Giallo

Two years ago, Argento’s conclusion of the Witch’s Trilogy felt like something from another world (and another era), and the same could be said about his new film. The atmosphere is reminiscent of the period of Deep Red, Opera and Tenebrae, but this time without any remarkable visuals. I don’t think that’s bad because the less Argento fools around with forms, the better he works with the actors, though here there’s still plenty of his typical play with colours – red and yellow in almost every scene. The film has a decent story, good actors, excellent (but not gratuitous) gore and a very good climax that, unfortunately, fails to go all the way. I will pretend I didn’t see the last scene :-) 7/10 (26/08/2009)

Argento's style of directing really appeals to me and his signature is evident in many shots. The film stars the great Adrien Brody as detective Enzo Avolfi – this character was well-written and even better portrayed. On the other hand, the character of the killer Yellow (Giallo), also played by Brody, was underdeveloped, uninteresting, and terribly unnatural. This was a huge disappointment for me. With Argento, I am used to well-developed characters of killers and also to an interesting twist, which was missing here. While I wasn't bored while watching, in the end, the film didn't give me much and rather disappointed me, as I saw a certain potential in it that unfortunately was not fulfilled. It needed some script adjustments and could have turned out much better. (20/01/2020)