FH Mini 127 - Always Room for Giallo, with Alejandro Arbona

Hey!

Oh, yeah, this is the Flophouse, and it's a Flophouse mini.

That is a mini episode of the classic hit podcast, the Flophouse Podcast, where we normally watch a bad movie and talk about it.

But today, we're doing one of our minis where we kind of do something a little bit different.

I'm joined, as always, by my co-host, Dan McCoy.

Hello, and we have a very special guest, my friend, comic book author, writer, and editor, Alejandro Arbona.

Alejandro.

Hello, guys.

Thank you.

Do I give you too many credits, author and writer?

Is that too much?

You know, when it comes to comics, authorship is really the artist and the writer.

Yeah, okay.

Thank you for correcting me.

Of course, Elliot is, I don't know, on the moon fighting scrolls or something.

Right.

Yeah.

Elliot is doing something or other.

I was like, hey, we got a mini scheduled.

And he's just, he just held up his hands, holding what, a slice of bread with mayonnaise on it and one with mustard.

and he's like too busy

yep uh yeah so uh alejandro you were kind enough to come down because uh you have a new book on the way and uh i just want to say uh i've been friends with alejandro for a while you've been coming to the bar one of my bars is that okay i don't know

yeah of course yeah

uh and yeah we've we've connected and talked about comics and things like that um You worked for Marvel for quite a while.

I'm a longtime editor and writer of comics.

And in that capacity, I first met Elliott.

We had a chance to work together a couple of times at Marvel and later at a company called Valiant.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

About Elliot, not Valiant or Marvel.

And then I was living in Kensington when Hinterlands opened.

So I quickly became a regular there.

And that's how we all got to know each other.

And that's how I came to be here.

How did you, how did you get into

working in comics?

There's really nothing to that story.

I thought it would be fun, and I wrote a letter into Wizard Magazine.

And they hired me.

There's There's something to that story.

I feel like writing a letter into Wizard Magazine is like, that's like a kid's dream of how to get hired in comics.

Yeah, I was I was doing a little bit of freelance like publishing type stuff and I bought an issue of Wizard Magazine.

They said they were hiring.

That was 20,

a little more than 20 years ago.

I started my career in comics at Wizard Magazine.

But did you have like a writing background or?

Not really.

I went to film school.

I was very interested in comics.

I was actually trying to break into working in comics.

I was hoping to, you know, I was trying to cold email people at Marvel in D.C.

and see if I could get hired.

And then that's the kind of backdoor of how I ended up at Wizard, just because I was looking at all the stuff that was out there and I saw they were hiring and then

that's awesome.

We, you know, Dan and I both kind of backed into working in comics as well as both lovers.

But I mean, like, the way we got around to working in published comics is kind of weird when we got invited to write for the Flash Gordon holiday special.

Yeah, I mean, I'm just laughing because, like, you know, I haven't written anything for a comic

in so long at this point that I, but I have like been like, maybe I should get back in touch.

Maybe I can look at it.

Yeah, you totally should.

It just goes to show there is no one way to break into comics.

Everybody comes in with their own story.

Uh-huh.

No two stories are alike.

Big hopes and big dreams.

Oh, yeah, big money.

Big money dreams.

So it's funny that you mentioned that you have a film background because the

you have a new comic that is coming to Kickstarter soon.

You want to talk about it?

It's interesting to me because it is so related to film.

And we are, in fact, I believe, checking the 10, a film podcast.

Well, thank you.

Thank you for that prompt.

Yeah, I wrote a 90-page graphic novel.

It's almost finished, and we are about to hit Kickstarter with basically just the goal of paying to print it and ship it.

Okay.

It's called.

Is that traditional for comics Kickstarters?

No, you know, when it comes to comics Kickstarters, it can be a really risky thing to back one because a lot of times you're paying a high funding goal for a team or a singular cartoonist to write and draw the whole thing.

It could take two years.

I'm still waiting to get a book that I backed in 2018.

But that person keeps posting updates.

That book is happening.

Anyway,

usually that's the case.

You back a Kickstarter in order to finance the creators working on the book.

And it could take a year or so.

This one, I had a rare opportunity.

I was able to do this book on my own, 90 pages.

It's almost finished now.

The art is finished.

Coloring will be finished right after the Kickstarter campaign ends.

That's awesome.

So we'll be able to pretty much wrap it up and ship it pretty quickly.

It's called Lake Yellowwood Slaughter.

It is a very tongue-in-cheek.

It is a slasher.

It is a 1983 slasher movie.

That's basically the idea.

It actually started as the idea came to life when I was watching a movie with some of my old wizard magazine friends.

We were watching Sleep Away Camp 2.

We were all kind of reminiscing about childhood summer camp memories.

And I, jokingly, I just said, imagine a slasher movie where...

The parents are excited to have their child-free summer of sex and booze and drugs.

Okay.

And then the killer goes after them instead.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

So that's that's the elevator pitch, basically.

It gets a little more meta because it is, in fact, the quote-unquote official comic book adaptation of a 1983 slasher movie that never existed.

Yeah, there's definitely a part of Stewart that's like, oh, I love that idea.

That's so amazing.

It gets even more meta.

And this is where people often advise me to stop pitching because it gets too confusing.

