Italian horror cinema constitutes, within the broader landscape of this genre, an extremely significant contribution. This is true both for the quantity and average quality of the products and authors, as well as for the continuity that this "vein" has in the history of international horror cinema.
Its official year of birth is, in fact, the distant 1957, when Riccardo Freda directed I vampiri, aided by the great cinematographer Mario Bava, called upon to complete the direction. The first Italian horror film reveals a tendency that will remain constant in the future years: although these films fit perfectly into a certain climate of international horror, they also possess an undeniable thematic and figurative originality. Freda, in particular, proves to be very adept at reusing the classic stereotype of "vampirism," bringing horror, more than to the supernatural, to the morbidity of the human soul. I vampiri opens the way to the "classic" phase of Italian horror, which reaches its peak at the beginning of the 1960s. These are the years of the Hammer and Roger Corman in Anglo-American cinema, but also of a new anguished and psychoanalytical thriller (Hitchcock, among others). In this context, in 1960, La maschera del Demonio stands out, a remarkable first film by Mario Bava, who, unlike his colleague, seems much more attached to the purest fantastic dimension. But Bava is also a great innovator.
His essentially "visual" cinema, more than psychological, puts into action a strong reworking of classic myths like witches and vampires, distinguishing itself through the staging of grand gothic atmospheres and the charm of the macabre. In the immediately following years (between 1962 and 1964), Italian classic horror reaches its full maturity. Freda completes his line in 1962 with L'orribile segreto del dr. Hichcock. Revolving around a barely transgressive theme for those years like that of necrophilia, this film is above all a masterpiece of that extreme investigation of the psyche and its pathological degenerations and of that representation of morbid subjects, which are the heart of Freda's cinema. The year 1963 is that of Bava's super-classic I tre volti della paura, which, in its three-episode structure, is configured as a sort of sum of the cinema of those years: Il telefono is a tense and claustrophobic thriller, I Wurdalak (with Boris Karloff) an unsettling variation on the theme of the vampire, La goccia d'acqua a terrifying (!) and anguished gothic tale worthy of Edgar Allan Poe. Almost simultaneously, to close the ideal triangle of Italian classic horror, Antonio Margheriti realizes in 1964 the masterpiece Danza macabra.
Certain common traits tend to constitute these authors, despite their different personalities, almost as a "school": the ability to obtain exceptional results with extremely demanding budgets and deadlines (famous are above all certain anecdotes concerning Bava); some cases of collaboration (Caltiki, the immortal monster of 1959 is officially by Freda, but it seems that Bava had an even greater role); the recurring presence in the films of all three masters of the ambiguous and fascinating presence of Barbara Steele, the true diva of the first Italian darkness; the modest success in Italy despite foreign praise (Bava is celebrated almost like Fellini by French criticism); as well as spectacular visual elegance.
In the second half of the 1960s, the imagination of these authors seems to weaken. Abroad as well, the landscape begins to change. Modern horror is born. But soon, Italian cinema plays a decisive role in this fundamental passage in the history of the genre. In 1969, the screenwriter and film critic Dario Argento directs L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo. Its success is resounding and gives rise to the so-called "Italian thriller." Unlike his illustrious predecessors, Argento does not refer to foreign models: the comparison that many make with Hitchcock does not hold; his cinema is more baroque, more aesthetic and nonchalant; at the center is sensuality and not the glacial and pitiless analysis of the human soul, characteristic of the other great master. Probably, it is also an exaggeration to recognize, as many do, in Sei donne per l'assassino (1964) by Mario Bava the true prototype of the Italian thriller: the affinities are only external (not to mention the fact that between this film and the explosion of the genre five years of silence pass!).
For these reasons, Argento becomes, along with George Romero and Roman Polanski, one of the founding fathers of modern horror. The unexpected success of L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo leads the director, within two years, to the realization of the so-called "trilogy of animals," which is completed with Il gatto a nove code (1970) and Quattro mosche di velluto grigio (4 mosche di velluto grigio). The latter, dotted with some extraordinary dreamlike sequences and characterized by an increased choreography of murders, marks a decisive leap towards the territories of the irrational and of horror itself. Quattro mosche di velluto grigio is also the first important collaboration of Argento with Luigi Cozzi, a figure of screenwriter-director-cinephile, belonging to that immense galaxy of authors who in a few years will become horror in Italy (and of whom it will only be possible here to show the tip of the iceberg). The "school" in which many of these directors are formed is precisely the Italian thriller, a phenomenon born in the wake of Argento's success and which, without reproducing the heights and style of the model, is constituted as a sort of luxury craftsmanship of cinema. In this nebula, Lucio Fulci stands out, destined to soon become the other face of modern Italian horror. His first thrillers already reveal an interest in the macabre and the grotesque and an expressionist, dreamlike, and hallucinatory style in an even more extreme way than in Argento's cinema (some sequences even have a psychedelic taste); among the other films (Una sull'altra, 1969, Una lucertola con la pelle di donna, 1971), Non si sevizia un paperino (1972) deserves a special mention, if only for its original southern setting and for the theme of the relationship between religion and superstition.
