Behind the Couch

Desperate for a hit single, Kate (Jasmine Maimone) and her all-girl rock band acquires a piece of unpublished music by Niccolò Paganini – the 19th Century composer said to have sold his soul to the Devil. They hire an isolated villa to record the music and shoot a video, but end up opening a gateway to hell and conjuring the ghost of Paganini, who stalks and murders them with his bladed violin. Written and directed by Luigi Cozzi ( The Black Cat ), and co-written by Daria Nicolodi (who also portrays Sylvia, the caretaker of the mysterious villa), Paganini Horror is an obscure Italian schlocker that combines tropes of the Haunted House film with supernatural slasher cinema. Its central premise of a rock band playing forbidden music which opens a portal to hell, firmly places it in the realms of Heavy Metal horror, sitting alongside cult titles such as Trick or Treat , Black Roses , The Gate and Rock and Roll Nightmare . Heavy Metal horror is a filmic sub-genre that emerged in the ...

I have contributed an essay to a forthcoming book about Italian giallo films*. Giallo un libro sobre terror italiano ( Giallo: A Book about Italian Terror ) is the latest project from the Buenos Aires-based Colectivo Rutemberg (Rutemberg Collective), a multidisciplinary group of artists and writers dedicated to the creation of exciting audio-visual and journalistic content. This publication, which features work from over 20 authors from Latin America and Europe, is particularly unique as it will be the first ever Latin American book solely dedicated to Italian terror cinema. Exciting! With Giallo un libro sobre terror italiano , Colectivo Rutemberg will contribute to the dissemination and critical analysis of the giallo, which, at present, is the subject of a very limited bibliography in the Spanish language (the only other Spanish language book specifically dedicated to analysing the giallo was published in Spain in 2001 and is currently out of print). Giallo un libro sobre t...

Dario Argento’s Suspiria needs little introduction. A nightmarish, hallucinatory carousel of a film, it is known to admirers of horror cinema for its exquisite cinematography, ear-shattering score, opulent production design and fiendish violence. Any sense of conventional narrative or characterisation takes a back seat to a full-on assault on the senses as the viewer is plunged head-first into a neon-Gothic nightmare of light, colour, sound and shadow. Regarded (and rightly so) as a horror classic, Suspiria is the subject of a new book by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, a film critic from Melbourne, Australia. No stranger to extreme cinema, Alexandra is the author of ' Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study ' (2011), and ' Found Footage Horror Films: Fear and the Appearance of Reality ' (2014). She is also co-editor of the film journal Senses of Cinema , and a critic on Radio Triple R’s film programme, Plato's Cave . Alexandra very kindly agreed to a quick chat ab...

Devil's Advocates is a book series devoted to exploring the classics of horror cinema. Contributors to Devil's Advocates come from the worlds of academia, journalism and fiction, but all have one thing in common: a passion for the horror film and for sharing that passion. Each instalment delves into a specific horror film, exploring everything from its conception to its impact on genre cinema and wider popular culture. Titles thus far include Let the Right One In by Anne Billson, Witchfinder General by Ian Cooper, SAW by Benjamin Poole, The Descent by James Marriott and Carrie by Neil Mitchell. Despite its reputation as one of the greatest and most influential of all horror films, there is surprisingly little literature dedicated to Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1960), and Martyn Conterio's contribution to the Devil’s Advocates series is the first single book devoted to it. Head over to Exquisite Terror to read my review . 

Devil's Advocates is a book series devoted to exploring the classics of horror cinema. Contributors to Devil's Advocates come from the worlds of academia, journalism and fiction, but all have one thing in common: a passion for the horror film and for sharing that passion. Each instalment delves into a specific horror film, exploring everything from its conception to its impact on genre cinema and wider popular culture. Titles thus far include Let the Right One In by Anne Billson, Witchfinder General by Ian Cooper, SAW by Benjamin Poole, The Descent by James Marriott and Carrie by Neil Mitchell. Excitingly, a forthcoming addition to the series will peer into Dario Argento’s occult classic, Suspiria . Author Alexandra Heller-Nicholas is a visiting fellow at the Institute of Social Research at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. Her other books include Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study (McFarland, 2011) and Found Footage Horror Films: Fear...

Last month I went to see a very special screening of Dario Argento’s nightmarish, witch-infested classic, Suspiria , in Belfast’s Waterfront Hall. The screening, courtesy of those cool cats at the Belfast Film Festival, was accompanied by a live score performed by none other than original Goblin member and long time Argento collaborator, Claudio Simonetti, and his band, the Simonetti Horror project. Argento’s classic tells the terrifying tale of an American ballet student who enrols at an exclusive dance academy in Germany, only to discover - after several vicious murders and assorted weirdness - much to her horror, that behind the scenes lurks a witches' coven. Often hailed as Argento’s masterpiece, Suspiria is an overwhelming onslaught of vision, sound and colour. The director mercilessly bombards the audience with scenes of graphic violence, fantastical lighting, overwrought production design and an immensely atmospheric soundtrack courtesy of Italo prog-rockers Goblin. ...