It is a slasher movie that was made by a Jallo director who came from Italy to Hollywood to cash in on slashers because it was the early 80s and the Jallo moment was dying down and his career was winding down.

Okay.

And yeah, so that's all of that is the behind the scenes stuff, but basically it's just a tight 90-page.

You're in, you're out.

The killing.

Yeah.

But you're checking all the boxes.

People who like comics, people who like slaughters, people who like Giallo.

People who like complex layers.

I think that that's really funny because I so I promised that I was going to, for one of our bonus content, make this

an audio version of this sitcom thing that I wrote.

And when I gave it to Elliot, he's like, this has two framing devices.

You should probably remove one of them.

And I'm like, no,

I'm not going to.

I already cut a third framing device out, so I can't kill these other darlings.

I feel beholden to mention since I said earlier that the authorship of a comic is always the artist and the writer combined.

The artist is Gavin Guidry, who is is a really great young artist who I'm very, very, very excited to do this comic with.

Awesome.

Has this artist done anything else that you can direct people to?

He, as we speak, has just finished drawing a run on Action Comics.

Oh, cool.

Featuring a guy you might have heard of, Superman.

Oh, he also.

What's his deal?

What powers does he have?

Well, there's a movie coming this summer.

You can see for yourself.

Who's he verse?

I'm sure that everyone's really happy about this movie, and there's no weird group of people who would prefer it to be like some bad movies that have seen in the past.

Those weird group of people might be our hugest fans.

That is none of my business.

Gavin also recently did some Uncanny X-Men and stuff like that.

He's great.

He's been working for a little while, but he's like an emerging artist.

I think he's about to break out in a big way.

I'm really excited.

I think I got very lucky to be able to get him on board for this right before he has a big moment.

I feel like, I don't know, again,

Dan and I have both worked within the comics world a little bit, and it still hasn't got, I still haven't gotten over the feeling of like having an artist draw the thing I wrote and how cool that is.

Stuart, I have worked in comics for 20 years.

Yeah.

And when Gavin started sending me pages for this, I felt like this is a dream come true.

This comic is actually turning out better than I ever imagined it.

It is a dream come true.

I'm so, I'm so lucky.

So

what are some of your influences here film-wise?

Because you met, I mean, specifically mentioned Giallo and Slasher movies.

Do you have like a firm, like a big background in those two things?

I've definitely been a longtime lover of slasher movies in particular.

Giallo is kind of a newer thing to me, but I've spent the last two years, I'd say, maybe immersing myself to a degree that may not even be healthy.

I think at this point, I've watched about something like 100 Giallo movies, and I have a list.

It's far from complete.

I have a list of maybe like 100 more that I still want to get to.

Where does does one find this list?

I have a list on Letterboxd, but it is private

because I don't want people quibbling with me about the definition of Jallo.

That's a big thing with Jallo fans is that some people are like kind of doctrinaire.

Some people are kind of strict about what is or isn't a Jallo.

Genre fans are weirdly specific about their niche genres.

Can you speak about like what the issue is?

Because I know that a lot of people do use it to sort of refer to Italian horror, which is not correct, really.

I mean, like, it's like, you know, like there's horror movies that are giallos, but they are like non-supernet.

Like it's a, it's about, you know, killers.

It's more of a thriller horror, you know, in its most strict sense.

Is that, are there other issues that people have?

No, absolutely.

There is a definition of giallo that is very specific and very easy to wrap your mind around, but then that becomes the sticking point where people insist on it being exactly that.

I would say for the casual viewer, for people who don't necessarily know Jallo in depth, when you say Jallo, people think of Sesperia right away.

Sesperia is

pretty much not a Jallo.

Yeah, it's about witches.

It's about witches.

It's a very supernatural.

I think people associate Sesperia with Jallo because it does have some strong Jallo elements.

It has a mystery element, which is a big part of

the thing.

And I'm going to give you a definition in a lot of close-ups on eyeballs.

I think it also has to do with the fact that Dario argento in particular the director is so singularly associated with giallo that when he makes a non-giallo movie people are like it's the pointing at the butterfly meme is this giallo yeah you know whereas mario bava another arguably the other

father of the modern of the giallo uh mario bava made crime movies and he made gothic horror and he made uh sci-fi playing worlds of empires and things like that and no one ever confuses those for giallo yeah what's the other one like i i don't have italian so i can't say it right, but there's like the Polizia ones.

Polizioteschi.

Yeah, it's like different somehow.

Yeah, well, Polizioteski is like a cop movie.

Yeah.

Sort of a genre into itself, but there's a lot of Jallo, especially later.

What do you call it like a police story?

Super cop.

Or police story two.

But to give you a definition, I would say the

real definition of Jallo is that it is a murder mystery specifically.

It is a whodunit.

It has a cast of characters, and the killer is one of that cast.

It's not like your anonymous slasher who is out for revenge.

It's somebody in the cast who has some kind of motive, often profit or, you know, like knocking off a family one by one to get the inheritance or revenge or some kind of psychological

psychological trauma.

Killer usually wears a trench coat.

Yes.

So in America, Scream would be a jello, but not Friday the 13th.

Yes, Friday the 13th

is definitely your textbook slasher.

Although the first one maybe actually would be more of a Jallo.

