TYPE "O" IN 3D

What do Bram Stoker's most famous creation, a well-known Giallo film director, and an ex-Blade Runner turned Hobo With a Shotgun have in common? Dario Argento will be directing Rutger Hauer as Dr. Van Helsing in a movie entitled DRACULA 3D, that's what! The news clip above from TOTAL FILM magazine, October 2011, explains more.

Oh, and unless you've figured out a way to enlarge pictures after clicking on a blog image that end up, FaceBook style in a new window, you'll have to either enlarge your brower magnification or download the image and enlarge it with your image browser to read the text. I discovered this Blogger "improvement" after reviewing my last DEADTIME STORIES features before posting them. This time I managed to be able to set up the image so that you don't need to click on it to read it, but I won't be so lucky every time.

I'm losing my patience with Blogger noodling around trying to "make things better". Take the new Dashboard interface -- no, I mean it. Go ahead, take it, 'cause I don't need it. Mine's working just fine, thank you very much. If they really wanted to impress me, they'd focus their attention and make a more serviceable, WYSIWYG composing tool -- and, throw in an easy Design element for embedding sound into a blog. Oh well, that's all I'll say for the moment. I'll just continue to suffer in silence . . .

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THERE'S ALWAYS ROOM FOR GIALLO

"Violence is a means of communication; a way of expressing myself." - Dario Argento

Largely overlooked by the classic monster magazines, and even by many of today's horror film 'zines, is the genre affectionately called giallo -- which means "yellow" according to my lovely Italian wife. Further research reveals that the term originated from the line of inexpensive 1960's Italian paperback mysteries easily identified by their yellow covers.

Giallo was the term that was eventually adopted to describe European crime and mystery films, and in particular, Italian thrillers. These gialli are characterized by sadism, cruelty and extremely bloody murder scenes. They are recognized as the precursors to the American "slasher" films of the 1980's.

Mario Bava, who is also famous for his horror films such as BLACK SUNDAY, could be called the Italian "Godfather of Gore", and is considered to have directed the first giallo film, La ragazza che sapeva troppo, or, THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (A.K.A. EVIL EYE) (1963).

Dario Argento entered the gory world of giallo with his film L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo, or THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE (1970). As the reigning Crown Prince of Giallo, Argento's body of work (no pun intended) is widely revered among horror film fans and critics alike.

In Chas Balun's DEEP RED #7 is an interview with Dario Argento. The Italian Director offers an introspective and thoughtful insight on his work.

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