Giallo Meltdown 2

Three Cats On
Crystal Velvet

Giallo Meltdown 2
By Richard Glen Schmidt
ISBN 9798853807204

“Serena just exposed her Grandis and I am hoping that Fabio will flash his Testis at us.”
Richard Glen Schmidt, Giallo Meltdown 2

This is a review of a book filled with a bitter-sweet sadness and melancholy towards the end of the experience but, also filled with descriptions of nudity, murder, carnage, cats (Spasmo, Gorgon and Cheese), band practice, garden work, fine dining and cigar breaks. I’ll leave it up to your imagination as to which of those things are referring to the films themselves and which are referring to the writer’s, not to mention his wife LeEtta’s, personal experiences of sitting down to long weekends of binge watching genre entertainment in various formats and states of quality.

Yup... following on from the wildly entertaining tomes Giallo Meltdown - A Moviethon Diary (reviewed here), Cinema Somnambulist (reviewed here) and Doomed Moviethon (reviewed here), Richard Glen Schmidt once again treats his target audience of deranged genre explorers to another ramble through his personal gialloscape with Giallo Meltdown 2.

Now, I have to warn you that it may take a little while to get into the very first book of his you pick up (as I’m sure I probably flagged in other reviews) because Schmidt’s style of writing is much more a stream of consciousness approach to the review process rather than something more academic (so I guess that makes him comparable to Joyce and Kerouac, right?). But it’s worth persevering because, frankly, these books (including this very tome) are absolutely entertaining as hell... and I totally love them. I honestly can’t imagine not picking up a new Schmidt tome to snigger and wonder through... which is where the sadness of this review also kicks in... I’ll get to that later.

Okay, so what we have is another series of the kind of moviethons (aka binge watch movie sessions) which also inform and entertain on his website, www.doomedmoviethon.com. So yeah, there are some glorious ‘go to’ reviews bound up in session chapters with titles such as Let’s Go To Asia, Bruh (A Giallo For A Gweilo) and The Blood In Spain Falls Mainly From The Vein. Personally I’d like to add some caveats at this point. I don’t usually have criticisms of Richard’s work because, once you realise that a lot of what he says is not to be taken at face value (aka it’s a straight lie, take a pinch of salt) and that he’s joking pretty much 80% of the time (in the absolute best way), then it’s easy to read these books in a very relaxed manner and not get bent out of shape. But...

... in this particular tome he’s included a lot of things that I wouldn’t personally class as gialli... and what’s more, he knows some of his choices will wind people up and so he defends those choices admirably (not successfully but... admirably ;-)). So while I’m completely on board for a cinematic giallo not having to be originating in Italy (which reminds me, there’s a really gialloish Asian movie I have to recommend to this guy... if only I could remember the damned title) I’m less inclined to treat genres such a krimi (there’s a whole chapter dedicated to those and, franky, if you dedicate a whole chapter to something then surely that’s enough to acknowledge it’s something else other than something found in another chapter... if you see what I mean) or straight up supernatural horror films would fall into the same category. But, as Richard says... write your own book! He says that he was going to include Argento’s Suspiria in this one specifically to annoy certain readers (like myself, I guess) but couldn’t face watching it again at that time for whatever reason.

So allow me just a quick detour and then back to the review. To me, the modern movie buying landscape overuses the term giallo deliberately. Take the fine film The Perfume Of The Lady In Black, for example. It’s a movie featuring a supernatural ghost and a bunch of cannibals (okay, one of those terms may be a bit of a spoiler which you’ll hopefully forget about if you’ve not seen that classic before). It’s not a giallo but it’s been labelled as such on DVDs and Blu Rays over the last 15 or so years. I can just see a cynical marketing guy working at one of the companies (all of the companies) saying, slap a ‘giallo’ label on the front somewhere, it’ll sell more. I’m also a little dismayed at the term ‘cult cinema’ but... that’s a whole other can of worms.