Well, it's funny you say that because those early slashers,

the first Friday the 13th or the first two

certain movie, or well, certainly part two, which steals two kills in a row from Bay of Blood.

Two kills that happen in a row in Bay of Blood.

Wow.

You heard it here, folks.

I mean, Jallo fans can tell you this.

Everyone knows that.

But

where was I?

Yeah, the definition of the Jallo is frequently the knocking off a cast of characters one by one to building up to the eventual reveal of what is the trauma, what is the motive,

who is the killer behind the mask.

Whereas with slashers, it's always like a purely revenge driven, you know, or some kind of obsession or.

Is New York Ripper a giallo?

New York Ripper is a giallo.

New York Ripper is late in the history of the Jallo phase.

It's from the 80s.

There are still giallos being made today, obviously, but the golden age of the giallo is

basically from at some point in the mid to late 60s, going through the

late 70s.

It's basically like a 10 solid years of that's the prime time of the giallo.

I'll give you the quick evolution of how they came along.

Sure, yeah.

There was a publisher in Italy called Mondadori that famously would publish genre books with a colored cover for for each genre.

And they would publish mysteries, murder mysteries and thrillers with yellow covers.

Giallo is the Italian word for yellow.

So people started calling the books themselves

giali as a shorthand for what that was.

Incidentally, those Mondadori yellow books would frequently publish translations in Italian of Agatha Christie novels, of Edgar Allan Poe novels.

As a result, a lot of people in Italy growing up reading these books are obsessed, obsessed with Edgar Allan Poe.

And Agatha Christie.

Agatha Christie in particular wrote one book,

and then there were none.

That book by itself is like the blueprint of what a giallo is.

That has the structure.

It has certain visual elements.

It's a book about, you know, a group of strangers are gathered in a place by someone and they don't know why.

They're in a private island.

They're on a private island.

They don't know who brought them there or why.

And then they start being killed off one by one.

And there's even a visual element of like the the dinner table is decorated with figurines and each time that someone gets knocked off one figurine disappears love it which is the textbook like a jallo movie um the only key difference between that and a jallo is that the author the killer doesn't wear any glove mask nothing like that of course because it's a book so concealing their identity just means not describing yeah yeah if you don't describe them then the reader doesn't doesn't see them um but when you turn that we turn that into a visual element then you have to add a mask, a hat, a glove.

Yeah, and like, I guess, I guess the trench coat and like gloves are only there to like disguise the identity, right?

And frequently to disguise the gender, because, you know, a killer can always be revealed to be a woman, but with black leather gloves, you wouldn't suspect it necessarily.

That's a funny thing that that became such a trope in early Diallo movies that they eventually had.

It's like

the

false flags on different gender identities.

Yeah, you see.

A killer being revealed to be a woman.

It's like,

well, like De Palma stuff, like

whatchamacallit?

Not body double.

Dressed to kill.

Dressed to kill.

Dress to kill.

I'm so happy you brought that up because that

Brian De Palma movies and Giallo are kind of tied together closely.

The other thing that all these Italian filmmakers were so obsessed with, aside from Chrissy and so forth, was Alfred Hitchcock.

Yeah.

Same as the French, like, new wave Calleur du Cinema people were obsessed with Hitchcock, the the Italians were obsessed with Hitchcock.

So in 1960, Hitchcock made Psycho, and coincidentally, a British director, Michael Powell, made this movie Peeping Tom.

And those two movies, same as, and then there were none, those two movies seem like blueprints for the Giallo.

Interestingly, Psycho is black and white, and Peeping Tom is like lurid color, technicolor, greens and purples.

I feel like color is such a big part, like

specific, clear color choices is such a big part of Giallo.

Yeah, and that's singularly down to Mario Baba.

So Mario Baba, only a couple of years after Psycho, he made a movie called The Girl Who Knew Too Much, which by itself is a Hitchcock reference already, the title.

And that is considered to be the first Giallo because it has that particular story structure of she thinks she witnesses a murder and now someone is after her.

The killer's identity is unknown all the way until the end.

It features John Saxon.

And then that kind of kickstarted everything.

And then immediately people started to make a million of these movies.

And then a few years later, he made,

but The Girl Who Knew Too Much was in black and white.

A few years later, he made Blood and Black Lace, which is like you were saying, it's lurid technicolor.

That's kind of the movie that set the standard for the use of color in Jallo.

Oh, cool.

And then some years after that, Dario Argento made his first movie, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage.

And

that's the last piece of the puzzle.

Like that became the final influence for what would be the textbook Giallo movie.

Yeah.

And then now all Giallo is everything.

It's all measured against those things.

Pretty much.

Yeah.

And the reason I responded to when you mentioned Brian DePalma before is that Brian DePalma was himself so influenced by Alfred Hitchcock that when he started to make his thrillers in the 70s and 80s, everyone kind of...

People who knew Giallo started to refer to Brian DePalma as like a neo-Giallo or American Giallo, which I think he claimed he

disavowed that influence.

He said he's not familiar with Jallo.

That's not what he was trying to do.

It's strange, though, because like, I mean, I don't, it's not like I disbelieve him, but to me, what he does is so much closer to Jallo than actually Hitchcock.

