Hello there, and welcome back to the Disconnected. I am alive here with
Troy Howorth, somebody that everybody's heard his name when you're watching a channel like
this. Troy, thanks for making time for us tonight. Well, thank
you for having me. Especially lately, it seems like your name's coming up
a lot more on commentaries. Feels like you're beef and lows up. Is
that something that you're noticing a big uptick for? Especially it seems like you
and Nathaniel doing a lot together lately. I mean it's been pretty steady actually
over the last several years. It started at the end of two fifteen,
and it took a little while for to build a little momentum, so I'd
say probably since twenty seventeen has been fairly steady. Nathaniel and I started working
together back in twenty nineteen, which seems like forever ago. Up until then,
I'd always worked alone. But you know, fortunately with him and several
other people have worked with two, I've found a good report makes the more
entertaining to do. So, yeah, there's been a lot and I'm sure
there's a lot of people groaning and say, oh God, not him again.
Get somebody else, which fair enough. There's there's plenty of voices out
there and they should all be heard. I agree with the diversity, but
I will I will push back on your voice being boring because it seems like
you, especially when you and Nathaniel lately have been together, there's something special
about that chemistry. It's sort of magnetic, something that feels like you are
learning from people that you are just hanging out with. It's basically just chill
time with smart friends. Well I don't know about the smart part, but
it is it is designed to be conversational and hopefully Yeah, your description is
pretty much that's all the more we could hope for. I don't like commentaries
that feel like lectures. I don't like when they get very sort of dry
and pseudo intellectual and so forth. I mean, everybody has their approach,
and I just, you know, from somebody starting listening commentaries all the way
back in the nineties, kind of figured out what I like and what I
don't like. And yeah, that's always been the goals, to try and
make it hopefully partly entertainment as well as hopefully somewhat educational. I mean,
you can't make everybody happy, though, that's true. That's true. A
lot of people really want that dry, educational aspect. But I'm just glad
that a lot of the current ones they are getting more attention, aren't just
pointing out what's happening in the movie. Yeah, those are bad, aren't
they. I mean, I think a little bit of that is sometimes okay,
just especially when you're working alone, it can be a challenge, so
sometimes you need that little bridge. It gets you from one thought to another
and say, well, now, John Saxon walks across the fiata, you
can do that. But if you do that the whole way through and you
start doing oh, don't open that door girl, stuff like that, it
gets really it gets really irritating really quick. Who are some of your favorite
commentators listen to? Well, I've always enjoyed Oh, put me on the
spot here tell you. Some of my favorites are Greg Mank who's done a
lot of the universal classic horror films. I've always enjoyed his commentaries very much.
Christopher Frayling, who sort of specializes in sergeo Leoni, although he's done
other things as well, but he's always great fun to listen to, very
educational. Jonathan Rigby I like very much. You'll hear him on a lot
of especially British films, hammer films, things of that. He's kind of
the gold standard. Who else David Kllett who tends to do more kind of
films and silent films and so forth. You might have heard him like Doctor
Mabusa for example, some of the Fritz Lang films. He's always good to
listen to. I'm sure there's some others that are kind of escaping me right
now, but I always like Kim Newman. Kim Kim Newman seems to be
kind of uh uh love him or hate him kind of proposition for some people.
I I I enjoy him though. I think he's I think he's very
funny and uh but also quite interesting and he's able to sort of tap into
a variety of different topics. So I always enjoy him very much as well.
And he get into someone like the noir commentators like Imogen Sarah Smith.
I like her very much. He has a wonderful voice and it's very very
articulate, very interesting to listen to. And Alan k Roadie and Eddie Eddie
Bieler and so forth. So there's there's a bunch and you know, so
obviously as far as directors go, I mean, there's there's a bunch there
that I really like listening to as well. Yeah, and I love you
hearing so many names because it really shows how rich this hobby can be.
It's certainly not a one man show or anything like that, because really you
can ask a lot of people who buy a lot of these discs, and
you can get five different answers and feel that they're all valid easily. Yeah.
That's why I don't object personally to multiple commentaries on discs, because I
think it's good to have options. Somebody may not like listening to me,
but they might like listening to somebody else, or vice versa. There's also
the danger sometimes of kind of monopolizing certain subjects, which has happened traditionally with
certain people. I suppose I'm in danger of monopolizing tar Argento and Lucho Polti,
and I'd hate for that to happen, although I know other people have
done them, so that makes me feel a little bit better. But I
mean, but on the other hand, sometimes it's tough. I mean,
you gets somebody Paul Talbot, who when it comes to Charles Bronson. He
can't do any better than Paul Talbot. I mean, he just he knows
his stuff. I mentioned this, literally wrote a book too. He did
well several books at this point, and he's he's great to listen to.
Christopher Frayling I mentioned, I mean, you can't do better than that when
it comes to talking about Sergio Leoni, although I like Alex Fox as well.
But it's nice to have some variety, and I think it's a good
idea when they when they do that. I've been asked before sometimes you know,
on certain releases, well do you mind if there's another No, So
it shouldn't be a competition. To me, it's it's all about more bang
for the buck and the kind of the real enthusiasts. They tend to like
to listen to multiple tracks that they're available to. Some people don't listen to
any of them. That's fair enough to Yeah, And there's some of these
newer films that are not newer films, but newer releases that are getting sometimes
three commentaries, and it's always nice to see the variety there because usually when
that happens, it's not even the same style, it's not the same topics
that they go over. There's just so much to glean from some of these
films, especially the ones that have had wide, sweeping impacts, and it's
just nice to hear, yeah, three might be gilding the lily a little
bit. Sometimes. I know there was a release I was going to be
involved in and there was some mix up and there was you know, I
had an option to feed a third and I said, that's probably too much.
I'll skip this one. But too certainly is always advisable. Sometimes you
can get away with three. I mean, it just really depends some some
films really they're they're important enough and they have enough and as you say,
it doesn't really matter. I mean, there's going to be crossover. That's
why it's nice to know if there is going to be somebody else that way,
if you're on speaking terms with them, if you know them or whatever,
you can kind of coordinate and say, well, what are you you
know, planning to talk about. I'll try to avoid this. Maybe you
can try to avoid that, but there's going to be crossover, and it's
okay. Everybody's going to approach it differently. My approach is radically different from
whoever else you care to mention and that's as it should be. And then
on top of that, there are you know, there's certain films that have
these random stories, you know, like City of the Living Dead. Everybody
knows the random these are real cow intestines or whatever you're gonna say in different
scenes. So yeah, I imagine there are a couple of stories that even
get copied. But you know, you you brought up Paul Talbot writing the
book and how you've been monopolizing Folchi and Argento, But when you've also written
the book. Here are three of Troy's books on Jello, we're gonna be
talking about Yallo just a little bit. That makes sense for you to sort
of monopolize those a little bit. So what what got you into yallow originally?
Well, you know, funnily enough, I saw my first Jallo films
before I knew what Ajello was. I mean, in the in the eighties,
growing up and in a small town in Pennsylvania, you know, you
you were kind of limited to what was either on the video shelves or what
was on TV. And they did run some weird movies on Channel nine,
including The Night Eveline Came out of the Grave, which was the very first
commentary I ever did, and probably the first yellow I ever saw a phenomena.
Creepers would have been one of the early ones too. That was a
very early commentary for me as well. So I love them wearing that shirt
as you as you mentioned there you go, yeah, I mean it all
kind of goes back to Mario Bava for me becoming a fan of Bava by
way of Bar and Blood. Seeing it when I was very very young and
kind of realizing there was something different about it. I couldn't articulate what or
why or how at that time, because I'm just a little kid. I
mean I'm less than ten years old. I've probably posted a five or six,
and it was there was just something different about the different feel of it,
the different look of it. It just had had a flavor that was
unique, and that stuck with me. And gradually I started seeing some of
those other films as well and realizing something a little bit funky and weird about
some these movies, like the music and the voices are a little strange.
And it eventually started to figure that out. And I did see in Phil
Hardy's Encyclopedia of Horror Films, which is one of my kind of seminal books
that made me want to write about movies. He would refer to Jallo every
now and again. I was like, Gallo, what is that? What
is that supposed to meet? And eventually came to realize that it was this
kind of brand of Italian thrillers that are very sort of lurid, pulpy,
and you know, not always especially violent. I mean, sometimes they're more
psychological than they are violent. But that was kind of a path. Eventually
I started getting into through Boba's films and Ardento and Folchi and realizing this is
really interesting stuff, and then just from there starting to seek out everything that
I could and started to think about the idea of maybe writing a book that
kind of cataloged all the films, because there had been not terribly in depth
book from I guess the nineties. I believe it was called Blood and Black
Place, which was kind of a review book, but it seemed to me
it was a little bit incomplete. It was certainly out of date at that
time, and it seemed like the reviews were fairly sort of short. I
thought it might be interesting to go back and do something a little bit more
in depth. But now you know, here we are coming into twenty twenty
three soon, which is like ten years after I started it, and I
think to myself, I'd like to do it over again. I could.
I'd like to go back and redo it and revise it and revamp it.
Maybe I will someday. I don't know. Interesting me personally, I love
everything I've read through all three of these. I've taken so many notes,
discovered multiple films. They are incredible. Yallo is something that really hits people
differently, and there's something about the way that they're written about in these that
it sort of gives that tone that certain films are talked about different ways.
