Co-presented with Brisbane Festival, ‘Gothic, Giallo, Gore: Masters of Italian Horror’ celebrates the works of three major figures of the Italian giallo film: Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, and Dario Argento.
The word giallo is Italian for ‘yellow’ – a reference to the colour of the covers that adorned pulpy paperbacks in post-war Italy. This film genre first emerged in the 1960s and was popularised by these three directors as highly stylised and gruesome thrillers that took horror cinema to new and often outrageous extremes. Throughout the 1970s, the style became more pronounced – with innovative cinematography, convoluted scenes of death and mayhem, and an intense psychosexual edge – making it one of the most alluring forms of European horror.
This program explores the world of giallo cinema by presenting a collection of the genre’s greatest titles, alongside a selection of its most important gothic horror influences. It also looks at the more visceral and blood-spattered works of Bava and Fulci in particular, which would themselves be key in shaping international horror cinema for decades.
Bava, Fulci, and Argento were masters of their craft and played an outsized role in the advancement of Italian horror. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the best of these directors on the big screen – from Bava’s gothic bone-chiller Black Sunday 1960, to gory descendants such as Fulci’s Zombi 2 1979, and Argento’s masterpieces Deep Red 1975 and Suspiria 1977. The program features rare 35mm prints from private and national archives, alongside vibrant new digital restorations.
Gothic, Giallo, Gore: Masters of Italian Horror
8 September – 1 October 2017
GOMA, Brisbane
www.qagoma.qld.gov.au