Like he, you know, he pulls things from Hitchcock, but his style is so florid, like a Giallo director, not like Hitchcock is a, you know, it's very like well-constructed sequences, but it's more of a classical sort of way of doing it, I think.

Yeah, I agree.

I don't disbelieve him either, but it's interesting that if his big influence was Hitchcock, it's funny that it should come like Body Double, for example, is such a giallo, it feels like.

Well, and that he that he evolved like his evolution of that Hitchcock influence is so similar to the like Italian evolution of the Hitchcock influence.

You know, one thing that's really interesting to me is when people talk about like

making a making neo-Giallo or making a modern giallo.

I've never heard anyone else talk about this, but I really feel like um

like a 90s erotic thrillers are effectively like a lot like Jallo movies.

In particular, I think the one that the that stands out the most is uh Color of Night.

Yeah, which like starting with the title alone is already so giallo.

Yeah, the uh what about have you I mean I don't just want to go down a list of like have you seen this giallo have you have you but have you seen the editor the uh the like uh kind of the parody of giallo

about it.

It's from

the same collective of guys who made

Psycho Gore Man and Father's Day.

Oh, no, I haven't seen that one.

And yeah, it's really funny.

And

it's obviously like a love letter to, it's both a parody and a love letter to Giallo.

I'm going to add that to my private letterbox list.

There's also,

I watched this weird little one from, there was like a micro micro-budget one shot in like southern Indiana called Three Tears on Bloodstained Flesh.

And it is like, it has all the hallmarks.

It's like a weird like Midwestern giallo that works so well.

I think like, it's obviously not perfect or anything,

but it's, I found it to be really funny and fun.

And it's not a parody at all.

It's just like a straight, like, what if these tiny budget filmmakers in the Midwest decide to make a makeup giallo in their backyard, basically?

I like it.

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So,

yeah, you were saying,

in addition to dragging you on here to talk Giallo, you have a quiz for us.

Yes, I brought you one of the most fun things about Giallo movies is the title.

The titles of Jallo movies are so florid and so great, and I'm a huge fan of them.

So I brought you guys a Giallo title quiz that I'm springing on you completely, completely unseen.

Okay.

This is going to be entirely new to you.

Okay.

And

you know the expression: play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Oh,

this is going to be a stupid game, and I brought a stupid prize.

Whoever racks up the most points gets to keep this already opened, two-thirds empty bottle of JB.

Why JB?

JB is Giallo's liquor of choice.

It is in practically every movie.

Linted scotch whiskey.

Look at it.

What I like is that it's

knowing Alejandro.

I feel like

how much of, at what point did you realize that you don't actually like this bottle that you're drinking?

Have you developed a taste for it?

I kind of have.

I love the look of the bottle.

Yeah.

I don't like the flavor of the scotch.

It's also very hard to find around here because it is very little in demand.

So most liquor stores don't carry it.

I had to search far and wide to find one place that did.

And then, you know, I've bought a few bottles.

This is not my first bottle here.

This was actually a prop bottle that I was using a couple of days ago when we shot the video for the Kickstarter campaign.

Shot at Flophouse's favorite movie theater, The Nighthawk.

Yes, indeed.

The Nighthawk Cinema very graciously allowed us to shoot in there.

And we're very excited for how it's going to turn out.

I I haven't seen it yet, but

yeah, when I was watching a lot of Giallo movies, I started to notice, like, oh, wait a second, it's JB again.

Oh, my God.

And then I started to realize, no, it's practically every single movie with exceptions.

But then you start to realize it's not only Jallo.

It actually turns up in a lot of movies.

I mean, one of my favorite directors is John Carpenter, and it's in The Thing.

Plays a big role in The Thing where Macready pours it into the computer

after it beats him at chess.

Well, the J does stand for Gustorini.

Maybe that's an Italian.

It started as an Italian brand and then it was centuries ago, weirdly.

And then it was bought by a British guy, which is the B, Brooks.

So yeah, Gustorini and Brooks.

It has a long history.

I don't know in detail what the history is, but it is a centuries-old brand, weirdly.

Anyway, here we go.

I brought you guys a little answer key, a little key of shorthand to what titles I'm going to be quizzing you on

because they're long and confusing.

I

want to give you some shorthand, but

here we go.

If you guys are ready to begin,

put on your black leather gloves, sharpen your straight razor, pour yourself a highball glass of JB.

We're going to play the Jallo title quiz.

It's a few short rounds, a couple of questions.

One question for each of you per round.

Each question, one point.

So let's go.

Round one.

Let me discard this paper.

Round one.

Jallo titles are frequently very elaborate phrases and even complete sentences.

However, unlike Hollywood titles like The Assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford or Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, these elaborate Jallo titles don't necessarily tell you what happens in the movie.

I will read you a plot synopsis from Letterboxd.

You match it to the Jallo title.

Okay, first, Dan.

Olive Yero is a drunk, burned-out writer who amuses himself by hosting orgies at his grand country manor and humiliating his wife, Irina.

When a number of women are murdered in grisly fashion, Olive Yero becomes a prime suspect.

Is this all the colors of the dark?

A lizard in a woman's skin, your vice is a locked room and only I have the key, or seven blood-stained orchids.

Oof.

These are all real names.

He didn't make these up.

