Background
During the 60s right through to the late 70s the Italian film business was booming, mostly due to genre cinema. Quite often, Italian productions would take note of what was successful at that period of time in America and often imitate, or rip-off (whichever you'd prefer) the big American blockbuster films. Whether it was Jaws, The Terminator, The Exorcist or The Searchers the Italians would often make low budget knock-offs which would often be done on a much smaller budget & with a smaller production team. To make up for any shortcomings, these films would often amp up the sensational aspects of the films & add their own unique flavour, often creating genres of their own & occasionally making unforgettable pieces of cinema.
You can trace Italian genre cinema back to 1958 when they began to produce their own Sword-&-Sandal pictures to compete with the big historical epics such as Spartacus, Samson and Delilah and The Ten Commandments, these became known as Pepla movies. The Peplum craze lasted until the mid 60s until the next, and most famous of all the Italian genre's swept the entire world, The Spaghetti Western.
The American western had been big money for years with stars such as John Wayne presenting very much white hat vs black hat scenarios. The Italians differed by having much more ambiguous characters, the hero of the picture could still be a complete bastard. This mixed with their own unique visual style & violence that was no longer cartoonish in favour of realism made the Spaghetti genre big business all around the world.
The early 70s also saw the rise of many other genres, most notably the Giallo. Giallo is the Italian word for "yellow" and stems from the origin of the genre in Italy as a series of cheap paperback mystery novels which all had trademark yellow covers. Gialli films combined crime, fiction and mystery with horror fiction and eroticism to create a style of film-making that was completely their own.
Also huge was the Poliziotteschi genre, a sub-genre of crime and action film that emerged in Italy in the late 1960s and reached the height of their popularity in the 1970s, sometimes referred to simply as Euro-Crime films. The genre was hugely inspired by successful crime thrillers such as Dirty Harry, The French Connection, and Serpico. As usual, The Italians would amp up the sensational aspects giving the viewer plenty of car chases, brutal violence & gunfights.
During the 70s and 80s no genre was untouched by the Italians. Directors such as Mario Bava, Dario Argento & Lucio Fulci would create their own brand of Horror films which would go on to inspire American directors such as John Carpenter & David Cronenberg. Post apocalyptic films, Sci-Fi flicks, Cannibal films, the Italians pretty much did the lot.
Why Cult Italia?
The reason I've created this blog is to try and turn people onto the wonders of Italian genre cinema. Plenty of films back in the day became box office hits in the U.K & America, films such as Suspiria & The Dollars Trilogy set the world on fire. Unfortunately though, most remained either unseen, unreleased or just completely forgotten about by most people soon after their release. Thankfully the DVD & internet age has given Italian genre cinema from yesteryear a new lease of life & many films which perhaps were not very successful outside of Italy back in the day, now have become cult films.
About me:
Like most people, my first experience with Italian cinema was through Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy. Whilst I loved those films as a teenager I was still completely ignorant to the wonders of Italian cinema & my interest didn't really go any further than that for a few years more. I grew up around the age of 10 a huge fan of the American Slasher genre, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare On Elm St, the usual. Back then I had no idea what a Gialli was or how it had influenced the genre. About six years ago I was on a Slasher kick, seeking out films that I'd not had the chance to see as a child & kept on reading how the Gialli genre was seen as a precursor to the Slasher film, so I checked out my first two Gialli films, Sergio Martino's Torso & Dario Argento's The Bird With The Crystal Plumage. From that moment I was hooked. I began to research into what other films they had made, or seeing what else the stars of those pictures had been in and soon realised there was literally 1000s of Italian made films over a 20 year period that would appeal to my tastes.
Over the next couple of years I'd gradually begin to see many of the most famous Italian Horror films & a good number of Gialli. Though, it has only been over the past couple of years that I have really become obsessed with Italian cinema to the point where the majority of what I now watch was produced from that golden 20 year period of Italian genre cinema.
Now let me point out, I am by no means an expert on Italian cinema. I've not been watching them long enough (nor seen enough!) to claim to be. The reason that I made this site was simply to share my opinions on some of the many films that the Italians churned out back in the day. Rather than huge in depth reviews I just give my thoughts on the picture & hopefully I can turn a few people onto one or two movies in the process. Should you have any recommendations please let me know as I'm always on the look out for under-appreciated flicks.
As for my personal taste, mine differs from many other peoples. I often prefer the trashy kind of films to the more respected, whilst I enjoy films by Lucio Fulci & Mario Bava I can't say I'm a huge fan, I find them far too hit & miss. It is just my personal preference so please do not kill me if I shit on one of your favourite films or directors.
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| Me, on the set of "Take a Hard Ride" the 1975 Spaghetti Western directed by Antonio Margheriti & starring Lee Van Cleef |
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