A brief overview of the Italian thriller cannot finally neglect Lo strano vizio della signora Wardh (1971) by Sergio Martino, prototype of the erotic thriller, a sub-genre that explicates the potential sexuality rather subliminal in Argento. At the beginning of the 1970s, Italian horror seems like a volcano ready to erupt. Its "magma" is called transgression. The thriller has been its first incandescent lapilli, having consciously disturbed the spectators with atrocious tales set in the tranquility of the Belpaese. A few "months" later, a much more extreme genre in terms of violence representation sees the light: the "cannibal movies." Il paese del sesso selvaggio (1972) by Umberto Lenzi inaugurates a series of films that will certainly have a strong influence on future gore and splatter cinema. Masters of the genre will also be Aristide Massaccesi (better known as Joe D'Amato) with Emanuelle e gli ultimi cannibali (1977) and above all Ruggero Deodato with the famous Cannibal Holocaust (1980).
However, it should be noted that the cannibal movies are always part of that horror backdrop above which the events of the cinema unfold, which, in the second half of the 1970s, reaches a wide audience, decreeing the golden age of Italian horror (and not only for box office reasons). The beginning is as thunderous as one could expect. After a brief pause for reflection, Dario Argento returns to the thriller and makes Profondo rosso (1975). With this film, the language of the Roman director becomes extremely more complex, explosive in comparison with the narrow cage of the genre. Vortical sequences of murder, mirror-pictures that disappear, rapid descents into the unconscious, black humor, disconcerting metaphors of cinema about cinema: a polyphonic symphony of terror. But not only.
Profondo rosso constitutes a sort of watershed in Argento's career and, indirectly, in the history of Italian horror; here begin, for example, the collaborations with the Goblin (who will be the artisans of some of the most extraordinary soundtracks in the history of cinema) and with Daria Nicolodi, an excellent actress who will become an icon of Argento's cinema, as well as an inspiring muse for the maestro for many years. However, from a historical perspective of the genre, the importance of what can reasonably be considered the greatest horror film of all time lies above all in having accomplished and at the same time destabilized the rules of Argento's thriller; of having "closed" in a certain way the history of the genre, almost killing the puppet of the giallo and the rational, but also of having opened the perspective of something else: horror as pure sensuality, a continuous synergy of rhythm, view, and hearing. A second revolution in modern horror. In a few years, the Italian thriller regains vigor (think of the success of Il gatto dagli occhi di giada, 1977, by Antonio Bido). But its end is already sealed.
The confirmation comes in 1976 with the resounding La casa dalle finestre che ridono by Pupi Avati, a film that perfectly recaptures the surprise effect of the giallo (the ending is spectacular!), but which inserts the plot into an unusual rural and Paduan context and which, like Profondo rosso, pushes on the pedal of audacity. The screw is tightened on the thriller also thanks to the contribution that Lucio Fulci gives with his masterpiece Sette note in nero (1977). The latter, which in fact opens the most creative phase of Fulci's career, is a mechanist tale of para-psychological inspiration, where the Italian thriller, reducing itself to the essence of a rational cause-effect scheme, appears for the last time as the shadow of itself.
But that this is the magical moment of Italian horror is confirmed by Argento's following film: Suspiria (1977). Considered also as an immortal masterpiece, this gothic film is the most accomplished realization of the path indicated by Profondo rosso, that of a sensory horror and centered on murder "as one of the fine arts." Historically, Suspiria, whose international success was enormous (at one point, it was the most projected film in New York), in fact opens the true season of horror in Italy. This film (set in a school where dance and magic are studied) is, in fact, the first clear leap towards esoteric themes (of which the thrillers contained only small anticipations). Moreover, Suspiria, perhaps even more than Profondo rosso, represents the already consolidated capacity of Argento to gather around him excellent collaborators; it suffices to cite the set designer Giuseppe Bassan and the director of photography Luciano Tovoli. The result enchants spectators from all over the world: from the first murder (often remembered as the most beautiful sequence of modern horror) to the cathartic ending, a journey unfolds without distinction between fairy tale and nightmare.