And it's hard to explain, but they really it's not just the tone or
what necessarily is in the film, but they they just speak to different generations
differently when you go back and watch them with different experiences. And it's nice
to see somebody like you that gives a very neutral voice to something like Yallo,
because they have so much behind them that a lot of the time,
if you're just trying to educate on them, they kind of speak for themselves.
Yeah, there's a lot to be said there. I mean, for
one thing, there are movies that don't play really well for people who are
really married to the kind of British and American style of murder mysteries. They
don't always play fair logically. I've always said they kind of make emotional sense
rather than they make logical sense. If you're really concerned with all the loose
ends getting gathered up and tied up in neat bo at the end, go
watch Agatha Christie, Go watch you Know even and well it was out of
Hitchcock. Funn enough, Hitchcock's coms aren't always as logical as All I've Vertigo
is a tearly a logical movie when you think about it, But a lot
of his films tend to be, and they tend to focus more on the
story and the plot, the plot very important, whereas with jaello films it's
it's more about the set pieces, it's more about going for very specific effects
and so forth. And again, there are different types of Jalli. Some
people think that all jallo films are just about, you know, men running
around in black trench coats with black cloves slicing up beautiful women. And that
is true that there's a lot of those, but there's a lot of other
types of films too, the kind of cosmopolitan sexy jelly for example, with
these impossibly good looking people, you know, lounging around swimming pools and board
with their lives and being absolutely hideous to one another and plotting against each other.
So there's all kinds of different things that are hybrids that Flitzieski that became
very popular in the sixties and seventies kind of uses with the jallo. At
one point they're Western jalli. I mean, I included some in my book,
but you know, you could even make a case for a couple of
films like Once Fun Time in the West and for a few dollars more as
well, that have jallo elements in them definitely. And now even after a
certain point they got so desperate that there's porno jali as well. Get things
like play Motel and Jallo and Venice and so forth, and even more extreme
examples than that. So yeah, it's a it's a wide palette, and
it doesn't do to take them all terribly seriously. Some of them are are
quite interesting, and they're made by directors who have a real vision and have
a real kind of artistic intention, and some of them are just garbage,
and some of the garbage is fun, some of it's not. Some of
the films are really really bad, and that was funny. I don't seek
out reviews of my books because it just doesn't pay to do that. But
somebody pointed out a review to me one time, and they one of the
books on Amazon, which is kind of assessed pool because anybody can go on
there and say whatever they want to say and it doesn't even have to be
a review. That's put upside, this guy sucks and they leave it.
It doesn't have anything to do with anything. But it was kind of complimentary,
but at the same time saying, this guy, he's too negative about
too many of the films, Like, what the hell do you want?
I mean, you're talking about hundreds of films, some of them are awful.
I mean, I'm sorry. It doesn't mean you have to turn in
your fan card just because you don't like all of them. So yeah,
it is what it is. There are a lot of people that you spend
a lot of time complaining about people being positive on films too, which I
always laugh at. But a lot of times people just choose to talk about
what they like. So if you're doing a real deep dive, and I
mean three big books about Yallow, that's a deep dive. There's gonna be
some trash in there. Well, I mean, I wouldn't have wasted all
that time if I didn't like them. There is such a thing as toxic
positivity. I see this sometimes with you know, particularly horror fans, just
say we got to support this film because we've got to support the genre,
to which I said, to hell with that. That's that's ridiculous, because
they're a bad horror film. They're bad films in any genre. So it
doesn't mean that you have to like every You don't have to like everything that
Dario Jenna ever made to be a fan. It's okay to say Dracula three
D sucks because it does, at least from my point of view. Some
people do like it, but it is it is a matter of opinion,
and I did talk about this recently. I've put something up on Facebook about,
you know, these people who who sort of contort themselves into pretzels and
and try to somehow invalidate opinions of other people and saying you've got it wrong,
you're wrong to not like this movie, or you're wrong to like it.
Who cares? Just if you like it, then be happy with that.
You don't need validation, You don't need other people to agree with you.
If you like it, it worked for you. Yeah, that's that
would solve a lot of arguments right there that I've got a lot of want
to say about that. But man, that was just kind of a perfect
statement. Let that sit. You brought up Fulch, you brought up oar
Gento. What are some more of your favorite directors? Oh boy, there's
so many. I mean, Mario Bava's number one for me. He's the
king. Uh Dario Argento, of course, ful Chi, Roman Polanski canceled.
I know, but I love his movies. I think Man's a genius.
Whatever one thinks of him as a human being, whatever, but his
films are extraordinary. Scorsese, Bernard Hertzog, William Freakin, Fritz Lang,
Michael Powell, Alfred Hitchcock, Parence Fisher, God Almighty. I mean,
I'm sitting here with all these reference books. Billy Wilder, Stanley Kubrick.
Yeah, I mean, the list just goes on and on on. Sidney
Lumett would be another one. Coppola, at least through the seventies, and
you know it's choppier after that, but certainly the seventies, it's pretty amazing.
Yeah, I mean a ton of Jean Pierre Melville be another one.
I really love his films. Part Chen I love his work as well.
Yeah, lots of good stuff. I just saw A Thirst for the first
time, and my god, that is such a unique movie. Yeah,
that's good. Well, all of his films are. I haven't seen his
newest one yet, but I'm sure it's good. I mean everything else has
been. It would be hard to believe that he would all of a sudden
make a lousy movie, but could happen. I suppose he is one.
I don't. I don't think there's a single thing that I've even felt any
sort of negative feelings about. No, I've liked them all. I mean,
you know, not to the same extent. Some of them I like
a little less than others. But even something that is sort of a weird
film, like I'm a Cyborg and that's okay, it's a really charming little
movie. I mean, it's it's different than the other ones. It's slighter,
perhaps, but it's it's an endearing film. I kind of feel the
same way about Plans gam And he's been making films now for sixty years and
he's yet to make one that I think is a really bad movie. Some
of them I like less than others, But you know, even a little
little weird movie like what which many people throw aside, like Scarbage, I
think it's a really good movie. Right, So yeah, I might certainly
my people who are able to sustain that level of quality over that length of
a period of time. That's pretty rare because most people, at some point
or an they're going to end up making a bad movie. It just ends
up happening. Well, not only period of time, but genres too,
because Polanski and a handful of others they they've like di Pauma's kind of the
perfect example of this, that Diploma's made basically an incredible movie in almost every
single genre. Yeah, it's so hard to transcend that type of thing,
and it's it's really nice to reflect on somebody that can do it properly.
Yeah, I mean, you get somebody like Dario Argento who was a specialist
and he's pretty much stayed within that wheelhouse for his career and has had a
certain degree of success. It's gone a little choppier lately, but for a
long time maintained a certain degree of success. Leoni was another one. Obviously,
Sergio Leoni, you know, pretty much stayed with westerns most of his
career, although he ends his career with a great gangster film, so there's
you know, obviously he had talents that went beyond it. People tend to
think of Scorsese as the mob guy, but I mean he also made the
Age of Innison's Last Temptation of Christ comedy. I mean, all these different
films, great films and different genres. Fulci was a very eclectic filmmaker.
He made movies and just about all the different genres and did very well by
them. To Lenzi, who isn't quite on the same here as some of
them, but still a director I liked very much. Obviously, spent a
long time writing about him as well as another guy who went from genre to
genre and did very well. Baba did too, with the exception of the
western. The western was the one genre that really he kind of didn't do
so good at. I wouldn't necessarily say completely failed, but didn't do nearly
as well there for reasons that really kind of makes sense when you think about
it. But other than that, you know, going into different types of
films and so forth, did really well. So I admire that type of
eclecticism very much. Yeah, me too. You finally brought up Lenzi.
Why don't we spend some time talking about make Him Die Slowly. This is
a brand new book that you literally just released. What is the official release
date on this, like two and a half, three weeks ago something?
Yeah about that? It is so far really nice this edition especially it's the
hardcover, color pages, beautiful book by the way, it's it's an incredible,
incredible feat to get something like this out in twenty twenty two. I
would say, Well, the aesthetic aspect of it, You've got to give
a lot of credit to Tony Strauss at WK Books, who did the layout,
did the design, and he just you know, he's phenomenal. Every
time I've worked with him on a book has been a joy. It's a
fun process working with him because he's got a very good eye, very good
sensibility, and he really knows how to how to make me look good.
But yeah, I mean that was an interesting project for me because, as
I talked about in the book at one point, if you ever would have
said to me, you're going to write a book about Lensi, I would
have laughed at the idea, because for years I really didn't take him seriously
at all. I had formed an impression of him as this sort of obnoxious
old curmudgeon in sweaters who just always talked about what a genius he was and
make kind of hackey movies and didn't realize for years how good a lot of
his films really were. And part of that was being introduced to some of
the weaker later films that came in the eighties, which is not the ideal
way to be introduced to Lensi's work, and also bad transfers, so he
didn't really get to appreciate the esthetic quality that he brought to his films was
very good. Crash yeah, so yeah. I mean when I finally started
having to kind of think about his work a little more seriously doing commentaries because
it just so happened I was hired to do a lot of Lensi commentaries,
I started to realize, you know, there's there's something here that could be
interesting, and there hadn't been a book written about him in English. He's
obviously very popular among the Italian genre fans, so I thought, well,
I mean, it might as well be me. Nobody else is done it,
so I'll go ahead and from my head into the ring and write a
book about Lendsy. Hopefully not the only book. I'm hoping other people will
follow, but it was a fun project to do. How much time do
you spend working on this one? Oh, it's hard to say altogether.
