With IN FABRIC, Peter Strickland is back with more great ideas but only so-so follow-through

Offhand I can't think of another current filmmaker whose movies combine exotic erotica and creepy behavior in any more memorable fashion than those Peter Strickland. His Berberian Sound Studio combined audio for a giallo movie with an all-out dissolution of character; The Duke of Burgundy offered S&M, butterflies and the very bizarre world of all women; and now IN FABRIC he gives us a sexy red dress that tortures and then murders its wearers, and perhaps the hottest and most perverse sex scene of the decade, involving a nude and prone mannequin. You aficionados are hooked already, right?

Fair enough, but be warned: You'll have to put up with Mr. Strickland's (the filmmaker is shown at left) predilection for very slow pacing and some tiresome repetition.

Here, in fact, he has the naughty dress pull a series of nasty stunts on its first victim (which turns out to actually be its second), and then he parades this same series all over again with victims number three and four. Please.

A genuinely sophisticated filmmaker would know better and do things a little differently. And yet Strickland sure can thrill us with his inclusion of gorgeous, outre sets; creepy ideas; and sexual stunts.

The "fashion" shop (above) in which much of the movie takes place is a wonder of glossy, gleaming 1930s and 1950s off-kilter glamor, complete with that old-fashioned and fun pneumatic tubing used in the department stores of yore.

Visually the movie is mostly a treat, as you'll have expected if your seen the filmmaker's other work. He also casts his leading characters well: Borgen's Sidse Babett Knudsen in Burgundy, Toby Jones (giving a terrific performance) in Berberian. Here, he uses Secrets and Lies' Marianne Jean- Baptiste (above), and she proves as watchable as ever as a newly single mom put upon by her employers, her shit-ass son (the very hot Jaygann Ayeh, below), his callow girlfriend, and now this homicidal dress.

Strickland's film makes yet another pass at indicting our increasingly dumbed-down consumer culture (Dawn of the Dead did it earlier and 2016's Nocturama one hell of a lot more stylishly), and has at least, in that dress idea, come up with an original-though-not-terribly-interesting "villain." He also does a little indicting of bankers and banks, via mom's sleazy/screwball employers, personified by (below, left and right respectively) Steve Oram and Julian Barratt.

The writer/director also casts his supporting roles well, and each is performed with the requisite relish. That's Gwendoline Christie, below, receiving some oral pleasure from her aforementioned hot boyfriend, as mom watches with, hmmmm, a combination of pleasure and envy (yes, another perverse and over-the-top sex scene).

The film's next round of victims, an about-to-be-married couple, are played with nice comic brio by Leo Bill (below, relentlessly fucking) and Hayley Squires (beneath and putting up with it). These two, who appear maybe halfway along, add some needed humor to the proceedings.

In a most interesting casting coup, the aforementioned Sidse Babbet Knudsen (below) appears in the film as the dress' initial victim, seen only via newspaper and catalog ads -- which leads TrustMovies to suspect that this noteworthy actress may have had a much larger role, one that might now be on what we used to call (pre-videocam films) the cutting room floor.

As it is, the film is already two (too-lengthy) hours long, and more, no matter how good Ms Knudsen might have been -- see Borgen to lean just how good she can be -- would have been a surfeit indeed. Overall, there is plenty here for film buffs to savor but not, I think, for more mainstream moviegoers, even those who claim to love comic horror films, which In Fabric pretty much/sort of is.

From A24, the movie opens this Friday, December 6, in limited release, in 25 venues -- from New York to Orlando, L.A., DC, and elsewhere across the country. (Shown above is the impressive actress Fatma Mohamed, who plays, perhaps quite literally, the saleslady from hell.)

Dead redheads -- children, yet -- in Aldo Lado's so-so giallo set in Venice, WHO SAW HER DIE?

Arrow Video is slowly becoming (maybe by now already has become) the go-to company for the particular mystery subgenre of giallo, that Italian-bred forerunner of today's slasher movie. Is this a good thing?

For giallo fans, it most definitely is. For the rest of us, depending on the particular movie, it can be very good (Deep Red), pretty bad (The Bloodstained Butterfly), or simply so-so, as with today's offering), WHO SAW HER DIE?

Released in 1972 and directed and co-written Aldo Lado (shown at right), the movie has to do with a not-quite-serial-killer (he has only "offed" two victims) of redheaded little girls, one of whose dad (George Lazenby, below, center, in another of this would-be actor's tiresome performances), due to the usual incompetence of the Italian police, goes mildly ballistic while searching for his daughter's killer.

Unlike a better 1972 giallo about child murders -- Don't Torture a Duckling -- this one is not nearly as dark and is barely skin deep on any level. Characterization runs the gamut from A to B (if that), as most characters are given but a single trait to play, and some are not even that lucky.