In the transition between the end of the 1970s and the early 1980s (the crucial moment for modern horror as a whole), the Italian thriller practically disappears, giving way to a proliferation of fantasy and gore. As already in the classic period, also in this case the influence of foreign cinema is important in determining the change of course (in this sense, the key moment is constituted by the success of The Exorcist, 1973, by W. Friedkin); however, originality, even miraculously mixed with the plagiarism of American cinema, remains a distinctive trait of Italian authors. Moreover, in this case it is not possible to ignore the same planetary success of an Italian film like Suspiria. This period sees the rise to light of some of these underground directors, whose most illustrious representative is Lucio Fulci. In a certain sense, this period, in the history of Italian horror, could be defined the Fulcian era. The great turning point is Zombi 2 of 1979. Pseudo-sequel of Zombi (1979) by Romero (to which the "rival" Argento also collaborates), this film is probably the masterpiece of Italian gore.
Fulci's horror is not less aesthetic than Argento's, but it is undoubtedly more "material." If the style of Suspiria can be represented by the metaphor of music, for Fulcian gore, one would rather speak of painting, or perhaps sculpture. His films, with their artificiality at once rustic and evocative, have a sense of prehistoric, of archaic, almost as if they had been molded by the hands of a naive artist in the discovery of evil at the origins of time. It is astonishing to see how in a few years Fulci has been able to realize a great number of milestones of the gore genre: Paura nella città dei morti viventi (1980), L'Aldilà (1981), Quella villa accanto al cimitero (1981). But Italian horror is now an immense galaxy of authors. Among them, someone even manages to threaten the crown of "king of Italian gore" that Fulci wears firmly on his head. It is Aristide Massaccesi, who at the same moment realizes the "dittico" Buio omega (1979) - Antropophagus (1980), mythical for lovers of the most frightening cinema.
Meanwhile, Argento also, the master of the thriller, continues his personal gothic line. After Suspiria, the second episode of what will remain the unfinished "trilogy of the Three Mothers" is Inferno (1980). Often underestimated in comparison with its predecessor, this film, with its structure of episodes and multiple characters and its unmatched sense of mystery, is yet another absolute masterpiece. What its detractors see as rhythmic slowness and rigidity of the narrative mechanism is in reality a choice coherent with the specific object of the film (which is reflected also in the different photography, this time ensured by Romano Albani, and in the music of Keith Emerson, who on this occasion replaces the Goblin). While the first episode of the esoteric trilogy was centered on witchcraft, Inferno is a film about alchemy: hence its claustrophobic atmosphere, its inexorable advance downward through enigmas without answers, its sense of the grotesque and the dark. Certainly, the mysterious charm of this film has not managed to exert (unfortunately) an influence comparable to that of Suspiria.
After the first years of the 1980s, the wave of fantasy and gore in Italian horror loses vitality. The space opens for a new season of the thriller, which Argento is ready to inaugurate in 1982 with Tenebre. A perfect example of the genre, this film is a mad and schizophrenic thriller, marked by a modernist stage design and a dazzling photography (at least as dark as that of Inferno was bright). The plot, which revolves around a thriller writer, is an ironic metaphor on the role of the author; a curious example of "cinema about cinema," which extremizes a discourse present in Argento since the times of L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo. Tenebre had, unlike Inferno, a very important historical role; although it was not received as a masterpiece (but time has done it justice...), it in fact launched the Italian neo-thriller of the 1980s. In this sub-genre, it is possible to include the two following films by Argento: Phenomena (1984), a terrifying journey of a girl with paranormal powers in a Switzerland shaken by atrocious murders, and Opera (1987), an elegant thriller set in the world of lyric.