I mean I feel like from the time I started until the time it came
out, probably about a year and a half, which is not really that
much time really when you think about it, the amount of work that went
into it. But part of it is because I should preface this by saying,
I do have a day job, so I can't just sit home and
write and watch movies all the time. I wish I could, but I've
got to go to a day job and then come home, and you're tired
and everything. But when I get working on a project, I'm always terrified
that I'm going to lose momentum, so I just keep going out a day
after day after day after day, so I keep writing. I don't care
how much he gets done. You go to get something done in the day
in order to keep going because if you stop, there's always that potential just
just lose it and you won't be able to get it back. So that
was pretty intense concentrated work over that period of time. Helped too that I
had Eugenio Urkilani, who you've had on your show involved. He wrote a
lovely forward because he knew Lendsy very well interviewing him. As a matter of
fact, that's why I contact him because his book Darkening the Italian Screen as
the best Lendsy interview you're ever going to read in your life. I mean
it is a full tilt, no hold part. Roberto really just vomiting forth
in great detail, and I thought, God, this is great. And
I didn't really know Eugenio at that time, but I knew I was going
to lean heavily on that interview, so I thought i'd better get his I
mean, you don't have to because it's published, it's out there. As
long as you're citing it, it's fair. But when you're gonna lean heavily
on something like that, if I can, I like to try and contact
person and say, hey, I'm going to use this luck you mind you,
And of course he said no, that's perfectly fine, and he was
able to help out a lot. Frederico Candeo, whose name you'll know too
from extras. I think he runs of freak rama productions. We'll see their
interviews on a lot of Blu Ray releases. He had a lot of material
too, especially pictures, so got a lot of great behind the scenes pictures
and rare shots that were a great addition to books. And we're finally getting
good releases of Lindsay's films. It was kind of lagging there for a while,
but you brought up transfers. It is unreal in twenty twenty two,
the way that some of these films can be viewed. We just had a
conversation about this recently, how it seems that many of these films are playing
better than they've ever played, even in a theater, in home theaters across
the world right now, because you know, four K scans are better than
some old dim bulb in you know, some Washington, DC theater. What
are some of the most remarkable upgrades you've seen recently. They've been just beyond
impressive. Oh boy, I know, that's an intimidating question. That's a
tough one to answer. I only just recently went to four K myself for
years saying I wasn't gonna do it. Of course, inevitably I did.
And the reason I did was because I got hired to do a commentary for
Deep Red, which is one of my all time favorite films, and they
put it out only in four K, and I was like, well,
I guess I have to do it now, not just because of the obvious,
you know, because I don't really listen to my own stuff, but
I don't know, I don't particularly I'll maybe listen to a little bit,
but I'm not going to sit there, you know, like normal Desmond.
We're living my former glories. But because it's Deep reds like, well,
I've got to see what this looks like, because they did a scan and
everything. I'll tell you what. The Synapse Suspiria, which I was also
happy to be a part of, well that's an amazing, amazing looking transfer.
If you get a chance to see that four K, that is really
absolutely a sort of mind melting experience in its own right. Some wonderful stuff
with black and white movies too, like The Apartment, Billy Wilder's The Apartment
fantastic, really really happy with that, and you know some of the John
Carpenter stuff that's been upgraded as well. But also I think by far the
best, the most satisfying home video release ever of the Good, the Bad,
and the Ugly from Pino, where they finally got it looking correct.
It doesn't have that sort of ugly tint yellow tint that it had for a
while. And along the same lines, their new version of Fist Bowl Dollars
was just amazing as well, because that last Blu ray they put out was
hot garbage. It looked awful. I got rid of it. I was
so disappointed when I watched it. This looked terrible, but the Blue the
four K looks absolutely amazing. I've been very happy with Keno. It seems
like since about twenty twenty eighteen twenty nineteen, they started to really listen to
feedback and they've come around to just suddenly being this powerhouse. It's astonishing to
me that they can release like five movies a week and somehow three of those
will be great releases of films. And it's not twenty fourteen anymore, where
they would just put out a film with a trailer and call it good.
They'll put out a film with the commentary and maybe one or two other things,
and then on top of that, three months later Beyond Sale for eight
bucks. Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, there are a lot
of really good labels now, which you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna go
there. I'm gonna say I think some people think this they don't want to
say. I really think Criterion has been coasting for years. At this point.
Everybody gets so, you know, I hope they put this out on
Criterion. Why I've got a fantastic addition, Why do you need it?
But these people have this it's kind of like the name value, and they
earned that for years, going back in the nineties and so forth. But
lately, I don't know, they've put out some very flawed discs. And
when they when they upgrade their there are movies to four K, they're not
adding new features, They're not doing anything really different with it. I mean,
don't get me wrong, They've done some amazing work. I love their
release at Night of Living Dead, for example. I thought that was,
you know, an amazing release. But you know, they ain't all could
cracked up to be these days in my opinion. Anyway, Whereas you look
at some of these other boutique labels, like, uh, you know,
eighty eight has been doing amazing work lately. Ero obviously, you know,
may lead some bounds over their early stuff too, h Synapps, Blue Underground
and so forth. I mean, Criterion, you know, it's always going
to have that cachet, I suppose, because it has that that kind of
name value to it. You know, it's like Nike or Adidas or something.
It just has that, you know, that special something. But man,
from my point of view, I think they've been eclipsed by some of
these other labels. I agree fully, especially before prior to twenty twenty two.
I've been saying since about twenty seventeen or eighteen that they're just not what
they used to be. A lot of the stuff. This year the titles
got me, but then they are coasting with the features again. And yeah,
the four K re releases are nice to see some of these in the
highest quality. But like you said, it's like screen factory. When you're
putting out a four K of something that you put out previously, at least
give the fans something, and I get it. A lot of these a
lot of the people involved are either dead or dying. But there's like fifty
five people we can name right now that would be more than willing to do
a new commentary for something. Well, they seem to have kind of a
good old boys club going there as far as contributors are concerned. It's very
tough to get involved. I've not tried, and I'm not saying this out
of bitterness or anything. I'd love to do something for them if they ever
had an interest. They're not going to ask me, right, but if
they ever did, sure, that'd be great. But they're all kinds of
people. I mean, this is not a small field anymore. There's a
lot of people jostling around looking for jobs, and you know, I think
they would be spoiled for choice. You know, it would be I think,
really really worthwhile to get somebody in to do it. I mean,
Okay, they put out Raging Bull on four K last year and they did
a very nice job. Well it's got some nice features on it, and
you know, it's a beautiful transfer. But it would have been really nice
if they could have gotten somebody, you know, somebody interesting to go and
do a commentary on a film like that, kind of delve into it,
talk about it and so forth, but just don't they don't seem to be
interested in doing that. Well. Really disappoints me is when they get some
you know, an old catalog title like Tunes of Glory, a really wonderful
British film with John Mills and Alec Gunnis and Dennis Price, which is,
you know, it's another one of his movies. Everybody's dead. Obviously they're
not gonna get anybody connected to the film with it. But they only ever
had like a five minute long interview with the director and a poster and still
gallery and that's all the more it's still gone. It's like, why didn't
she had something in but a commentary or something, But I don't, you
know, the people who are married to Criteria will be just actually cursing my
name for saying this, because of course they can do no wrong. But
they've also they put out some very compromised editions, spent a lot of controversy
with color timing on some of their releases and things. You know. Addressed
to Kill was notoriously kind of batched initially, and every label has their mistakes,
but she kind of hold Criteria to a higher standard. It's sort of
surprising when sometimes you hear underwhelming things about their releases, and I don't I
just I feel like, again, they seem to be slightly coasting a little
bit. I can't remember who it was. Somebody from Arrow I think it
was about a year and a half ago said that some of these color timing
questions with directors are directors coming in and saying something different about their film.
What I've suggested, just put out both versions if possible. I mean a
lot of us they grew up with these discs for forty years seeing it one
way, and if something comes out looking completely differently tinted, yeah, sure
the director may like it, but what about the rest of the world that
viewed this as something different? Yeah, it's revisionism, and it's something that
I've always respected Scorsese for refusing sort of tinker with his films, with the
exception of New York, New York, which I think I understand why he
did that, because he was a mess when he made it, and the
studio kind of tampered with it and everything. They kind of went back with
a clearhead and was able to fix up with it. But even a movie
like Kangs in New York, which we know was heavily compromised and material was
cut and everything. He won't touch it, he said, no, no,
it's it's my film, you know, it's I agreed to this version.
It's ways to stay. Just get people like Coppola and James Cameron and
Ridley Scott and Michael Mann, and they love to go back and with George
Lucas course famously, oh yeah, tinkering with their films. And I don't
have a problem with it, but they should preserve the original version as well
as the new version. I think that's perfectly fine. I mean, Papola
going back and changing The Cotton Club and The Godfather three were improvements, definitely.
He definitely made those into better and more coherent, cohesive films. And
I know that The Godfather Part three is available in its original version as well.
I don't know if the Cotton Club really is or not, but it's
nice when they make both versions available. But of course, William Friedkin is
really well known for loving to tinker with the colors and so forth, and
I said, let them tinker with it, but put as you say,
both versions on there, so you can have a version of Cruising that's really
very blue but let's have the version that we're familiar with the way it was
originally shown as well, French connection, et cetera, et cetera. I
think that's perfectly fine. Or you have a really weird situation of something like
Alien which the theatrical cut is the director's cut. Really. Scott has said
this many times that is his The version that sold as a director's cut on
video is not his preferred version. That was just something he did to kind
of appease the fans. Add in a little bit of footage and take some
footage out that more or less runs the same running time. But they put
in that scene with Tom Skarrett in the cocoon and all that stuff, and
they shortened some other bits and so forth. It's not really a director's cut.