The dead daughter's mom, played by the gorgeous Anita Strindberg (below, shedding a glycerin tear) seems barely there, though she remains strikingly beautiful no matter what the occasion.

In the Bonus Materials (plenty of them, as is usually the case with Arrow Video), critic and giallo-lover Michael Mackenzie assures us that the plotting plays scrupulously fair with the viewer, so that the identity of the killer, when revealed, makes perfect sense. Maybe, but so what? When every character, scene and incident seems so "out of left field,"nothing finally matters much.

The police investigation, such as it is, seems fairly ridiculous, while that of our "hero" dad is heavy with coincidence, if not outright nonsense. And, as is necessary in these gialli, the victims do keep piling up -- in this case not more of the child killings but instead violence committed to keep the identity of the killer under wraps.

All of which makes for those "murder" set pieces for which gialli are famous. The best of these takes place in a crowded movie theater (above), while another is set in a very bright, pretty, bird-filled room (below).

For us folk who've seen enough of this type of film to second-guess the entire mess, the identity of the killer will be obvious -- not so much from those would-be "fair play" plot points as from your finally having to ask yourself with a shrug, "Well, who the hell else could it be?"

So why bother with Who Saw Her Die? As usual with Arrow Video, however good or bad the movie, the Blu-ray transfer is usually magnificent. And so it is here. The film takes place in Venice, Italy, and the exteriors are breathtaking. Venice has rarely looked so good. Even though it was shot back in 1972, watching the movie now should only increase the city's tourism. (That's the thing about Europe as opposed to America: Landmark destinations tend not to change that much over time -- Venice in particular.)

Distributed in the USA by MVD Visual/MVD Entertainment Group, Who Saw Her Die -- running 94 minutes, with an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, and in both an English-dubbed and an Italian language version with English subtitles -- hits the street on Blu-ray tomorrow, Tuesday, September 17 -- for purchase (and I hope for rental, too).  

From Arrow Video on Blu-ray, two by Luigi Bazzoni: THE POSSESSED and THE FIFTH CORD

One of the great pleasures of Arrow Video resides in the opportunity to view films transferred to Blu-ray so spectacularly well that even second- or third-rate movies take on a sheen that -- for awhile, at least -- renders them extremely watchable. The company catalog also seems to lean toward the much lesser-known films that can enrich the viewing of folk whose taste runs to genre movies (giallo in particular) and/or the work of filmmakers whose reputations have taken some time to build and/or blossom.

Giallo is front and (maybe-slightly-off) center in the two movies under consideration here that made their home video debut this earlier this week, both directed by a filmmaker new to TrustMovies: Luigi Bazzoni (shown left), an Italian whose half dozen full-length features moved from western to thriller to documentary.

His first, however -- THE POSSESSED (La donna del lago), co-directed by Franco Rossellini -- comes close to an art film/character study via the manner in which it tells a true-life mystery tale from the annals of modern Italian crime history.

Featuring some lip-smackingly good black-and-white cinematography by Leonida Barboni, and a close-to-the-vest, highly interior performance from its leading man (Peter Baldwin, above, right), interestingly set against some nearly over-the-top ones by the excellent supporting cast, which includes Valentina Cortese (below, right), Philippe Leroy, Pia Lindström and Virna Lisi, the movie may not be all that great, but it is consistently interesting and a pleasure to view in its ace transfer from Arrow.

A writer who clearly has a problem committing/connecting to emotional relationships beats a hasty retreat from his current one and takes off for a lakeside hotel at which he evidently spent some previous time, during which he grew smitten with a particular hotel employee (Ms Lisi, below, a beautiful actress who made quite a stir internationally back in the 60's and 70s).

The movie unfolds quietly and rather methodically, and if the plotting does not approach "thriller" status, the movie, along with its cast of oddball characters and some very nice art direction from Luigi Scaccianoce and his assistant (a certain Dante Ferretti) should prove enough to hold your interest.

As usual with Arrow Video, the bonus features, together, comprise a full-length experience in themselves. If you're a fan of black-and-white movies, all this should be enough to easily corral you. The movie, distributed in the USA by MVD Entertainment Group, hit the street this past Tuesday, February 5 -- for purchase and (I would hope) rental.

The original Italian title of THE FIFTH CORD, Giornata nera per l'ariete, translates to "Black Day for the Ram," which would probably have not set the U.S. box-office on fire. However, TrustMovies does not at all understand what "The Fifth Cord" actually signifies. The Fifth Glove would have made a hell of a lot more sense here as the title of this relatively average giallo, in which we hear, via tape recording at the beginning, a killer explaining that he intends to murder five people in pretty quick succession. The movie's 93 minutes are then devoted to those would-be murders -- in which two of the victims actually survive.