One can attempt to synthesize the fundamental characteristics of this neo-thriller in the following: an extremely nonchalant use of the giallo scheme, sometimes pushed to the extremes with paradoxical results (like in Tenebre), sometimes reduced to a simple narrative pretext (like in Phenomena); a narrowing of the role of the plot and investigation, in favor of the acoustic-visual spectacle, which reaches its peak in the murder sequences (one speaks of the aesthetics of the music video, for example Opera); a strong contamination with fantasy and splatter elements (exemplary still Phenomena). The neo-thriller is rather the continuation of fantasy horror (that is, the path opened by Profondo rosso) than the heir of the thriller of the early 1970s. In comparison with the latter, it is undoubtedly very difficult (impossible) to identify it as a true school. The truth is that towards the middle of the 1980s, the thousand voices of which Italian horror was composed begin to languish. Argento himself, although obtaining still pregeux results (Phenomena is one of his masterpieces), slowly distances himself from his golden season (without speaking of Fulci...). It is not simply a school that is lacking; authors are lacking. And yet, in this climate, there are still some good surprises.
In the nursery of the neo-thriller grow the two disciples of the Argento school of the 1980s: Lamberto Bava, son of the great Mario (La casa con la scala nel buio, 1983) and Michele Soavi (the acclaimed Deliria, 1987). Both achieve a discreet success with some films produced by Argento himself. The recipe is simple: on the one hand, fantasy plots, which exit the orbit of the neo-thriller to approach that of American cinema of those years (the first attempt in this direction is that of Argento himself with Phenomena); on the other hand, a baroque and refined aesthetics, which reaches its peak in Opera. The result, despite the reticence of too severe judgments, is in itself discreet (certainly not inferior to the standard of Italian horror): Demoni (1985) and Demoni 2 (1986) by Lamberto Bava, La chiesa (1989) and La setta (1991) by Michele Soavi.
Despite the creative peaks of the past, at the end of the 1980s, Argento obtains notable international recognition that allows him to make two films in the USA. The first years of the 1990s are marked by this American parenthesis and in general by the imposition of the fantasy trend initiated in the previous years in Italian horror. The first fruit is a modest collaboration of Argento (episode Il gatto nero) with George Romero in a film inspired by the stories of Edgar Allan Poe (Due occhi diabolici, 1990). The second is, on the other hand, the underestimated Trauma (1993). Story of Aura, an anorexic teenager (played by the director's daughter, Asia Argento) involved in the crimes of a killer-headhunter, this film stands out for a memorable ending. A small jewel, at times even romantic, which is with Phenomena the best Argento attempt to merge fantasy horror (magnificent the séance of spiritism) and thriller.
Meanwhile, in Italy, to rescue the destinies of cinema, the world of comics intervenes. Given the great public success, the film inspired by the character of Dylan Dog is born. To realize it, the expert Michele Soavi is called, who brings to the maximum level the philosophical grotesque that characterizes the comic. Dellamorte Dellamore (1993) doses the tension drop by drop, but, although it disappoints those who expected a masterpiece, it is a discreet surreal horror.
The almost simultaneous release of Trauma and Dellamorte Dellamore makes 1993 (with the times that run) the last "golden year" of Italian horror (at least for now...). In 1996, excellent is the return to the genre of Pupi Avati with L'Arcano Incantatore, a sulfurous tale of the eighteenth century that brings us back almost to the fasts of La casa dalle finestre che ridono. But in general, the second half of the 1990s is a succession of disappointing results. One starts with a poorly finished project, that of Maschera di cera (1996), which should unite in a late collaboration Argento and Fulci. Instead, the king of gore concludes his terrestrial existence before the project is launched.
The film is entrusted to Sergio Stivaletti, an excellent curator of special effects, not so much as a director. The destinies of Italian horror fall entirely on Argento, while his disciples Bava and Soavi have now devoted themselves to family television fiction (with excellent results!). But Argento himself is not faithful to his name: La sindrome di Stendhal (1996) and Il Fantasma dell'Opera (1998) are two curious, but disappointing, incursions into unusual territories. Again protagonist of both films, his daughter Asia, who in Trauma had shown an excellent interpretation, does not offer, despite the commitment, an adequate proof. It seems an apocalypse...
The new millennium brings, instead, a signal of life in this silent creative hemorrhage. Non ho Sonno (Nonhosonno) (2001) marks the return of Argento to a pure thriller, even too much (in some respects pre-Argento); but above all good... Argento seems to have found again the taste for the "choreography of murder." Think, still, of the delightful and at the same time disarming game of self-citation that permeates the entire film. Will a few sequences that have the flavor of the golden times be enough to guarantee a resurrection? On the other hand, the international panorama is not the best. And yet, it is precisely for this that Italian horror is perhaps called now to play that creative and original role, so many times decisive in the destinies of all horror cinema.
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