The Exorcist to the two thousand version, which which I in many respects
don't like, was really something he did to appease William Peter Bladdie, who
had for years complained about all these things in the film he didn't like.
They kind of did this is shut him up. But now he's like,
oh, yeah, it's it's my that's my cut of the movie. Wait
a minute. Seventy three versions better, So I you know, all these
kinds of things, this kind of revision, revisionism and so forth. As
long as the directors are doing it, I don't have a problem with it,
but they should preserve the original version that we're familiar with as well.
And the hardest part for me is that there are some of these instances and
not to just continue shooting on Criterion or anything. But their Miller's Crossing disc
is kind of the biggest example of that. Recently, they took like it's
not a lot, but it's like seventy five seconds worth of footage out because
the directors said that they wanted it cut from the film. That's not the
same movie though, that's it's something completely different, and it's I'm really against
censorship altogether. We got to be able to at least archive what we all
knew so that we can have that history. Yeah, I mean, even
sort of bastardized versions that were put out by the studio against the wishes of
the director. I think should be preserved just for comparative purposes. Growing up
in the eighties, the version of the Fearless Vampire Killers that I knew and
fell in love with does not exist. Anymore. It was the version that
Martin Ransohoff had completely overhauled and cut and re dubbed it and tinkered with extensively.
It's vastly inferior to plant spuversion, but I'd love to see it again,
you know, with the animated cartoon prologue and everything in it that they
put in, and they kind of added all these silly sound effects and changed
the voices and things. It's definitely travesty. But I think it should be
preserved just because, you know, I think for the for the sake of
sort of further research, you should be able to have access to it.
That was one thing that was I was happy about when Nathaniel and I did
a commentary for Jess Franco's film Just Teen. This was just announced today.
The specs were announced today anyway, and as part of the commentary, we
were talking about this shorter version of the film that was available for years called
Deadly Sanctuary. And you never know whether these companies actually even listen to commentary
tracks. Sometimes I think they just take them and they slap on a distance
whatever. But these guys listen because they realized, oh, that would be
an interesting extra feature to have so they are now presenting Deadly Sanctuary as an
extra on the day for the first time ever. So I think that's really
great. That's how you do it. I mean, listen to that.
It's not it's not something especially with a lot of people don't know what it's
called. But seamless branching on these four K discs is where they take all
the same footage that is in one version and utilize it for multiple versions of
the same film, so you don't compromise the integrity of the compression levels or
anything like that on the disc. And they unfortunately they have limited space they
can put on these discs, and if they had to do that, I
could see it being a problem. But with that, I mean, Blue
Underground is the epitome of high quality on four k's. I don't know how
many you've seen yet, but their four k's are mind blowing. I've seen
several. I mean I've been fortunate enough to be involved in several, and
I've got more coming. They're great. I mean, I'm absolutely thrilled with
the way that Zombie looks, for example in the New York Ripper. Yeah,
absolutely, absolutely beautiful. So yeah, that's great when they can do
that, or alternatively, when you have a case like Roserrado Dotto going back
and deciding to do an animal cruelty free version of cannibal Holocaust, which is
fine, but you know, there again, if you offer both versions,
if you've seen less branching or whatever, or do two discs or whatever you
need to do. As long as you're presenting it in a kind of a
good way like that, and allowing people to have the often to see which
version they want to see, which version they prefer, that's the way it
should be. I completely agree. In terms of censorship. I didn't really
plan on bringing this up, but we brought a plan. Ski For a
minute, it sounds like you feel a lot of the same way about this
whole cancel culture idea that I do. I'm curious, just so we could
try to share with everybody. How do you try to separate the art from
the artist? Yeah, well, cancel colleture. It's a difficult thing to
get in talking about because you sound like a right winger and I'm certain not
that there. I've always maintained that art has no moral obligations whatsoever. I
think the only sin art can commit is to be boring. So that's a
very subjective thing. You know, you look at a film, you look
at a painting, you listen to a piece of music and respond to it
or you don't. You like it or you don't. You either have the
ability to articulate why you like it or don't like it or you don't.
This is where you see online some people writing lengthy dissertations versus some people just
saying it sucks. It's both reactions are valid, but you know, some
people can can get a little deeper than others. Some people, you know,
don't seem to have those skills when it comes to artists. I mean,
Planski is certainly example. Klass Kinsky is even greater example. I mean,
there's a lot of stories about class Kinskin If even a fraction of them
are true, he was a pretty despicable human being. However, he was
also one of the most compelling screen presents of all time. And I'm not
going to throw out I have films with him and them because of some of
the things they say he did. I don't know that he did all these
things. I expect he did at least some of them. Polanski, certainly,
there's no ambiguity there. We know what happened, you know, in
nineteen seventy seven, and has been dogging him for years. Unfortunately, it's
resulted in a situation where his last three films have not been released over here
in any shape whatsoever. You can get them imported if you you know,
you know where to look, but unfortunately that means that you're not getting an
opportunity to see some some really fine films. Now, whether you think that's
a good thing or a bad thing, I mean, that kind of depends
on what side of this argument to come down on. But my opinion is
basically, you know, if we start looking at art as if it needs
to be created by nice people, we're going to be getting rid of a
lot of the best art ever created, because some of the best art ever
created has been made by really awful people. I mean, go back,
even painting, literature, music, you name it. You have to get
rid of everything that Richard Wagner ever wrote so many different examples down through the
years of people who are what is the word I can't think of the word
now, not compromised, but complicated, I guess in the contemporary sense,
you know, because they did something that we disapprove of, or we know
something that really problematic is probably what you were thinking of. Problematic. Problematic
is the word, Yes, thank you. It's it's kind of ludicrous,
really, it's it's not up to me to pass moral judgment on these people.
I'm not interested in having a argument about whether these are good people or
bad people. They're great artists talking about and their works deserve to be preserved
and deserve to be discussed. And you know, people were dismissing with the
Allen based on allegations that have never really been terribly well but pantiated. I
mean there's a lot of reasons to think that. I mean, yeah,
his relationship with Sunny might might be strange. I mean it might have been,
you know, not the ideal. But she was of age, she
was not a blood relative. Oh, I mean yeah, live and let
live. I really don't care if you don't like his movies because you just
don't like his movies, that's one thing. But if you're going to adopt
this kind of handwringing moral outrage over somebody just because they did something you disagree
with or said something you disagree with, I mean, there are admittedly people
who sometimes are shooting themselves in the foot. I mean, John Police has
been shooting himself in the foot lately with some of the things he's been saying.
He's starting from a good place, which is talking about the dangers of
losing our ability to use humor and satire because we won't engage certain subjects because
you don't want to offend anybody. That's a valid point. But then he's
taking it to a degree where he's just starting to sound like a bitter old
man and it's kind of compromising his legacy a little bit. It's like,
you're in your eighties, just shut up. You're not helping yourself at this
point. You're appealing, if anything, you're appealing to the people that you
really don't like, because this is a guy who for years was lasting Trump,
which is good in my book, But you're appealing to that kind of
person now by arguing against all these sort of woke liberals and everything, you
know, trying to cancel everybody and you know, take away our sense of
humor and take away our freedom of expression. So you're kind of, you
know, you're losing the plot a little bit by by taking it too far.
I don't think it's something that will ever be successfully resolved. It's just,
especially now, I think social media has a lot to answer for.
I mean, there's no good railing against it because it's not going anywhere.
I mean, you can't put the genie back in the bottle. But everybody
having a platform and everything unfolding in real time, and everybody having the ability
to comment on things immediately without thinking about it, without letting it sync in,
without having that little bit of time to sort of process, and many
of those being anonymous, too anonymous, and too immediate two knee jerk,
and everybody just wants to have a hot tape, and it's it's created a
lot of problems too. So there are these these kinds of ridiculous situations that
come up. Some of the situations that are brought up are admittedly things that
are being said by a very very small number of people that somebody reads about
and they think, oh my god, all these lefties want to do this.
Oh not not everybody left lust There's just a few people. So it
all just becomes terribly, terribly muddy and terribly everybody just shouting over each other
and wanting to kind of vertue signal all the time about you know, I
refuse to support this artist because I you know, I respect women. I
respect women too, but I also happen to love on a plant movies.
I'm sorry that, you know, what he did is not what I'm celebrating.
So I think those things have to be sort of separated. I agree,
And there's a lot of times that's even come up recently, like Keino
just put out a four K of the Usual Suspects, and I have to
I had to remind people, like, you're not a bad person for liking
a film that Kevin Spacey was in. It's not like you watching that in
twenty twenty two means that you are morally reprehensible or anything. You almost have
to bear in mind that films are made by hundreds of people, sometimes thousands
of people, and it is terribly unfair to suppress or somehow try to remove
the efforts of all these people just because of the actions of one. If
you went to every single company across the globe, every single manufacturer, every
single publishing house, et cetera, whatever it is, you're going to run
into problematic people in every single place. What do you do? Just shut
everything down? There's only so much. You complete, you know, allegations
that were made against Kevin Spacey, which again may or may not be true.
I gather they recently were dismissed. The case was decided in his favor.
