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[This October is "Gialloween" on Daily Dead, as we celebrate the Halloween season by diving into the macabre mysteries, creepy kills, and eccentric characters found in some of our favorite giallo films! Keep checking back on Daily Dead this month for more retrospectives on classic, cult, and altogether unforgettable gialli, and visit our online hub to catch up on all of our Gialloween special features!]

[This piece was done in collaboration with Gian Giacomo Petrone.]

Born in Villa del Conte, near Padua, Antonio Bido fulfills his academic education at the University of Padova, where he graduates in literature with a thesis on Italian horror cinema. His directorial debut arrives in 1970 in the form of the experimental feature-length project Dimensioni (translation: Dimensions), followed a year later by Alieno da (translation: Alien From), a film with a similarly Dadaist approach, both of which were much appreciated at various contemporary Italian festivals. After a brief apprenticeship with director Giuseppe Ferrara, in 1977 Bido gets to work on his first real film, produced and conceived within the structure of the industry and followed by professional technicians and actors, Il gatto dagli occhi di giada (Watch Me When I Kill). The success of this film will allow Bido to have exponentially greater decisional power on his next feature film, Solamente nero, another well-regarded effort. Despite this more than flattering beginning, Bido...

Italian producer Grazia Volpi, best known for bringing many works by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani to the big and small screens, including their Berlin Golden Bear winner “Caesar Must Die,” has died.

Volpi was 79, according to Italian press reports. The cause of death has not been disclosed.

Born in the Tuscan town of Pontedera, Volpi during the early 1960s started working as a production assistant in Rome, subsequently becoming a casting agent and line producer, and then setting up her own production company during the mid 1970s. She became a rare case of a woman producer in Italy’s male-dominated industry.

Volpi started working with the Taviani brothers in 1969 as a casting agent on the drama “Under The Sign of Scorpio,” their fourth work and the first feature they shot in color. The close rapport she forged with Italy’s prominent directorial duo is testified by a cameo she played...

So, I’ll be the first to admit that I have never seen this film, nor have I ever heard it mentioned, even on the corners of the internet where friends are obsessed with Italian cinema. However, this is a Raro Video Blu-ray, which means it will be part of my collection. I don’t know if you that are reading have ever purchased a Raro Blu-ray before, but they are fantastic releases, and serve a great purpose of exposing us to some of the best of the criminally ignored entries into the Italian genre film scene. On August 5th, Raro Video, in partnership with Kino Lorber will release the new Raro Video Blu-ray release of Bankers of God: The Calvi Affair, and if you’re a fan of what Raro and Kino do, then you should probably hit this link and pre-order a copy for yourself. Check out the press release below.

Francesco Quinn, son of Anthony Quinn and Dino's voice in Michael Bay's Transformers: Dark of the Moon, has died. Quinn collapsed, apparently from a heart attack, while jogging with his son Max in Malibu's La Costa neighborhood on Friday evening (Aug. 5). He was 48. One of Mexican-born, two-time Oscar winner Anthony Quinn's 13 children, Francesco Quinn was born in Rome on March 22, 1963. His mother was costume designer Jolanda Addolori. An actor for 25 years, Quinn was featured in more than 30 movies. His film debut took place in Oliver Stone's Oscar-winning Platoon (1986), in which he played the drug-dealing character Rhah. Among his other credits, usually in minor fare, were Casablanca Express (1989), Cannes Man (1996), and Man vs. Monday (2006). According to the IMDb, he has one movie coming out: Giuseppe Ferrara's Roma nuda. Charles Leinenweber and Thadd Turner's Buttermilk Sky was in pre-production for a possible 2012 release. Additionally, Quinn had roles...