The main reason to see this film, too, is its crack cinematography -- by the great Vittorio Storaro -- (in a decent transfer to Blu-ray), whose exteriors and interiors (above and below) are indeed something to see. Other big names associated with the movie are its composer, Ennio Morricone (offering here only a so-so score),

along with a few of its actors: the sexy -- and back then (1971) in his prime--  Franco Nero (shown below) in the leading role,

and the always interesting Rossella Falk (below, and so memorable in Modesty Blaise) playing the killer's second victim, and finally a couple of actors we older Americans remember from their early Hollywood days but might not be so aware of their later Italian careers: Pamela Tiffin and Edmond Purdom.

As so often happened during the giallo craze, repetition did not guarantee worth or success, so The Fifth Cord falls short of anything memorable. The plotting and dialog are mostly standard, if that, and the killings, too, are by-the-book obvious.

Characterization is minimal, with most of the cast playing either victim or suspect. The final unmasking may be a surprise, and that might be a reason for sticking out the film. Only the fun cast and Storaro's fine work rise above the usual.

Still, the Bonus Features on the disc are great fun for fans of Italian mainstream cinema, including a new interview with Franco Nero, a previously unseen deleted sequence, and other interviews and visual essays. From Arrow Video via MVD Entertainment Group, the movie made its Blu-ray debut this past week and is now available for purchase and/or (I hope, somewhere) rental.

Tip-top giallo: Dario Argento's DEEP RED gets deluxe Blu-ray treatment in an uncut version

When DEEP RED, the fifth full-length film from Italian horror-meister Dario Argento, was first release in the USA back in 1976, 23 minutes were hacked out of it to better make it fit the usual horror-film length. Now that the new Arrow Video Blu-ray is here, in a rich and sparkling transfer that makes the film look considerably better than TrustMovies has ever seen it, we can now assess a film that, even in its bowdlerized version, clearly seemed to be Argento's finest work.

Never one to make too much of plot credibility and depth of character, Signore Argento (shown at left during the time of the film's production) still managed to bring to the fore a certain amount of psychological depth, as well as some social concerns of the time period.

This is particularly true of Deep Red, as shown via this uncut, 127-minute version in which the male fear of gender equality and the under-cutting of machismo entitlement are on full display.

Argento's facility with camera angles and widescreen composition -- his cinematographer was Luigi Kuveiller -- is constant and compelling. How gorgeous and often breath-taking is just about everything we see here -- including the adeptly staged murders!

His star in this film (David Hemmings, below) is once again -- as with his antagonists in Bird With the Crystal Plumage, Cat O' Nine Tails and Four Flies on Grey Velvet -- an "outsider" working in Italy, this time as a jazz pianist and teacher named Marc Daley.

Marc hears and then sees a murder being committed in the building above him and begins to do his own sleuthing to discover some answers, thus putting in danger himself, along with a lot of other folk.

These would include his eventual girlfriend (nicely played by Daria Nicolodi, above and below) and oddball best friend (Gabriele Lavia) plus just about anybody/everybody involved in this twisty tale that begins with a family murder and ends with that family completely wiped out.

The film begins with a nod to the paranormal involving a sleek and still quite beautiful Macha Méril (below, center, of Une Femme Mariée), which gives the plot its initial push -- after which paranormal turns merely murderous.

For a change with Argento, the plot twists build nicely and relatively believably, along with the suspense, and there are fewer jaw-dropping, nonsense moments. The finale, too, comes with a shock and a jolt, and for once does not rely on coincidence or any last-minute rescue by the cavalry. The final shot, too, is a keeper: bloody awful -- and precisely enough.

From Arrow Video and released here in the USA via MVD Entertainment Group, Deep Red (Profondo rosso in the original Italian) hit the street last week, September 4, on Blu-ray -- for purchase and/or rental. As usual with Arrow Video, there is a host of terrific Special Features, including Profond Giallo, a very interesting and intelligent half-hour visual essay on the film by Michael Mackenzie; an interview with Argento about this and others of his films; an interview with star Daria Nicolodi; and another with Claudio Simonetti of the group Goblin who did the music for the movie.

Better-than-average giallo arrives on Blu-ray: the 1974 Massimo Dallamano/Etore Sanzò WHAT HAVE THEY DONE to your DAUGHTERS?

Italian filmmaker Massimo Dallamano was a B-movie writer/director who came to prominence in the 1970s. Up until then he was a good cinema-tographer whose career spanned the mid-1940s through the mid 60s. His film WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOUR DAUGHTERS?, made just two years prior to his death, is a smart little mash-up that conflates the giallo/thriller/police procedural genres, while giving fans of all three a pretty good run for their money.