You know that he was on trial for It's not for me to get
into it. It doesn't interest me. I happen to think he's a good
actor. He's not one of my top ten favorites or anything, but I've
always enjoyed watching him. Uh And I'm again, I'm not going to throw
out my copies of you know seven or Glengarry Glenn Ross or even you know
during early his appearance on The Equalizer, or his role in See No Evil
Here No Evil with Dean Wilder and Richard Pryor. I'm not going to get
rid of those because of you know, the stories that or or to get
rid of a film produced by Harvey Weinstein, for example, who is undoubtedly
a a greade as Gumbag. It is what it is. I mean,
it's it's not something that you know, decided. It's the same thing that
happened when Trump was in office and Robert de Niro was was going on a
tear about Trump every chance he got Trump and everything else, and all these
right wingers were getting really bent out of shape about that, and people saying,
well, I'm not going to watch anymore Robert Niro movie. Do you
think he really cared? Do you think it's hurting him that you are getting
rid of your copy of Taxi Driver? It's not hurting him one bit.
It's kind of a ridiculous knee jerk thing, and it happens on both sides
of the equation, and unfortunately it doesn't fix the problem. It does nothing
to fix the problem. The problem is already, it's already happened, it's
already done. You're not making anything better by saying, well, I refuse
to watch anything that so and so has his hand in. So okay,
I mean that if that makes you sleep better at night, then that's fine.
But I just I don't see the sentiment I agree. And it's not
like watching Kevin Spacey film, even if the allegations are true, it's not
like those you watching that film means that somebody else is getting assaulted tomorrow or
something. So art we still have it. It's like going back and cutting
the animal violence out of some of the Italian cannibal movies. I'm gonna bring
those animals back to life. I don't like that they did that either.
You know, it's not something that I personally am a fan of. I
love animals. I mean I'm also a meat eater, so I guess I'm
a hypocrite on a certain level, or at least at least I mean,
I don't yell them myself. I just go to the store and buy them
wrapped in plastic and I cook them. But you know, what good does
cutting it do? I mean, to remove that footage? What does that?
And it's not something limited to just grubby Italian exploitation film. You could
point the scenes in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kids, the Sampack and Palm
movie, for example, or Apocalypse. Now. You know, these things
happenferent times, different sensibilities. And that's the other thing, too, is
the danger of trying to look at old art through a contemporary lens and trying
to impose these things on it. Yes, there are certain films from the
thirties that are outrageously racist. If you look at the Mask of Pu Mantu,
for example, with Forrest Carlock that, even by nineteen thirty two standards
was outrageously racist, but it's so over the top, how could you possibly
take it seriously? It's just fun the same token. You could look at
the ones that Christopher Lee did in the sixties and say, wow, it's
still kind of racist, but me Lee's playing it more straight and it's not
nearly as cringey, and it doesn't seem to be done with quite that sort
of racist sensibility in mind. So it's just something, you know, you
just have to put things into a certain context and understand that when certain things
were made, it was acceptable you could get away with it. There are
certain things that you know you wouldn't get away with today, nor should you
get away with today, But you can't. You can't impose that on on
something that was made fifty years ago, sixty years ago, seven years ago.
I remember when I was in college, a friend of mine was dating
a girl who was a very, very outspoken feminist. I have no problem
with feminists. I wanted people to understand that, but I thought it was
hysterically funny that he said that they watched The Seventh Seal together and this girl
was just absolutely appalled by the way the women were treated in this film.
It's set in the medieval time, right, this is how it was.
You can't make this into an enlightened thing just because that's how it is now.
It would be unfair, it would be inaccurate, and it really would
grossly distort everything, so that, in my opinion, that'd be more misogynistic.
You were erasing the travesties that occurred. At least at least have them
be visible so that we can keep them in mind so that we can learn
from them. Well, it'd be like suggesting you can't talk about slavery,
or you can't talk about, you know, any of the other terrible things
that have happened. You have to acknowledge these things. You have to be
aware that they happen. The best way to ensure that something terrible is going
to happen again is never talk about it. You know why banning books is
so bad. It's not banning, but any kind of censorship. I'm not
in favor of. I mean it, really, it's it's just not again,
it's not addressing the problem. I mean, certain words are are not
advisable to say. I don't use them myself, but I understand that in
a certain context you can have a racist character without being a racist person yourself.
There's there's a racist language in some of the Sorsese films. Does that
mean that he is a racist? Absolutely not, But it makes sense for
some of the characters that he deals with that are scumeback that they would have
these kinds of beliefs, So therefore they're going to say nasty things and that's
just the way it is. That's a damn fine point. Uh. The
other thing I wanted to point out too, is where some of these films
are made, because we're we were watching films in such a global sense now,
especially people that are really in a home video that you can't really just
brush aside that, you know, the Philippines were different in nineteen sixty than
the US in nineteen sixty or even something like Germany from a few decades ago,
like Necromantic. That movie came out and there is a rabbit. It's
not even like online it's described as a rabbit torture scene. It's just a
rabbit butchering scene. There's not even anything like inhumane about it. They're just
butchering a rabbit for food, it looked like, and everybody describes it online
as this most horrendous, awful thing, which, yeah, it's not fun
to watch necessarily, but the movie itself was made to go against censorship.
Yeah, I mean, it's hard to fall to film when it's trying to
when it's subjective, is really to be disturbing. It's meant to be sort
of confrontation on me. I think there's a limit to how much anybody can
take. I mean, I remember there was something called August Underground that I
saw years ago, and it was I mean, it's fine for what it
is. I mean, if you just want to watch an hour and a
half of atrocities, it's it's fine. I mean, it's it is successful
what it sets out to do. A more contemporary example would be a Serbian
film, which is you know, it's quite a well made movie. I
mean to me, after a certain point, it took on an amazing predictability.
I knew where it was going to go because I could just sense you're
trying really hard to upset people's I know, or we're going to get to
it the end, and that's what happened. Yeah, I mean to me,
after a certain point, it also becomes almost sort of unintentionally funny because
it's like, it's just it piles on so much that it just it's too
much. But I mean, if a film is really setting out to do
that, if it's that is it's m then one must accept that and go
along for the ride, or else just not watch it. I mean,
don't don't watch Sallo if you have a particularly delicate tensibility, because that movie
hit you over the head for two hours with really harsh imagery. You know,
all in the name of decrying fascism. We all know fascism, well,
we don't all know it some people, but we you know, most
of us reasonable people know that fascism is good. But two hours being punched
the face and the fascism is bad. Yeah, I mean, that's exactly
what it is. And it's hard to get too worked up about that sometimes,
you know, if that's what the filmmaker is trying to do. Sometimes
kind of confrontational, nasty, vicious, violent movies work, and sometimes they
don't. It's very true. Protest cinema is is there and exists for lots
of different reasons. Period. So back to Yellow, how about we get
into shallow We were we were speaking beforehand, what we all want to talk
about and you and I share the sense of bbil of enjoying a lot of
different things. So I was curious what's to talk about first? But really
the thing that really got me into Troy was these these Yallow books, and
so I figured, why not go back to something that I loved hearing from
you about. So I wanted to share with everybody Troy's thoughts on five five
to get into Yallo if it's your first time or you're getting interested in the
genre, and then five great deep cuts. So let's go with the intro
to Yallow films. First, let's go with your first one, well Blood
in Black Place Mario Bava. I mean it's the one that kind of sets
the uh sets the golden standard in many respects that it's the first of the
body count Jalley. It all kind of goes from there. I mean,
there's really how much said beyond that. I mean it is it is the
first film to feature that sort of iconic imagery and the really incredibly intense murder
sequences. WHI they're still disturbing because it's a real physicality to them. I
think particular of the scenes the girl getting her face really nasty. I mean,
it has a real intensity to it, but you know, contrasted with
the glamour and and the sexiness and the beautiful sort of poetic imagery and so
forth. You know, if you really want to get a sense of what
it Jallow is all about, it's hard to talk that one as a prime
and it's it's genuinely still such a great film, especially for when it was
made. It it shines. I'm I'm trying to think. I don't think
there's any even current release of that one in print right now? Do you
know if any? Because I know the Era one went out of print?
Oh did it? I didn't know that. I know bc I put out
a version, but I never looked at it because it's BCI. I'm sorry
that I tend to avoid their discs. Uh. Yeah, I wasn't aware
it had gone out of print. Well, hopefully somebody will pick it up
and do a nice four K at some point. Yeah, I would agree
with that, And I think a lot above his films would benefit from four
K. And not when people hear four K, they just are to think
of the resolution. But a lot of these because of the dark imagery and
literally the dark cinematography that hdr to stop the black banding in the corner of
your screen when you're watching on you know, some shitty LCD panel or something.
That's where these are really going to show up and shine for you.
Yeah. I it was recently announced. I can say I was. I
was absolutely thrilled to do a commentary on the Whip and the Body, another
one of my great favorites by Bava Forrady eight Films. And they went back
into the new scan, which is gorgeous. I mean, I've only seen
a standard definition, but they finally got it looking right. The previous high
def version looked awful. The colors were all wrong, it was far to
murky. Somehow or another they got a hold of some materials did this new
transfer. I thought it looked amazing and I said, is this gonna be
a UHD too, And he said, no, no, we don't think
the materials are quite good enough for that. Well, I mean, even
in a standard definition version of this thing popped. So I can't wait to
see what looked like blue or Baba has. I think there's only been one
UHD release so far. I think there was a French release of Black Tabbath
The Spoken Cat. I believe interesting. Yeah, that's the only one.