But I digress... back to this truly delightful tome again. If you want to smile your way through a book, then Richard Glen Schmidt’s often nonsensical, more often endearing ramblings are an instant recipe for turning those mouth muscles up on themselves. And even the humour can often be laced with a keen observation or three. So I would say there are at least three types of humour on display in these mental meanderings. There’s straight up humour such as “This movie is some sloppy, ramshackle bullslap but I’m enjoying the sensation of my melted brain leaking out of my eyes.” or “We made it an all-round indulgence by getting some Starbucks as well. The poor company is so broke, so we are happy to help.”

Then there’s the incisive, satirical criticism of things which pull a rock off the ground to reveal a certain amount of truth... now I’m English but I don’t eat Indian food. Even so, I found his acerbic comment about our country to reveal more than a kernel of truth when, in the chapter marking the occasion of sitting down and watching UK gialli, entitled Ello Guvna! You’re Right Fit... For A Casket he writes “Like a proper British couple, LeEtta and I order an Indian takeaway from our Taj Indian Cuisine.” Yup... funny but true, for most Brits I would say.

And then there’s the other style of humour he uses which really makes for a sometimes enlightening but also quite clever read when it comes to his stuff. And these are aimed at people who really know the subject matter that he’s talking about... I imagine that some of these seemingly throwaway comments would seem a bit abstract if you don’t know some of the films and players in question. For instance, when watching British thriller Twisted Nerve he makes the comment, “Gee, this soundtrack by Bernard Herrmann sure does sound familiar.” And, you know he knows exactly why it would sound familiar to a younger generation of Tarantino fans but, he doesn’t elaborate (thankfully, because that’s part of his charm). Similarly, when talking about Dario Argento’s excellent giallo The Stendhal Syndrome, he introduces Asia Argento’s character as “Police detective and known fish kisser, Anna Manni...”. Again, if you haven’t seen the fantastic opening scene of the film in question you might be at a loss as to how to take this stuff.

Because of the international flavour enabled by mixing it up with the countries of origin in this volume, it means you’ll get people like Jess Franco, Paul Naschy, Clint Eastwood and Bruce Willis making ‘guest appearances’ in the book. There’s also a Norman J. Warren Joke that I totally failed to ‘get’, I’m afraid to say. I guess I’ve not seen enough of his movies.

Included as kinda bonus pieces in random places (so maybe a better analogy given the subject matter would be Easter Eggs) are two sections, one which reprints some of his hand written notes from when he’s watching the movies (which doubles up on the fact that this man has a proper writing process, as far as I’m concerned) and also a nice section of giallo inspired comic strips by his wife LeEtta. She always illustrates the wonderful covers of these books - front and back (there are nice drawings of Spasmo, Gorgon and Cheese on the back cover of this one) but it’s also nice to see some of her other stuff highlighted. There’s an especially gorgeous splash page by her of A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin included here. You can see more of her work and even purchase some of it at her website here... https://www.theleemsmachine.com

And now for the sad stuff. There are portents all the way through the book and, by the end of the last chapter, the truth is revealed. This was his last moviethon. By my reckoning the guy must be almost ten years younger than me but, for some insane reason, he no longer wants to binge watch fifteen or so movies a weekend. I can sympathise though, if I wasn’t writing this blog I know I’d be getting through at least ten films a week (that’s another story though and I have no desire to stop writing anytime soon). It’s sad because, honestly, I truly look forward to the years when a new Richard Glen Schmidt hits the shelves. I love my time spent between the covers of his epic ramblings. There is a little hope because, he mentions he won’t give up writing about film (yay), just won’t be binging them in this fashion in future (nay). So, I continue to hold out hope that another tome will be coming out at some point.

Either way, Giallo Meltdown 2 is an absolutely funny and laugh out loud read (or would be if I ever LOL’d) and I can’t recommend it enough... once you’ve acclimatised yourself to this man’s writing style and allowed your mind and body to just go with it. Also, you don’t need to read his four books, to date, in any order, either. You could start on this one and then go back to the others if you like... if you wanted to be all George Lucas about your approach to it. So yeah, big recommendation from me and, please, bring on the next book as soon as possible. Schmidt is no James Bond but Sean Connery himself surely taught us all to never say never.

And check out his blog at https://www.doomedmoviethon.com, for sure.