KnotMissPriceless Why so much hype?

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

TdSmth5 Some Japanese girls visit an Opera in Italy. Afterward, one of them hails a cab. The cab driver takes her through unexpected streets and when she protests, he abducts her.Later, a beautiful model hails the same cab and the same thing happens to her. The cabbie takes her to some basement. The Japanese girl is also there. But she is in bad shape, covered in blood and agonizing. The cabbie tortures her some more and then dumps her body.The model's sister contacts the police and meets some reluctant and rude detective. There's been a string of these crimes and he's tasked with the investigation. He also has flashbacks of when he was a child and saw his mother brutally killed by some guy. The sister basically gets to shadow him as the investigation proceeds. And we do learn more about the killer and the cop as well.When the body of Japanese woman is found they arrive in time. She's barely alive and utters some words which the cop records. It's a Buddhist prayer and also the word "yellow." The woman concludes that "yellow" could be a reference to the killer. He's yellow, he's got jaundice. Off they go to a clinic to demand to see patient files. That's when they see him running away. He escapes. The cop gets his address and goes to the killer's house and finds evidence, but no girls.The model in the meantime has escaped, but she doesn't make it far. The killer visits her sister and she tries to help him in exchange for the model but then the cop shows up and a shootout ensues. But the girl is still missing.Giallo, as other Argento and Italian movies made for the international market, doesn't convince. The movie looks like they're using 80s equipment. Audio, dubbing, are a disaster. The script is full of goofy lines, and acting overall doesn't convince. It does have some of the Giallo style, especially the beginning and the end. Elsa Pataky is lovely of course and the only thing truly enjoyable about Giallo. There's a bit of violence, a bit of gore, but not enough. We needed more victims and a stronger movie overall. There's no sense of dread. It's not the same to grab a girl that's already in a cab as opposed to seeing the villain stalk her, chase her, etc. Still, Giallo could have been worse. As always with Argento's recent movies, they don't fulfill one's unrealistic expectations but it's still worth a watch.

fulukushi I'm a little upset about this movie. I will tell you why - so you have a chance to avoid seeing this.If you like a complete linear story without any surprising moments - then it's your movie. If you like splatter effects (sometimes B-Movie quality -> light red blood stains on clothes after days - shouldn't they be dark red or brown?) - then it's your movie (therefore the two stars)Oh I nearly forgot: the end is flat as a piece of paper.In short words a WASTE of TIME!...so long I have to watch a better movie to calm down.

tomgillespie2002 In Turin, Italy, beautiful young model Celine (Elsa Pataky) is kidnapped by a taxi driver, who takes her to his torture chamber where a previous victim still lies half-dead. Celine was on her way to meet her sister Linda (Emmanuelle Seigner), who eventually suspects foul play. With the police unwilling to help, she turns to Italian-American detective Enzo (Adrien Brody), who is deep into an investigation that stretches way back, involving many missing girls who turn up tortured and murdered at seemingly random spots.Former master of horror Dario Argento has been in deep decline since his 1970's heyday. Even his own fanboys admit that the visionary has lost his touch, and his films no longer have the gliding beauty he injected into the likes of Deep Red (1975), Suspiria (1977) and Inferno (1980). Thankfully (or should I say hopefully?), it would seem that Argento must be on the ascension, as Giallo, his homage to the sub-genre that prevailed in the 60's and 70's, must surely signal rock-bottom. He surely cannot produce anything so confusingly dire, or he should simply pack his bags and stop making movies. It beggars belief how the man that created some of the most elegant horror movies ever made can fail to raise even a moment of inspiration, and at times seems to parody the genre rather than showing any real love for it.After being promoted as being something of a return to form for the auteur and a return to director's roots, Giallo was given a very limited release (I believe it went straight-to-DVD here in the UK) after a verbal slamming from audiences and critics alike. The most famous thing to come out of it was Adrien Brody's law-suit against the producers, claiming he had yet to be paid, and tried to halt any releases of the film until he was given what he was owed. Well, judging from his performance here, the Oscar-winner doesn't deserve a dime, sleep-walking through his role and bringing no life to his thinly-written, cliché- ridden character. Any attempts to blur the lines between his miserable detective and the sadistic killer comes across as laughable, and the 'big reveal' that explains his back-story is just plain silly.For a film marketing itself as a giallo, the film lacks anything resembling the visual class or the sleazy atmosphere of the best of the genre, with Argento's camera glides feeling more like the director's futile attempts to polish a turd. It instead has more in common with that popular, ugly sub-genre of the modern age - torture porn. We see a girl's lips cut off with scissors, and a particularly nasty hammer-to- the-skull moment, cheap tricks that are more akin to the likes of Eli Roth's Hostel (2005) and its countless imitators. The killer looks like he's wandered in from the set of Joe D'Amato's Anthropophagus (1980), and is one of many plot devices that confuse and defy logic. Depressing then, seeing a once-great director stoop so low, but maybe his ambitious Dracula 3D (2012) will see a return to form.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

RetroRick Argento fans, and I am one of them, are hard task masters. Argento peaked in the 70s/80s and he has never quite got back to that stunning level of cinematic form. Having said that, if you can actually suspend the expectation that this will be a masterpiece of horror, then its quite possible you will enjoy this film, and get caught up with the scenery, the twisted characterisation and modest but still noteworthy gore (if you're a regular film-goer as opposed to a horror freak at least). Argento at this level is a fine way to wile away an hour and a half. It delivers style, a small measure of substance, and a fair if not necessarily always gripping story. And most of all, it is an Argento, and nothing like that abomination of camp, the Mother of Tears (why, Argento, what were you thinking?). The current rating is 4.4. Unfortunately that's going to stop a lot of people from seeing this, which is their loss. The master lives, he's just not over-stretching himself. And why should he when he can just enjoy himself with little outings like this.