Most of Bob's films are controlled by Alfred of Leoni would be slightly difficult to
deal with, So I think, I hope somebody somewhere is going to explore
they were supposed to do Planning of the Vampires as the qHD. That was
my understanding. And then they put it out again on Blu Ray, which
made no sense to me whatsoever. Yeah, same disc as before and everything.
They added a new commentary not by me. Well, yeah, they
did add a new commentary that the Old Woman. Uh, and it was
a new transfer of the lague. But it was. Oh, I may
be thinking of one of the other Vinent Price films that they announced. I
apologize, Yeah, I might have been thinking of that. They just re
released couple of the really old Vincent Price ones they did in like twenty fourteen.
Oh yeah, nothing. They've been putting out some of the like the
Poe films and Last Man on Earth, I think, yeah, yeah,
the Bava things. Speaking of Kino all of I think all of their Bava
titles were going out of print. I don't know if they're all out out
now, but the word going behind the scenes is that they they might be,
or the people who hold the rights might be noticing how much their stuff
is in demand and suddenly be charging a lot more for the licenses. So
I really hope it's not the end of the home video stuff for a while.
It happens unfortunately. I mean, I was so impressed that David Gregory
was finally a hole to get Rene Chateau to agree to doing Faceless, because
he's been asking for The Moon of the Stars for ages for that film.
I mean, some of these people they ask for you know, there's a
lot of complaints about re releasing the same films over and over again, and
why don't they put out this film, put out that film. There are
a lot of reasons for this. One of them is sometimes the right holders
are impossible to deal with. Sometimes the materials just simply aren't there. Sometimes
they can't figure out who owns the rights some Lendsi's best film, For example,
I've been pushing for releases of from Fully Owning Brooklyn and Violent Naples and
they just can't seem to figure out who owns the rights. I mean,
we thought we'd figured out who it was, and it turned out they denied
it. So it was like well, I don't know. I don't know
who owned the film, so there are certain ones that are just difficult to
get access to for that reason. But I also don't object to re releasing
the same films over and over again as long as you're going to do them
better if you can get a better transfer and hopefully add into new extras too.
I don't see a prom with that, all right, What is your
second intro to Jolly Film? Keep read? Nice choice? Keep Read is
my favorite Giallo. I mean, it's another one if you really want a
sense of what these films are like, what they're all about. It's an
ideal primer in many respects. It is probably the most coheats of Argento's Galley
in many respects. I think he really benefited from the participation of Bernardino's and
Pony on the screenplays that Tony had worked a lot with Billin and was great.
It takes kind of wild ideas and giving them a tape of something and
creating a coherent narrative. So this is one of the movies that actually kind
of kind of makes sense. I still some bits that really don't make a
lot of sense. The doll doesn't really make any sense, But I'm glad
it's there, so it's okay. And the movie does wander off into the
irrational, but that's intentional, so it's not like it's sloppy things that Ardento
like to do. I love David Hemmings and it I love Darian Nickelodeon and
they make such a great couple. And of course the music by Goblin is
just absolutely, you know, mind blowing to this day. I was fortunate
enough about two and a half weeks ago to see Goblin playing with Suspiria at
the local theater here. They played it live and afterwards they did like a
full hour hour and ten show of just other themes modern music that they've been
working on. And when they play Deep Bread, it just it hits so
hard live in person. They yeah, they're special. Yeah, it's my
favorite of the scores they've done Deep Read, even though it's not entirely theirs.
But Georgia GASLINI was hired to do the score originally, and so some
of the music is his. I love that score. I love the film.
I mean, it's just an amazing piece of work. I mean,
it's really Ardento coming back to the Gallo and saying I'm going to, you
know, make the Jallo end All Galley, which I think he did to
me. It's it's the absolute best that the genre has to offer. Absolutely.
Number three then well, I hate to keep with Argento, but I
will put number three with Berber's Crystal Plumage, just because I think that's another
one that's just a great primer for people. It's another one that actually tells
a really kind of gripping, compelling story that essentially makes sense. It calls
a nice coherent through line. It's it's a little more sort of straightforward and
linear than some of his later films. It's a little less eccentric as wonderful,
wonderful humorous touches in it too. Some of the characters, the stammering
temp so long, for example Borrow Adorf as the cat eating painter who's pulled
himself up in the house, that it paints mystical scenes because it's feeling mystical.
I love I love that film. It wouldn't, frankly but wouldn't be
in my top ten if I'm making a top ten list of Gallo films.
But I think, as you know, intro movies go, that's a really
solid place to start. Did you did you happen to see Dark Glasses yet?
Yes? I did? How do you? How do you feel about
that one? I think it's the best thing he's done, best feature he's
done since the spend All Syndrome. I think spend All Syndrome is his last
great film today. Dark Glasses is not a great film. It's one of
those things. I was talking with somebody recently about the Halloween sequels lately,
and I do this parallel that, you know, fan Sometimes it's like when
you're being fed dog food for years and all of a sudden your handed a
fatty overdone, you know, rock hard piece of steak, but it's still
steak. He's think this is really good. Eh. You know, the
new Halloween movies weren't that good, but they're better than the ones that came
right before it. Dark Glasses I wouldn't put down there. I think it's
a good film. I think it's a genuinely good film. I did see
some of the fans really kind of losing their minds over it, like it
was active. It's good. It's a good movie, and for twenty first
century ardento that will do so I like it. I actually do like it.
I think has some really interesting things that I love. The relationship between
the girl and the little little boy, which recalls the relationship to Carl Malden
and Tinsia Carlist in Cana nine Tales. So it's a movie that has all
kinds of callbacks to his earlier films. And it's a slight plot, which
is borne out by the fact it's a very short film. It's less than
an hour and a half, which is very short for ourgento. But it's
got energy and he shot in an Italian It's the first movie he's shot in
Italian since The Five Days back in nineteen seventy three, which really helped.
I think. So the movie doesn't have that ear splitting issue with some of
the voices that have heard some of the more recent films. Right, all
righty, what's your number four intro to jiallo movie? I think another really
good intro to jiallo would be Palokavara's film The Black Belly of the Tarantula with
gian Carlo Jemini. I don't know where that movie is on Blu Ray.
Please somebody make it happen. Invite me along if you wish, I'd love
to do it. I it has probably any of Morconi's best score for a
jello, which is a big recommendation of itself. It has an unusually complex
policeman protagonist in the form of Genini, who's just you know, if you
don't know the name right off the top of your head's a brilliant factor.
Worked a lot with Lena wurk Miller films like Castaway in Seven Beauties, but
more recently even things like Hannibal and Casino Royal and so forth. He's one
of the great Italian actors. And it is one of those movies with the
killer and black slicing up gorgeous women, so it is. It is kind
of a classic example. Is very much a imitation of what was going on
with Argenta's films at the time. But it's a really, really good invitation.
And I think, uh, you know, a movie that ticks off
all those boxes if you're looking for something that really gives you a sense of
what a gallo is all about, which is what I'm trying to limit myself
to with these ones. I think that's a good example. Yeah, And
I think for the people that are trying to get into the genre, that's
got to kind of be where you start is what are the quintessential this is
what it's all about type of titles, and so far these four have nailed
it. Eager to see your fifth one here? So what is number five?
Then number five? I could go in a couple of different directions,
but I feel like I need to have Bolshie here, and I think for
a kind of classic representation, you would be hard pressed to do better than
Elizabeth and Woman's Skin one of his best films. Great cast, I mean,
really really distinguished actors in it, like Famley Baker and Leo Gain in
addition to the more familiar Jallo faces like Anita Strindberg and John Stirell. Another
great more Tony score, trippy imagery of Francis Bacon inspired dream sequences. There's
an animated bird at one point. It's like something out of the alf Pitchcock,
Salvador Dolly dream sequences in spell, Mountain, lesbianism, lots of blood,
you know, hippies. What else could you ask for? I mean,
it's just a great little montage with Leo again and his family sort of
having dinner, a very stuffy, you know, buttoned down Leo again complaining
about you know, those neighbors next door making old that racket and they're having
an orgy next door and smoking pond. That's just great. It's great stuff.
It is a really great blue ray at from Anto Macabreau on this one.
This is yet another one I think would do very well on four K,
especially with ful cheese. I don't know, there's something about his cinematography
that just begs you to pause every scene and digest it in because he has
such an eye for like his angles are just one of a kind on most
of his films, like Don't Torture a Duckling. I don't know if that's
going to be a part of the other top five, but that movie is
astonishing for every single scene that you pause and just look at every quarner and
go, he knew what he was doing in every single shot. Yeah.
It mystifies me when people dismissed him as a hack, because I suspect it
because of some of the later films. The later films were heavily compromised a
by his own health, B by the budgets. I mean, you know,
he just wasn't capable at that point of getting the same results. Although
they're better film than they're off given credit for the later movies. I tend
to like them more than most people do. But if you look at his
stuff in the sixties and seventies and into the eighties, oh, he was
doing things that Brian de Palmer got a lot of credit for later, using
split screens, split diopter, things like that, especially in Lizard and Woman's
chem but also in Perversion Story, which was his first Gallo from nineteen sixty
nine. Really really cutting edge stuff, really inventive dynamic filmmaking. And another
man who just you know, had boundless talent. He made great westerns.
