Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Eye in the Labyrinth 1972

  ★★★½ Watched 16 Jan 2025

  A very smooth jazz giallo. It’s easy it’s sleazy it’s nice. The seaside town is a fun touch. It has an interesting mystery that can keep an audience hooked but is mercifully simple. While it’s not stunning visually it’s not without its moments including a memorable death via harpoon. 

  Also a trans character that isn’t absolutely cringeworthy. Always a nice touch for the genre.

• 

  Sex and Fury 1973

  ★★★½ Watched 16 Jan 2025

  Sex and Fury is one of these pieces of cinema that has really memorable moments but the narrative itself isn’t all that. I love so much of this. It feels like an arthouse director got a chance to do an exploitation film. And now I feel most films need a fight in the nude. But there’s so much in it that feels just fine. “Sex and Fury” should be called “Great but Uneven”.

Popular reviews

• 

  Knife+Heart 2018

  ★★★★★ Watched 17 Jan 2021 2

  I ADORE this film. Knife+Heart is beautiful, thought-provoking, and sleazy AF. It's hard to straddle the line between hardcore and sensitive, and this film manages it perfectly.

  Giallo has also been a near exclusively heteronormative genre and it's nice to see a film that adds some queerness to it. It's also the most risk-taking visual film I've seen in years, not only using vibrant color but negative film.

  Also, the soundtrack by M83 wound up immediately on my Spotify playlist!

• 

  Amuck! 1972

  ★★★★ Watched 15 Jan 2025

  The actual mystery of a giallo is usually not very satisfying or important. Amuck is the exception to that rule. A genuinely worth while story and it manages to pull off an alright twist. While it’s not the most visually innovative in the genre it more than makes up for that in sleaze, which it weaves organically into the story. 

  Also it’s the only film I’ve seen that features someone slapping another person to death.