These are, I have, I have prepared this quiz with great intellectual rigor.

Everything here is very thorough.

Everything here is accurate.

Well,

going by what you say, C seems almost too

much like what you're talking about.

It's orgies, your vice is a locked room and only I have the key.

Which is such a banger of a title.

Yeah.

It definitely sounds like

some

2000s alt rock band would would have named their album that.

So I'm going to go with seven blood-stained orchids.

D.

The same director, Sergio Martino, made a movie called The Strange Vice of Mrs.

Ward.

And in that movie, there's a scene where the titular Mrs.

Ward, Edwidge Fenneck, a great queen of Giallo, is sent a note from her

abusive ex-husband that says, Your vice is a locked room and only I have the key.

Wow.

That is, in fact, the title of his next movie, which is this one.

So the correct answer was C, your vice is a locked room and only not have the camera.

Oh, that was cool.

Oh, I talked myself out of it.

Yeah.

Okay, next question.

Stuart.

A reporter and a promiscuous young woman try to solve a series of child killings in a remote southern Italian town, rife with superstition and a distrust of outsiders.

Is this the suspicious death of a minor?

Seems too obvious.

The police are blundering in the dark.

Hmm.

The case of the scorpion's tail.

It's pretty cool.

Or don't torture a Duckling.

I think I'm going to say Don't Torture a Duckling.

That is correct.

Yes.

Don't Torture a Duckling.

Why did I get that one?

I've actually seen Don't Torture a Duckling.

That's the only one so far that I've seen.

Don't Torture a Duckling is a giallo directed by Lucio Fulci, who in general is not one of my favorites because his movies are so, so gory.

But this is an early one, and it's actually very beautiful.

It does have a lot of weird psychosexual issues, but I think it's one of the best.

It's actually one of my favorite Jallos.

Later in the early 80s, he directed New York Ripper, which you mentioned earlier, Stuart.

And that movie is so gross.

I have a hard time watching it.

See, we have opposite tastes.

I'm like, I want my Jallo to be gross and weird.

And so I love New York Ripper.

And like, Don't True Tra Duckling is almost too sad to me because it's about child murders and the

provincialism of this Italian town.

I'm like, I don't want actual like stuff in my movie.

It is a weird thing being a Jallo fan because it's hard to recommend these to people.

A lot of times even the best ones can be so tough to watch.

Yeah.

And they should come with a lot of content warnings and all that kind of thing.

I want a movie where a guy murders people with a flute.

There are two different two different Jallo movies where the murder weapon is a carved wooden dildo.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

So

that's the kind of thing.

Round two, multiple choice question.

Jallo movies could sometimes go through multiple releases and re-releases, international releases, different edits on home video, often collecting new titles along the way.

I'll give you a Jallo's better-known original title.

You pick the alternate title it was also released under.

Dan, your movie is Deep Red.

Is the alternate title?

A, The Hatchet Murders, B, Carnage, C, Red Rings of Fear.

Okay.

I've seen Deep Red, and I don't think he used a hatchet, or whoever it was.

I can't remember who the murderer was, maybe a she.

I'm going to go with B Carnage.

The correct answer is A, the hatchet.

I am so sorry.

I should point out, this is how seriously I took this quiz.

All of these titles are all alternate titles.

Wasn't that a straight razor in Deep Red?

I can't believe it.

The first person he kills is

the telepath, the psychic woman.

He gives a hatchet to the back of the head.

Okay.

I gotta revisit Deep Red.

I remember really liking that one.

Hi, this is Alejandro with the voice memo.

The morning after recording this episode, I woke up in a cold sweat with the sickening, sickening realization that I had said something wrong on the internet.

Dan was right.

There is no hatchet in the hatchet murders.

The scene I was thinking of involved a meat cleaver.

So my apologies to Dan.

It's funny, the same thing happens in a Mario Baba movie.

It was called The Red Sign of Madness in Italian, and they released it in the US as a hatchet for the honeymoon, despite the fact that the killer obviously uses a meat cleaver.

Stuart, your movie is Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll.

Is the alternate title?

Yeah, it's the alternate title A.

The Psychic.

B, the Evil Eye.

C, House of Psychotic Women.

And it was Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll.

I'm going to say,

I think I'm going to keep it simple.

I'm going to say The Psychic.

The Psychic is the alternate title of another Lucio Fulci movie that was also called Seven Notes in Black.

The alternate title of Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll inspired the title of Kirila Janice's seminal book, House of Psychotic Women.

Yeah, okay.

So that is the one.

I have a round two bonus question.

Okay.

Speaking of alternate titles, highly controversial upon its release, Bay of Blood went on to become one of the most successful and influential Drallo of all.

It had two theatrical runs in Italy, a theatrical run in Spain, a U.S.

theatrical release, and multiple recut home video releases.

Which of these five titles was not an alternate title for Bay of Blood?

You can each take a turn answering.

Is it Chain Reaction,

Twitch of the Death Nerve, Ecology of Crime, Last House on the Left Part 2, or Bay of Blood.

Dan, you go first.

I'm going to go with Ecology of Crime.

Okay, Stuart.

I'm going to say Twitch of the Death Nerve.

You're both wrong.

Oh, no.

Twitch of the Death Nerve is the best alternate title.