He did one Pilitzisco, but it was a really good one. Did some
good comedies, He did some good action movies, I mean, did a
little bit of everything and did them really really well. You know, since
we get on his subject for a moment, I'm curious. Obviously Severn is
diving deep into Franco and Mono Micabroo has done a few. Fulci is kind
of similar in a lot of aspects to to Franco's output. At least,
do you think there's a chance anytime soon that we get to see any of
those early Fulci comedies on Blu Ray because I don't think anybody's dive had Dovan
dive in whatever into any of those movies. Yet, Uh, it would
sell great for like three people. I think you and me and Nathaniel Thompson
if we would buy them. I don't know if anybody else would. Uh.
I would love to see it happen. Daniel and I've talked about this
before, because there are other directors who like Massimo Dlamano, And you know
there's some some lesser known films that he did, like the End of Innocent
for example, or Innocent of Desire. Oh, I'd love to see that
put them. I don't know, but you know you say that. And
Severn's got The Five Days coming out not just on rate but on a four
KUHD. Now that you could have knock me over with a feather. I
thought they were just doing Blu Ray, had no idea they were going at
well, go go big or go home. I'd love to see it happen.
I think they should absolutely do a box set of full two comedies.
You know, I mean companies like Severn as they are releasing more and more
box sets that are intriguing people and buying them and so forth. They might
be able to rope some people in with something like that. I think it
would be worth a try. I would certainly love to see it happen.
His comedies have a lot of manic energy to them, especially his Franco and
Chichio films. Franco and Chiccio were kind of, you know, they were
like Abin and Costello, you know, Sicilian comics. The humor doesn't always
translate. It's very topical, it's very political, it's very you know,
it's very relevant to the time, and a lot of the gags just aren't
planned. But I think they're interesting films and I would certainly love to see
it happen. I don't know how they would do, and I don't know
if anybody's wanted to take a chance on it, but I hope that somebody
will. I think with Severn's Box as a good seven Luciofolgi comedy box,
that would do Gangbusters. I mean, if they can sell us Adamson and
have that go out print immediately, come on, well, I think you
know they would do. If they would do it, they would be wise
to also include something like Young Dracula, which is you know, that's Buci
in Vampire Terrain, Scot John Steiner in it. You know, it's got
some names that would be actually chi chos in that one as well. Funnily
enough, grass isn't that Uh? You could maybe put in My Sister in
Law, which is Ed beach Baneck film that he did, sexy comedy,
and The Eurotosist, a totally nonsensical title. The original title was something like
The Senator Likes Women Despite Public Appearances, which is a very very stylish,
very visually inventive and I think extremely funny movie that really has a lot to
say about Italian politics, Italian kind of gender politics as well, but also
the church. It's very very bitter and it's portrayal of the church. So
maybe put those three films in and add in a couple of the early black
and white ones and maybe you'd have a maybe you'd have a winner, and
then give us like a fulcy documentary. I'd kill I'll take my money right
now. That'd be incredible, all right For people that checked out your five
that you just gave and now they're looking to get deeper, what are some
of your deep cuts, Maybe some overlooked titles, something that are just these
are the heart of great jolly films, well deeper cut movies. I would
certainly say one of them for me would be Pupi Avati's film House with the
Laughing Windows, which is an incredibly creepy and disturbing film so far unavailable on
Blu Ray, although hopefully something will change with that. Some of Avati's works
are starting to come out, so there may be some hope there for that.
It's Uh. It's also one of the relatively few regional ja Alley.
It's not the film set in the city. It's set in a very small
village community and deals very much with you sort of superstition in addition to sort
of a series of killings that are going on, comes to very very memorably
creepy finale. It's it's I think it's a master Yeah, it's a great
movie. There's a I think there's a Shameless DVD that's probably the most common
release that people pick up for this one. But Shameless is uh is kind
of shameful a lot of the time, So it's not one that I recommend.
They're well, they're well named. When they get it right, they
get it right, but they very often get it wrong. Yeah, not
much really be said about that, but uh, and they often trash their
movies up too, and they make them look really goodly trashy, which is
is unfortunate. Ban Arrow did that too in the beginning. Lest we forget
the early days. If anybody remembers the cover for Pay of Blood or Inferno,
they they threw good taste out the window in the beginning, but they
made up for it later. Yeah, they think have turned it around.
What's what's number two on this list? Well, that's one you've already mentioned.
It's my favorite Lucco Bulci film and and really one of the great films
of all time for me, one of my top ten favorite films. Forture
Duckling when another regional Jallo film that again very much rooted in uh sort of
superstition and dealing with class conflict and prejudice and superstition and all these things kind
of going on. What's a kind of barbed commentary about the church and about
the authorities and so forth. The movie that was one of the one of
the two Filmschi was proudest of. They both start to mass Milia and the
other one Theater Tenci, which is another movie very much political and very much
pointed against the church. He was man of a very complicated relationship with and
uh, it's it's just an amazing, an amazing piece of work. The
most famous infamous scene in the film, of course, is when a character
is brutally beat to death in a graveyard anticipates the opening of the beyond.
There's change whipping going on, but the use of sound and editing and camera
angles everything that seems just well, yeah, uh, don't torture Duckling is
one that kind of changed Jallo's for me. By the time I finally saw
this, I said, so, this is what they can do. Basically,
it really elevated the appreciation for these films so much for me because this
is, in my opinion, Fulchee's masterpiece. Everything about this is just a
breath taking, immersive experience that is so hard to not have it sit with
you for a couple of days afterwards because it's so thought provoking. I love
that movie. Yeah, I know some people had some problems with the effects
at the end, which I you know, I get if I like the
symbolism. I've always found a fascinating, full sort of fascination with the destruction
of the body, sometimes going even into cartoonish extremes with something like the Spider
scene and the Beyond for example. Yes, it's very fake, but at
the same time it's something kind of fascinating about the way he just loves seeing
seeing the body being torn to pieces, very often slow motion. So the
ending I think absolutely works that. Yeah, it's in a great cast too,
if you're if you're immersed in these films, it's not a cast that
is going to be well known among more mainstream people, but if you're familiar
with Italian films are diventage, you've got people like Comas Milian, Barbara Bouchet,
Florinda Bulkan. It's a great cat absolutely all right. Getting deeper,
what's our number three? I'm trying to think of more kind of offbeat,
unusual jalli and one that comes to mind is then of Macabo put out recently
called Hotel Fear or Pension Poor, a nice Francesco Gurelli film, which is
a very very interesting film. And other regional film Believe me, there aren't
too many of them, but it's a thing. We have three in a
row like this, and stars the French actor Luke Mirenda, who was very
popular in the time film at this time. Plays a very nasty kind of
proto fascist character in that film, and a very very interesting, kind again,
kind of weirdly unsettling film that sneaks up on you. It's a movie
of subtlety. It's got a lot of great sort of tactile little touches and
it that really kind of immerse you into the film sort of set around the
time of the Second World War, and yeah, it's an off beat film,
very interesting, not one that's necessarily going to appeal to the body count
crowd perhaps, but I think a very worthwhile movie. I unfortunately have not
been able to see this one yet, so that just intensifies my desire to
see it. And from everybody that has picked up as Blue, I've only
heard great things that it is. It was the winner of that bundle.
It was one that people really appreciated. And Monto Micabro they are definitely deserving
of all of the championing any of us can give because they've brought out some
offbeat, wild off the wall titles for years. Pete and Jared together,
they they've got something magical going on because none of the movies are truly when
you put twelve of them together. They're not similar necessarily, but the label
has this odd personality that is just like I know that when their name is
on something, I know I'm probably gonna love it. Yeah, not everything
they put out necessarily appeals to me. There's certain things I'm like, yeah,
I'm good, But you know, a lot of them really do.
And I'm very very grateful to them, in particular for diving into some of
the Jess Franco stuff they've done, the Paul Nashy stuff they've done, for
example, and some of these other just wonderfully offbeat titles that they've picked up
and given really nice additions to. I mean, I was so glad when
somebody finally put out a good edition of The Devil's Nightmare for Exit, which
is another one of those early sort of formative euro Code experiences with me.
IF used to show on USA network a lot in eighties, So nice to
finally have that in a really nice edition. Also, Legend of Blood Castle
of Blood Ceremony to Cordy Grau film, well not really about Countess Bath three,
but based loosely on really excellent film. So yeah, they've done a
lot of good stuff. I realized as we were talking about that I may
miscounted. I don't know if that was number three or four, but I
know that we got at least one more left. I think it was three.
So this one, I feel like I have to have a Lensi in
here, So I'm going to go with Orgasmo, which was the first and
I think best of his jali. He is somebody who did a lot of
work in jalli ninjallo genre in general. He did a number of them through
the sixties and seventies, and they're all well worth seeing. They're all interesting,
they're all kind of radically different from one another. I mean, some
of them are closer to the Argento mold than others. This is part of
that kind of group of sexy jali I was talking about before, about good
looking people being atrocious to one another in beautiful settings. It's very much based
on Diabolique, the great arm Joors Blueseau film the fifties. So it's it's
a plot film. It's it's all about trying to drive somebody crazy, but
there's a couple of really nice twists along the way. A great soundtrack by
Piero Omaeani and yeah, yeah, it's good, good, good stuff.
This is one that is a part of the wonderful box set from Severn for
the Lindsay Baker box set, and it is that box set. I feel
like, and I've said this before, but I feel like that is going
to be the turning point for Severn. I feel like after from that box
set on, they've sort of gotten this air of prestige, that everything is
just taken this this quality leap. And not that they were terrible beforehand,
but it seems like they really got in touch with what makes Severn truly great
and that box set was just that specific turning point. And it's so well
done. The films they chose for mostly all great. Obviously the Carol Baker
of all she's incredible, but just a really good choice, great great movie.