Last night Belfast’s Waterfront Hall played host to a very special screening of Dario Argento’s nightmarish, witch-infested classic, Suspiria . The screening, courtesy of the lovely folks at the Belfast Film Festival, was accompanied by a live score performed by none other than original Goblin member and long time Argento collaborator, Claudio Simonetti, and his band, the Simonetti Horror project. My ears are still ringing… Suspiria , for the uninitiated, is the terrifying tale of American ballet student Suzy Banyon, who enrols at an exclusive dance academy in Germany. Her arrival coincides with a raging storm and the savage murder of another student. Increasingly odd occurrences and other grisly deaths suggest that there is something evil lurking within the school, and Suzy eventually discovers that it is actually a front for a witches' coven. Often hailed as Argento’s masterpiece, Suspiria is a visceral onslaught of vision, sound and colour. The viewer is bombarded by graph...

1971 Dir. Emilio P. Miraglia When Lord Alan Cunningham is released from a stint in a psychiatric hospital for murdering red-haired prostitutes who reminded him of his unfaithful late wife, he quickly remarries in an attempt to redeem himself. Once he and his new wife settle into the family home – a crumbling gothic mansion – a series of gruesome murders suggest his former wife has returned from the dead to wreck terrible revenge… The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave is one of several gialli from the early Seventies which exhibits unusual gothic influences. Alongside Sergio Martino’s Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key , Antonio Margheriti's Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye and Miraglia’s own The Red Queen Kills Seven Times , it boasts a moody gothic atmosphere, crumbling mansion setting, psychological deterioration, dysfunctional family melodrama and one of those ‘have-the-dead-come-back-to-haunt-the-living-or-is-someone-trying-to-drive-the-protagonist-insan...

2011 Dir. Peter Strickland Peter Strickland’s sophomore film is a striking combination of dazzling Argento-esque style and haunting Lynchian atmosphere; it’s as though the director glimpsed into the collective mind-space of these filmmakers and recreated what he saw and heard there in this claustrophobic nightmare of sound and vision. Set in the Seventies, Berberbian Sound Studio tells of mild-mannered British sound technician Gilderoy (Toby Jones), who is brought to Italy to work on the sound effects for a gruesome horror film. His increasingly nightmarish task slowly begins to take its toll, and before long, life begins to imitate art. Or does it? From the opening moments, as Gilderoy is led into the studio – rather like a patient being led into a psychiatric hospital - an ominous dread seeps throughout proceedings and an ever dank ambiguity manifests itself. Alone in a foreign land, Gilderoy is completely ostracised by the rest of the crew as he spends his days recording ho...

1972 Dir. Sergio Martino When she loses her unborn baby in a car accident, a grieving woman becomes the target of a Satanic cult who may have been responsible for the death of her mother many years ago… Sergio Martino’s All the Colours of the Dark is a psychedelic trip of a giallo, filtered through the gothic aesthetics of Hammer Horror and the Satanic Panic-induced paranoia of Rosemary’s Baby . Reconceptualising the usual conventions of the giallo into a plot about a Satanic cult’s advances on a traumatised woman, it falls into a miniscule group of films critic Kim Newman dubs ‘giallo-fantastico’; gialli which boast overtly supernatural aspects as well as typical troupes such as sexual perversion, blackmail and murder. Adding to the delirious nature of the plot are abstract dream sequences and myriad moments which cunningly blur the line between reality and deranged fantasy. Jane (Edwige Fenech) has increasing panic attacks, hallucinations and nightmares which are woven into ...

2012 Dir. Federico Zampaglione With his sophomore film Shadow , Federico Zampaglione – Italy’s sort of Rob Zombie – made a concerted bid to breathe new life into Italian horror cinema. While Shadow may have been more influenced by the current slew of ultra-violent ‘torture-porn’ films than Italy’s own distinct brand of bygone horror, it still emerged as an atmospheric and taut exercise in grim tension, with Zampaglione infusing it with enough of his own sensibilities to keep it surprisingly original. With follow up Tulpa , the director has attempted to create a contemporary giallo that is so faithful to its lineage it arguably borders on parody. Based on a story by Dardano Sacchetti, who wrote/co-wrote the likes of Cat O' Nine Tails (1971), Bay of Blood (1971), Schock (1981) and A Blade in the Dark (1983) amongst many others, Tulpa is the lurid tale of Lisa Boeri (Claudia Gerini), a respectable businesswoman who secretly frequents a private sex club to indulge her fanta...

Now regarded as one of Dario Argento’s most accomplished films, Tenebrae was originally met with critical hostility upon its release in the UK. It was heavily edited, relegated to the 'video nasty' list and eventually banned. The twisted tale of an American mystery thriller novelist who becomes caught up in a slew of sadistic murders, seemingly inspired by his latest book, the film was Argento's return to the giallo after the gothic fairy tale horrors of Suspiria (1977) and Inferno (1980). Head over to The Quietus to read my retrospective on the film, in which I discuss its origins, its initial reception, and how it has been subsequently revaluated as a self-reflexive commentary on not only Argento’s own body of work and the conventions of the Italian giallo, but on the alleged effects of violent entertainment on audiences. Happy Halloween!