The best alternate title any movie has ever had.

Ecology of Crime, I'm sorry, is also wrong.

Which of these five titles was not an alternate title for Bay of Blood?

Ecology of Crime is actually the original title.

Bay of Blood was an alternate title.

Oh, okay.

It was actually released in theaters as Ecology of Crime and Chain Reaction, and then it was released in Spain with the title Bay of Blood.

Bahía de Sangre.

Okay, round three.

So wait, it was Last House and the Left Part 2.

Is that the wrong one?

No, they are all.

They're all.

They are all actual titles that were used for Bay of Blood, but only Ecology of Crime was not an alternate title.

It was the original

title.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, who is right?

What was the right answer?

Is what I'm asking.

Oh, you know what?

I got that wrong.

You're right.

Dan is right.

Okay.

Oh, okay.

My mistake.

I'm sorry.

I scored that one wrong.

Dan, my apologies.

No, that's right.

Should we retake that?

No, no, no, no.

That's fine.

All the confusion is what the it's what Fluffhouse fans clamor for.

How ramshackle we are.

Well, like the plot of a jallo, this quiz is very convoluted and very confusing.

So it's confused God damn it, these titles.

Okay, round three.

Now you know that Bay of Blood was originally titled Ecology of Crime and then Chain Reaction theatrically in Italy, yet it's best known by its theatrical release title from Spain, Bay of Blood.

Likewise, many U.S.

Giallo releases discard the original Italian title entirely.

In the reverse of round two, this time I will give you a Giallo's better known alternate title.

You pick the original translated Italian title.

Dan, you go first.

The fifth chord.

Was this titled Concerto for Solo Pistol,

Black Day for Aries, the zodiac sign Aries, one on top of the other?

Oh boy.

I assume, here's the problem.

Like I assume that these are all actual,

you know, titles for other ones.

So I can't go like, oh, you know, like one on top of the other sounds like it's, you know, Italian translated from, but I'm, I'm just going to go with my guts.

I mean, I keep it one on top of the other.

I'm sorry, that's incorrect.

The correct answer was B, a Black Day for Aries.

Good name.

These are, in fact, all original Italian titles for movies that are better known by their alternate titles.

One on top of the other was released in the U.S.

as Perversion Story.

Just gotta say it's a better title.

Perversion Story, yeah.

Yeah, that's pretty cool.

Yeah, and then Concerto for Solo Pistol was something called The Weekend Murders, which I actually have not seen.

Concerto for Solo Pistol is a fair name.

Yeah, I agreed.

Stuart, your title, What Have They Done to Your Daughters?

Was this originally called Murder by Vocation, Revelations of a Sex Maniac to the Chief of the Mobile Squad?

Or the police are asking for help?

I mean, I would feel like a fool if I didn't go with my gut and say Revelations of a Sex Maniac to the Chief of the Mobile Squad.

That is a a good one.

I'm sorry.

It is

the police are asking for help.

Okay, that was a scotch round for all around.

So wait, Revelations of a Sex Maniac to the Chief of the Mobile Squad.

What's the other name for that one?

That is,

oh, where's my answer to you?

I'm drawing a total blank.

That is So Sweet, So Dead.

That's also a good name.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm just, I could be remembering that wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's So Sweet, So Dead.

Round four.

Here's a nice simple round.

Pick the title that isn't a real movie.

Okay.

Dan,

The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire, Footprints on the Moon, Strip Nude for Your Killer, Hacked Apart, or The New York Ripper.

Obviously, you can rule out the New York Ripper.

Mm-hmm.

And I know that Strip Nude for Your Killer is also real.

Yeah, that's in your search history.

I'm going to go, just because it sounds less giallo-y to me, I'm going to go Footprints on the Moon.

Footprints on the Moon is a very beautiful, very beautiful movie that people often

claim is not a giallo because it's not really a murder mystery, but it definitely is a mystery.

It was directed by Luigi Bazzoni, who also did a movie called The Fifth Chord that I like a lot.

No, the answer here was hacked apart.

That was my other one because it seemed too simple.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stuart, pick the title that isn't a real movie: The Flower with the Petals of Steel, The Pajama Girl Case, My Killer Dismembered Me, The Sweet Body of Deborah, or The Laughing Woman.

Okay, let me go down through these.

So, Flower with the Petals of Steel, that sounds like a giallo, right, Dan?

Uh, that's very complicated.

Oh, yeah, you're ahead.

The Pajama Girl case is okay.

My Killer Dismembered Me.

I like that name.

That's very much I know who killed me right there.

The sweet body of Deborah, also, it's very flurried.

There's a lot of there's a lot of descriptors.

I'm going to say, I think the laughing woman, although I like the name, I think the laughing woman is too simple.

For one of the promotional things I've come up with for Lake Yellowwood Slaughter, I came up with the whole backstory of who the director is and what other movies he's made.

And he is a made-up, he's a made-up Italian director called Giacomo Mezzasalma.

And he made giallo movies, including one which was called, a movie of my own invention was called La Sassino Mias Membrato, which means The Killer Dismembered Me,

a movie which in my canon was released in the U.S.

as Hacked Apart.

So that's what those two titles were.

So My Killer Dismembered Me, great title.

Good one, Alejandro.