Yeah, I was glad that they did that. Obviously. That was
the first ever LENSI set probably anywhere in the world actually, that they attempted
to do kind of a set specifically devoted to Lenzi And yeah, it's a
good one. All the films in that set are well worth watching, you
know. And yeah, they really went all out on it, so they
deserve all the high marks they can get for that one. I agree,
all right, let's bring it in for Landing. What is our fifth one?
For our deep cuts five? I think I'm gonna go with five dollars
for in August Moon Mario Bova film kind of in the Ten Little Indians vein,
a perversely blood free film, but at the same time, again beautiful
settings, of beautiful cinematography and extraordinary soundtrack. Biro Ominiani again did one of
the great scores for not just any Dowalo, but for any film. For
this movie, it's an amazing contract. It's a movie Bob I hated because
it was an assignment that he came to late in the day. He had
nothing to do with setting it up, He had nothing to do with casting
it, so everything was just kind of you given to him. He hated
the script, threw it away and improvised the movie. And you can kind
of tell because it doesn't always make sense, but it's okay because it's just
so beautifully done. And it's a great example of a great director taking a
not very good script and making something really interesting out of it. And had
that been handed to a less inspired filmmaker, I think it would have been
a really plotting movie, but the movie that he made certainly is not plotting.
I think the last time I saw this I had none of that context,
not knowing that was thrown together. It was very confusing at the time.
But knowing that and knowing knowing much more so who Baba is now it
is much much richer than if you would. You know, if you saw
this as an opening to Giallo film and that was one of your first tastes,
you would probably be turned off pretty quickly. So, yeah, this
is a good deep cut choice, and I think that it's it's one that
is deserving of a nice, really strong release and needs one. Yeah.
They Keino put it out over here, and Iro did it in the UK,
and they did nice enough with it, but you know, there's a
room for a better version. Hopefully it'll show up again. Uh you know,
I'm I don't think we've mentioned vinegar syndrome at all tonight. How do
you feel about their their their little forgotten jolly box sets that they've put out
so far. I was involved in the first one. I did a commentary
on a movie called Trauma, not to be confused with the Argento film,
but it was play on Claymobski's last film, the Argentinian film director who who
did a lot of calling Ashty's film. It's a really odd film and actually
a movie that significantly improved seeing it again in a better version character when I
first saw it, when I wrote about it in the third volume of The
Dead least so perverse. So again it's helpful to see these things in good
editions. I mean, I thought they were sort of hit and miss as
far as collections go. Some of the films were you know, they were
they were from the shallow end of the poll, let's say. But some
of the films were really, really quite good. And I was really glad
to see something like Autopsy, for example, or My Dear Killer another one
that thinks a really really good film getting a release. Forgotten. I don't
know about Forgotten, I mean, because some of them are fairly well known,
so I thought that was slightly slightly odd is a name? But and
of course it gets into the complicated issue too of what is it jallow and
what it's not a gallow? And different people have very different feelings on that
particular subject. So but I thought there was a worthy series, and I
hope they do more. I agree fully. The forgotten part is that the
only thing that I've ever really had an issue with, Because many of these
are titles people have been clamoring for for years, I wouldn't really call them
necessarily forgotten. Last question for you, just so you can have your night
back. I always laugh because there's so many people that are quick to say
something that comes out in twenty twenty two is like a modern American jallo or
something like that. So often I don't even get the parallels. It seems
like sometimes they're just grabbing on to bright colors or something. Are there any
films from the last say, ten years that you would say really fit the
mold of a modern jallo and really kind of hit all the spots for you
that you've enjoyed quite a bit. I'll give you one that was supposed to
be and that it wasn't. That was Last Night Soho, which I saw
I didn't particularly care for, to be honest with you, and I was
like, I don't see how this is anything like gallow Uh and the colored
lighting. Okay, yes you get that in Baba. You'll get that to
a certain extent with Fulk and Argenta, but not so much in a lot
of the other films, it's not really they don't really tend to go.
That's really more of an Italian horror thing. That's the Gothic or like,
you know, the Argento Suspiria Inferno type thing. So I think that was
that was a bit of a you know, mishmash uh kind of an idea
that that people lacked onto. It's like a Gallows. It really isn't over
the last few years something that that really got it, I mean, I
think, and I didn't like it at first. It took me two or
three viewing to really come to like it, but I really grew to like
Barbarian sound studio. M hm. That is admittedly probably closer to like DNIONI
felt than it is to a typical Gallow. The typical Gallo is really more
of a mainstream kind of a slightly trashier movie, so it's not really as
a sort of ethereal and yea artsy is all that. But I thought that
film got that atmosphere and that that kind of feeling of suspense down rather well.
So I would certainly point to that one as a good example. It's
a good choice. I'd probably throw out Knife plus Heart. I think it
got the you know, the black glove killer aspect. I think that even
a lot of the thematic sides of it you could throw in with some of
the sexier jallo. At least it is. It's a really well made movie
and also got a good release from Altered Innocence the Vender Syndrome partner label very
very interesting, too, nice, nice modern take. I would say,
yeah, I'd like to see somebody like us Fornoe do something in that thing.
Yeah, I'd love to see him do something like that. He definitely
has that capacity for that kind of stuff. You look at something like I
feel like the climax is far closer to the remake of Dyspiria than the remake
that we got, which was an interesting film, not nearly as good as
the original. It's interesting. It was too much, it was too excessive,
it was too indulgent, it was far too long, and there was
far too much too to swin for my taste. But you know, at
least they took it in a different direction. I could respect that. But
I thought the climax was really like, oh, that's closer to what I
thought, you know, with the pounding music, and the aggressive style and
everything, and just kind of unrelenting, just punching it, punching it,
punching it. I thought that was far closer to what a really good remake
of Suspiria ought to have been. So I'd like to see him do something
like that. He's he's a director kind of rises above any kind of real
genre though he's he's almost just a genre unto himself. So I don't see
him doing a straightforward There was talk of Nicholas finding Refin was going to do
or at least produce a remake of What Have You Done to Salange, which
is another one of the great Gallo films, massive with Delemano's film Ininte seventy
two. I don't know. I mean, why if he could do it,
if he could do justice to it, then why not. It could
be interesting, but I kind of wonder. I don't know how that subject
matter would play today, very timely now, certainly with some of the controversy
that's going on with bro v Wade and all that. You know that that
could be interesting, but I don't know how that would go over So but
no, definitely somebody that I would love to see you know if he was
going to do something a little bit along those lines, I'd be the first
one in mine to see that. Yeah, and I agree with you for
the most part on Last Night and So, I'd honestly love to see Edgar
Wright do an all out horror with his attempt at some of his jump cut
editing. I feel like he could do something frenetic and interesting, but I
don't know. I feel like he wanted to go there with Last Night and
Soho, and just something held him back for some reason. It's almost like
I just always felt like that way with Tim Burton. I mean, when
Timbert was still making decent movies, it was like he was afraid to commit
seriously to something, so there was always this kind of jokey thing, like,
you know, Sleepy Hollow has got the look of an Italian Gothic across
with like a Hammer or Roger Corman Poe movie. Some of the visuals are
really beautiful, the story's a mess, and the jokey tone just throws me
out all the time. It's like, can't you just commit something now?
He did get closer to that with something like Sweeney Todd, which I thought
was more interesting on the Wold. But you know, it's like they get
the aesthetic aspect right, but they can't quite get the mood of the atmosphere.
Right. I mentioned Halloween sequels. The reason Halloween sequels, you can
tell that David Gordon Green has studied John Carpenter and studied it very closely,
but he doesn't get it. He doesn't understand it. He doesn't understand how
to time things. He doesn't have Carpenter's sense of how to time those scarets,
you know, and how to generate the tension and suspense. There's no
suspense in those mountain sometimes. Yeah, it's just it's it's like you get
it, your heart's in the right place, but somehow or another you just
can't quite add it up quite right to get the right effects. I agree
fully. I'll remind everybody make them die slowly. Just released link for this
will be in the description below, So deadly superverse. I think you're still
out there to purchase right now, right, yeah, all those books should
still be you know, they are technically, like you know, printed on
demand, so as long as people want to buy them, they should be.
They should be available all through Amazon. I would love an updated hardcover
of all three of them in one giant book with some updates. Yeah.
I it's tough. You know, you worry about you don't want people to
think you're just being indulgent and ridiculous. And you know, I've done two
versions of the Bava book, but I still don't feel I got it right.
I'd like to go back to do a third, but you know,
how many times can you do that before people get this book. I'd like
to revisit the fool g to a certain extent as well, and certainly the
Jallo books. I would approach it differently now, I would. I would
definitely do it differently now than what I did at the time. So I
thought about it to a certain extent, and I'm like, you know,
I could theoretically go back and do a slightly different approach and just do a
different book on the subject. But I don't know. I'd have to give
it some more thought. Uh that sounds yeah, I get that. It's
difficult to write that line properly. Troy. Thank you so much for your
time. This has been incredible. I really hope everybody checks out a lot
of these recommendations. They are they were There were some great picks and then
not to mention, the entire conversation just went to some of those places that
a lot of people won't be willing to talk to, so I'm appreciative of
that. I don't know, I'll find myself being burned in effigy maybe,
but no, it was. It was a lot of fun, and I
thank you for having me. Hopefully you'll come back some time and we'll see
you next time. Thanks, be happy to to me. No