About
...and, Action! (AGAIN)
I first came up with the idea of The Giallo Score in 2006. I was a web developer looking for a new pet-project, one that would allow me to relish in my penchant for critical analysis and Italian horror films. But the site needed to be more than just another film blog. I needed a gimmick.
In the middle of a boring work meeting I started jotting down all of the characteristics of the typical Giallo film, a subgenre of Italian horror that I had been obsessing over for the past few years. As the list got longer an idea was formulated. Why not assign points to these characteristics to see which films score highest? And thus, The Giallo Score experiment was born.
In the years that followed I took up the task of fine tuning the scoring criteria by watching as many Gialli as I could and writing about them. The site eventually launched in 2012 with very little fanfare, but a year later I received a message on Twitter from two guys who had found my site and wanted to talk to me about it on their podcast, Giallo Ciao! Ciao!
Four years and 69 podcast episodes later we said goodbye to our listening audience and I temporarily fell out of love with the Giallo film. The hosting and domain contracts eventually lapsed and The Giallo Score website disappeared.
But there’s something about a global pandemic to make you reassess what’s important in life, and by July of 2020 I had gotten the itch to start watching and discussing Gialli again. The second volume of the podcast was short lived, but it proved that people were still interested in my ideas about this 50 year old film movement. More importantly it reinforced in me the idea that The Giallo Score experiment is still being conducted.
I’m writing this revision for the About section as the last step before resurrecting the site. I’ve rescued the old version, cleaned it up, and added 7 new films for a grand total of 70. Going forward, I’m planning to score and review a new film every other week but I will also be revising some of the reviews from the original version of the site because, quite frankly, they need it!
In the 15 years since the idea first came to me, I’ve learned a great deal about the historical context and culture that this film movement existed in and contributed to, and it still fascinates me to no end. Having only covered about half the films in the canon so far I don’t predict this fascination will end any time soon.
Ciao!
For historical context, below is the origial "About" section published in 2012
...and, Action!
It's hard to believe that GialloScore.com has finally launched! After coming up with the initial concept in the fall of 2006, the site has had a few false starts and a hiatus due to general apathy. There were many times when I felt like launching an incomplete site, but I'm really glad that I waited as long as I did.
The criteria section has undergone many revisions. The research needed to refine the criteria to this point involved multiple viewings of about 15 or so "classic" Gialli. As the criteria reached its final stages of refinement, the one thing that really stood out for me is how re-watchable these films are. I seem to notice something new and interesting about them with each viewing.
Having grown up as an avid horror movie fan, Gialli were initially difficult for me to appreciate since many of them don't offer the instant gratification that zombie and slasher films do. As is the case with most fans of the genre, I initially latched on to the Giallo through the conduit of Dario Argento and his first two hyper-violent supernatural horror films, Suspiria and Inferno. I loved these films so much that it was natural to believe ALL of Argento's films were just as great (from a horror perspective) as these two. But when the credits started to roll on my rented VHS copy of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, I sat back, a little distraught and confused, and wondered what all the fuss was about. I may have even fallen asleep at one point.
Ten or so years (and a couple of college level film appreciation courses) later, I obtained a copy of Adrian Luther Smith's ultimate Giallo companion, Blood & Black Lace and was absolutely overwhelmed at the number of films that fall into the (somewhat difficult to define) Giallo genre - somewhere around 150 by most counts.
I then started re-watching the few films I had seen before and seeking out new ones. At that time, out-of-print and very expensive imported laser disc versions were the optimal format for viewing, but once DVDs took over the video market, studios like Anchor Bay began re-releasing many Gialli, making them easier than ever to obtain. Today, with the convenience of high-speed internet and HD video encoding, just about any Giallo can be found on the internet. Some of them even turn up, in full uncut format, on Youtube!
And so, now that just about every barrier for obtaining these once elusive films has been broken, the classic Gialli (released between 1970 and 1975) are enjoying a revival of interest and appreciation. I hope this site will serve not only as a resource for discussion among die-hard fans, but also as a way to introduce new people to the genre. Now that the initial site has been populated with ten films, I hope to add one or two more each week with the eventual goal of accumulating and maintaining a repository for the genre.