Well cast using some of Italy's popular actors of the era and written (by Dallamano, shown at left, and co-writer Etore Sanzò) with a good deal more intelligence than many of the then-popular giallo movies, Done/Daughters begins with the discovery of a nude teenager whose death appears to have been a suicide, but of course we suspect it may be a murder. From there the film tackles everything from a teen prostitution ring servicing the rich and powerful (who else?) to government corruption and a very nasty serial killer in a motorcycle helmet who sports a bloody machete. Yes: yikes!

What's going on here, and how the the pair of investigators on the case -- an female assistant D.A. (unusual for the era in which the film was made) and a local police inspector -- discover this is handled with savvy and enough filmmaking skill to keep  the viewer alert and interested.

As suspects emerge (and are sometimes murdered in the graphic, bloody giallo manner), the depth of and disgust we feel for the corruption at hand makes itself keenly felt.

In the role of the female D.A., the beautiful Giovanna Ralli (above, of Deadfall) brings a quiet seriousness to the proceedings that proves a big help in countering some of the sleazier aspects of the film, while Claudio Cassinelli (below, of The Suspicious Death of a Minor) offers the usual solid-if-stolid leading man machismo that's required in this sort of endeavor.

There are a couple of good chase scenes, smart stalking via hand-held camera, and some especially interesting Italian police procedural tactics that keep us interested. Less a who-dunnit? than a who'-s behind-it? scenario, the movie wraps up with multiple resignations borne out of frustration and anger. Well, as the French say (and the Italians certainly understand at this point), plus ça change.....

From that by-now giallo specialist, Arrow Video, the new Blu-ray -- distributed here in the USA by MVD Entertainment Group -- hit the streets yesterday, for purchase and (I would hope somewhere) for rental. As with all of Arrow's product that I've seen, the Bonus Features alone are worth the purchase price. In addition to the excellent Blu-ray transfer, there are some fascinating interviews with the film's composer and editor, a grand new video essay from Kat Ellinger, and even some harcore footage shot for (but never used in) the film by its director.

Giallo time again with the Blu-ray release of Sergio Martino's 1971 (and just so-so) THE CASE OF THE SCORPION'S TAIL from 1971

I've finally figured out why I keep watching so many of these only so-so examples of Italian giallo movies: It's the time period (the 1970s) more than any other single feature that keeps pulling me in. These films -- many of them having made their Blu-ray debut from Arrow Home Video -- have been so well-remastered and then transferred to video that viewing them is akin to having the 70s, Italian style, unfurling in front of you all over again. It's nostalgic fun, while the colors, costumes, sets and often the camerawork, too, are eye-popping.

All of the above is true again with the latest example of giallo to hit home video: THE CASE OF THE SCORPION'S TAIL, directed by journeyman filmmaker Sergio Martino (at right) and written by Eduardo Manzanos, Ernesto Gastaldi & Sauro Scavolini.

The plotting, dialog and direction are mostly rudimentary, although Signore Martino does do some fun things to quicken the pace (a key goes into a lock but when it comes out and the door opens, we've entered a different location).

So rudimentary, in fact, seems the story-line that we imagine there must be some real surprise ahead. Indeed there is, so please hold on. That "hold," however, will take you through some awfully ridiculous behavior from characters who, though their lives are clearly threatened, act as though they had nine of them.

Several of those lives are lost -- this being giallo, they belong to women who are sliced rather nastily, though one young fellow meets his maker, as well -- before the movie reaches the finish line.

The plot has to do with an unfaithful wife (the beauteous Ida Galli, above, here working under the name of Evelyn Stewart), her hubby who dies in a plane crash (featuring a rather obvious model plane, below), and a million-dollar insurance policy.

In the leading man role, Martinez uses, to my taste, one of the most boring and bland actors ever to appear in Italian films, George Hilton (shown below, and four photos up), and his mediocre performance keeps dragging the movie downward.

Fortunately, in the heroine role (the film takes its time revealing just who this will be), we have the beautiful and talented-enough-to-carry-the-film-along Anita Strindberg, who plays a feisty journalist investigating the series of murders and who just might be the latest victim.

Filmed in Greece, and elsewhere around Europe (one of the Bonus Features on the disc is entitled Jet Set Giallo), the location photography is first-rate/vacation-level. Still connoisseurs come to giallo not for the locations, but for the sex, semi-nudity and splatter -- all of which can be found here.

The disc's Bonus Features also includes good recent interviews with lead actor Hilton, director Martino, an analysis of Martino's films by author Mikel J. Koven, a new video essay on giallo by Troy Howarth, plus lots more -- not to mention the excellent Blu-ray transfer in a brand new 4K restoration.

From Arrow Home Video and distributed here in the USA by MVD Entertainment, in both an English dubbed version and the original Italian with English subtitles and running 95 minutes (the Bonus Features last at least another hour or two), The Case of the Scorpion's Tail hit the street last month -- for purchase and maybe (I would hope but I don't know just where) rental.