unoriginal because Frank Miller's Sin City (and its cinematic adaptation) already featured a yellow killer, hence making this film seem entirely derivative.

Argento never really exhibits his stylistic flourishes in this film, and the actors all fall completely flat. I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed Mother of Tears as a return to form for Argento, but Giallo proves to be a thoroughly disappointing followup.