That's an Alejandro Urbona invention.

Thank you.

And now that's almost the end of the game.

Stewart has two points.

Dan has one.

We could leave it at that.

I did come up with a bonus round in case we have a chance to die.

Give me the chance to die.

Let's do it.

Yeah, okay.

Let's do this.

We'll call this double or nothing, Dan.

Can you not go?

No, no, no.

Okay.

This is a very open-ended.

This is just

not a multiple choice,

not a pick a title or anything.

This is a very open-ended question that's going to be very, very, very hard.

I would say nigh impossible to figure out unless you know these movies.

Even if you have seen these movies, you might not think of it.

So this is basically an impossible point.

But then

I do have a follow-up question, which might be easier.

Okay.

So this is potentially worth two points, maybe one, most likely zero.

The tiebreaker round, the non-existent tie,

these five Giallo movies have one plot detail in common.

What is it?

The titles are Who Saw Her Die, Autopsy, Don't Torture a Duckling, The Bloodstained Shadow, and Seven Bloodstained Orchids.

What could those five movies have in common?

I haven't seen any of them.

I've only seen Don't Torture a Duckling.

I've listened to the band Autopsy, so maybe I have an advantage there.

My guess is

that there's a ghost in the movie of a person who's been killed, one of the victims.

I'm going to say that

the

red herring, a mistaken killer, someone who they think is going to be the killer, is killed.

Okay.

I would say that's a thing that applies to maybe 100% of Jalan.

So, technically correct, And.

Yeah, I guess so.

Well, I meant that people are like, oh, this person's the killer.

We're going to kill.

We're going to.

These five movies in particular one thing they have in common is that uh a roman catholic priest is a character okay in each of these movies now follow-up question um in which movie is that plot detail unlike the others which movie stands out for that plot detail actually being different in one way so dan you've seen don't torture deathling i'm gonna say it is don't torture deathling and the difference is that the priest is the killer uh the correct answer is autopsy

The priest is not the killer.

Oh, the only time it didn't happen.

Okay, so it looks like I walked away with this.

Yeah, you walked away with one.

If the listener did not want a spoiler there, go back and then go ahead.

Just get, you know, dial into the eternal sunshine machine and erase it.

You know, I accept my victory.

You know, I'm going to chalk it up to my skills.

But I think this this highlights a thing where I,

you know, I kind of have a complicated relationship with Giallo movies.

I was not, I wasn't a big fan of Dario Argento, and I kind of like stayed away from a lot of fulci stuff.

But then, you know, I've found that like De Palma's movies and other like clearly influenced by Giallo movies are definitely more my speed.

But if I wanted to like

dip my toes in,

what are a couple of like good intro points?

I'm sure there's some of the things you've already mentioned.

It's funny that Dario Argento is such a ready association for people looking to get into Jallo.

I love Dario Argento, but as we discussed before, maybe half his movies or half of his better-known movies are not necessarily Jallo because they're supernatural.

And then of the ones that are Jallo, some of them are so-so, you know, like I'm not a big fan of

cat of nine tales and whatever.

on in argento in particular i love the bird with the crystal plumage and i love tenebrae which is an early 80s one i saw um those two i love a lot and of course with mario baba mario and dario mario baba and dario argento are basically the big two of gialio they're the more readily accessible

mario and dario are a couple of plumbers right

turtle muscles bordering on uh

hey it's a fine uh-huh sure

and then there's Wadario, of course.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But yes,

people are quick to recommend Argento and Bava, and they're good.

There are a lot of good movies there.

I think if you go a little further afield, some of the directors that are big in Giallo fandom, but less well-known to people outside, have made some movies that are really, really interesting.

Three favorite directors of mine are a guy called Umberto Lenzi, Sergio Martino, and Luciano Arricoli.

Now, here's the secret.

The thing that those three directors have in common is that their best movies are all written by a screenwriter called Ernesto Gastaldi.

And Ernesto Gastaldi is like the secret weapon of a good Giallo.

If you look him up on IMDb or Letterbox and start going through those movies, those are some of the best and most interesting ones.

Umberto Lenzi made four movies with this American actress, Carol Clover.

One of them we had in here in the quiz was A Quiet Place to Kill.

That is my favorite movie with a quiet place in the title.

I i love that movie um

uh sergio martino of course again it's hard to recommend giallo movies because you have to know the level of violence and in some cases sexual violence that you're getting into but torso is a movie that i like a lot torso is like a late giallo proto slasher it has more in common with slasher movies maybe arguably

but that's that's good for me because i speak slasher movies

and then yeah sergio martino also did your vice is a locked room and only i have the key and uh the strange Vice of Mrs.

Ward and All the Colors of the Dark are very good movies.

There's a director also called Luciano Ercoli who worked a few times with his wife, Nieves Navarro from Spain, and they made a movie that I love called Death Walks at Midnight.

That was the third of their collaborations, but it's my favorite.

Some people prefer the second one, which is Death Walks on High Heels.

Death Walks at Midnight is

really cool movie where unlike a lot of, you know, like Slashers, giallo movies come in for a lot of uh people accuse them of being misogynist because of violence against women and that kind of thing but similar to slashers in a lot of cases these are movies about women who are in danger who try to seek help and no one believes them yeah and in that way it's weirdly kind of feminist you know it's it's hard to describe a movie as feminist when it has that much violence against women

But these movies are about like, you know, believe women and these women go to the police and they go go to friends and they go to men and men of authority.

