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“Don't you see it over there? Blood. Blood
everywhere!” Originally intended to be a frothy romcom about tourists
on an adventure in Rome, when horror maestro Mario Bava (Black Sunday)
entered the project, it changed into something altogether darker. Not only did
Bava transform the film, but he altered the face of murder mystery cinema.
Tracing its roots through Agatha Christie, Edgar Wallace, the German 'Krimi'
films, and Hitchcock, the giallo film – named after the yellow colour of pulp
novels detailing lurid murders and twisted crimes – was birthed by Bava.
The genre, which he would finesse the following year with
the technicolour terror of Blood and Black Lace, was turned – by Dario
Argento (The Bird With The Crystal Plumage), Sergio Martino (All The Colours of the Dark), et al – into a hugely popular cinematic
movement. So successful were the gialli, in-part through their sexuality and
blood-splashing violence, that the American slasher film came to pass (Bava's
own A Bay of Blood gave particular inspiration to Friday the 13th
Part 2). The importance of giallo films in the history of genre cinema
cannot be overstated. The transition, from paperback to celluloid, happened
here: The Girl Who Knew Too Much...
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