Fitting Pieces Together: Giallo, Zombies, and Job Hunting

For those of you that don't know, giallo refers to a type of Italian film, described by wikipedia as being "characterized by extended murder sequences featuring excessive bloodletting, stylish camerawork and unusual musical arrangements." These are typically crime/mystery dramas, although they have come to refer to thrillers and horror films. This week's Netflix selection features Dario Argento's Inferno, the second installment of his "Three Mothers" series: films focusing on the occult but are also somewhat mysterious in that you have to play spot-the-witch. This part of the series is vastly inferior to the first, Suspiria, but much better than The Mother of Tears, starring Asia Argento's terrible Italian accent. Sitting here I can barely remember specific scenes of the movie, which either means I was dead at the time I watched it or it simply wasn't a memorable movie and as far as I can tell, I have a pulse, so it probably wasn't the former. I do remember a man who looked a lot like Billy Drago drowning a bag of cats in a shallow river, falling, and being eaten alive by rats. It happens to all of us.

No, this weekend has been dominated by zombies. First, I watched Night of the Living Dead (1990 version), which was directed by George A. Romero, then Return of the Living Dead, which was not. NotLD was followed by Dawn of the Dead and so on, while RotLD spawned two or three sequels of the same name. You've probably heard it said that people who are scared of zombies are afraid of people, and that's true if you look at movies like Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (though not technically a zombie movie because the people aren't dead; they're diseased) in which the zombies are juxtaposed with the living and there isn't much difference.

Pictured above: Your aunt Maude. Also: LIVE BRAINS!

This all culminated in American Zombie, a mockumentary that promises gore and doesn't deliver. It's real popular these days to make zombie comedies, even though it started with RotLD twenty years ago (1985). I understand the phenomenon; it's hard to do anything original with zombies with people like Romero around, but my patience is wearing thin. American Zombie was uninspired and very obviously playing off the zombies-are-just-like-us scenario. Unfortunately, they did it so well that the movie was actually boring. There was no zombie in this zombie movie.

Tomorrow, I will know whether or not I got the job at CCHD. The results will be published along with a review of Haunting in Connecticut, and surprise! it's not all terrible.