And it's clearly like a killer exploiting the system.

A lot of times, yeah.

And this particular one, Death Walks at Midnight,

is about a woman whose on-again, off-again boyfriend basically like

tricks her into do, you know, it's, it's a very kind of cons, he, he's, he fucks with consent in a way.

He, yeah, he, he doses her with a fictional hallucinogen during a photo shoot.

She thinks she witnessed a murder, but they're not sure if it it was

photo shoots are pretty giallo, right?

But then she's such a great character.

Having had this done to her, she then proceeds to like go to the guy's office and throw a rock through his window.

Like, she's a really cool character.

And then she becomes like a detective

proactively trying to solve this murder.

That movie is also really interesting because at the end of the movie, there's a hitman who wears a shirt and a tie and then like a yellow plaid vest and black leather gloves.

And during the movie, he gets his face caked in cement and suddenly his face is all like powdery.

And it looks so much like the Christopher Nolan Heath Ledger Joker that I'm like, this must have been, Christopher Nolan must have seen this.

It looks uncanny.

And which one was this?

This is Deathwalks at Midnight directed by Luciano Ercoli.

Okay.

I'm going to have to re-listen this episode and get all these notes.

Yeah, what else?

I mentioned Umberto Lindsay, Ercoli, Sergio Martino.

I feel like for me, that's a pretty good start.

Yeah.

And how would, like, how readily available are some of these?

When it comes to streaming, you know, a lot of things are on Tubi.

That's great if you don't mind watching them with ads.

But when it comes to Jallallo, I don't.

When it comes to Jallo, they almost benefit from that kind of thing.

And you know, Tubi, it is the people's streaming platform.

A lot of them are on Shutter.

Things on Shutter come and go.

So keep an eye out there.

Generally pretty well curated.

I know that Criterion puts a jallo thing out every once in a while.

Yes.

And if you're into buying physical media, there are certain, you know, Vinegar Syndrome and Arrow put out a lot of cool box sets.

They have, they do sales and things.

You can get some cool movies

cheap sometimes.

I'm a big fan of, I buy always the Jallo Essentials from Arrow and the Forgotten Jolly from Vinegar Syndrome.

I have all of those levels.

Oh, awesome.

Yeah.

Have you watched all the movies in those collections?

Yes.

The Forgotten Jelly ones in particular are tough because I buy every volume and then I watch all the movies and I'm like, ah, why did I buy this volume?

But there are gems in there.

It is worth it.

And

the Jello Essentials from Arrow are some really good box sets.

There's a lot of really good stuff in those.

This has been great.

Can you, just one more time, Alejandro, can you give us a pitch on your new Kickstarter and where people can find it?

There is already a pre-launch sign-up page for the Kickstarter.

When you're listening to this, I think the Kickstarter will kick off maybe like two weeks after this episode airs, something like that, more or less.

But there is a pre-launch sign-up page.

I can give you guys the link if you want to put it in the show notes.

Please.

It's called Lake Yellow with Slaughter.

It's written by me, drawn by Gavin Guidry.

The cover is painted by

an artist from Spain called Suspiria Vilchez.

He aptly named Suspiria.

It's so funny.

This is a gorgeous cover.

It looks like it's straight off a VHS box, which is exactly what I want.

Either like a VHS box or like, I mean, I guess like an Italian comic that I'm like, I need to find out what's going on.

Yeah, and I mean, Susperia Vilchez is in fact an artist who does covers for Vinegar Syndrome for her Jello releases.

So she is officially a Jallo, a professional Jallo artist in a way.

Yes, so it's a slasher movie made by a Jallo director, adapted to comic book form.

I'll give you guys this sneak preview.

The first two pages are a little tongue-in-cheek gag where

they're reminiscent of if it's 1983 and you just turned on TV to watch a movie and you feel like you're soaring above a city, flying into the woods,

to a glorious starburst in the sky.

That's what the first two pages of the comic

are.

If you're hearing that, if that music starts playing in your head automatically, I feel you should know that that music, there's actually a song that goes with it and it has lyrics.

Oh, no kidding.

Yes, I can't find it streaming anywhere.

It's on YouTube, but I can't find it.

Like, it's not on Apple Music or anything.

But yeah, it is a song.

It's kind of a bluesy, like, it's got bass.

It's got a, it's got like a blues guitar.

That's funny.

The lyrics go, anyone who has a fantasy, come with me,

come with me.

So yeah, look it up on YouTube.

Oh, that's that's awesome.

That's great.

So, thanks so much, Alejandro.

This has been a mini-episode of the Flophouse podcast.

We are produced by Mr.

Alex Smith, who is in the room.

Say hi, Alex.

Hi.

This podcast is on Maximum Fun.

It's a podcast network.

There's plenty of great podcasts.

Check them out.

For the Flop House, I've been Stuart Wellington.

I've been Dan McCoy.

And joining us is Alejandro Arbona.

Thank you guys for having me.

Stuart, enjoy your JB.

Yeah, I will.

I'm going to get faded, baby, and watch some movies.

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