Faux Goth And Multiply
Italian Gothic Horror Films
1957-1969
by Roberto Curti with a forward by Ernesto Gastaldi
McFarland Press ISBN 9780786494378
Italian Gothic Horror Films
1970-1979
by Roberto Curti
McFarland Press ISBN 9781476664699
Italian Gothic Horror Films
1980 - 1989
by Roberto Curti
McFarland Press ISBN 9781476672434
Just a very short but sweet shout out to an absolute powerhouse of a trilogy of reference books by Roberto Curti, comprising Italian Gothic Horror Films 1957 -1969, 1970-1979 and 1980-1989. Not that there aren’t still a few Italian Gothic Horror movies made to this day (and still just about being made, I’m very glad to say) but because, as you’ll see from the progression of the tomes themselves, it goes very much into decline by some point in the late 1970s/early 1980s.
So, each volume is set out in years and every Italian gothic (in Curti’s view) is included with a full listing of titles, alternative titles, casts, crew, distributors etc… just like Sight And Sound used to do, back in the days when that was a great magazine and not the pale spectre of a cinematic review it is these days.
Following on from each entry is a fairly large summation of the film itself, before Curti gets into the full meat and bones of each production, giving potted biographies of the key players, analysis of the way each film came to be funded and made… as well as any distribution and certification woes which eventually led to each film’s buoyancy or downfall at both the Italian and International box offices. And, clearly, Curti has been quite thorough in his research.
Of course, all the classics you would expect from tomes entitled in this manner are covered such as I Vampiri, Black Sunday, Black Sabbath, The Ghost, Suspiria, Inferno, The Beyond and so forth, all including valuable information about each film’s genesis that even the less than casual viewer may find noteworthy. It also delves into the possibly slightly shadowy area of the photonovel style magazines which accompanied some of the films in Italy when they were released... and even, in at least one case, when the film remained either unreleased or heavily censored, neither fate of which befell the photo magazine version.
If I had anything critical to say, asides from the author continually referring back to the Italian titles of many films and thus leaving me in the dark as to which film he’s talking about (and don’t get me started on the fact that a fair few of the English titles of the films have been released in alternate titles by various boutique labels since these works were first published), it would be his insistence of including certain non-horror films in the collection, when actually they belong to another genre entirely…
And I’m primarily talking about gialli here. I mean, there aren’t that many included and I totally understand the inclusion of films like All The Colours Of The Dark. I mean, that film is revealed in the final scooby-doo like reveal to be a giallo for sure but, in Curti’s defence, it does use the language and trappings of the gothic horror film and poses as such for the majority of its running time.
I’m much less forgiving about the inclusion of such thrilling gems as The Red Queen Kills Seven Times or A White Dress For Marialé. On the other hand, certain films that have been marketed as gialli in recent years, by nefarious labels trying to lure unwary customers into parting with their money by tying them into the currently popularity of that genre, are clearly and quite rightly defined as gothic horror here… so I’m glad someone else is with me when it comes to such brilliant genre films as The Perfume Of The Lady In Black or even the somewhat dreary Seven Deaths In The Cat’s Eye.
My biggest pleasure when I read these kinds of reference books is the number of titles new to me which I can add to my shopping list… and I certainly have only seen about a half to two thirds of the movies listed within these pages. That being said, when I started researching titles I was less than familiar with, I discovered that I already had around 90% of them to watch on Blu Ray, sitting in various piles around the room, often as part of boxed editions put out by the likes of Severin Films and Vinegar Syndrome… so that was a nice surprise!
Well that about wraps it up for me and Roberto Curti’s three volume set Italian Gothic Horror Films. These are probably the most useful books I’ve read on the general view of the genre and I would have to recommend them as essential cineaste reference books, as far as I’m concerned. Not a lot more to say about it other than there’s a lot of ground covered in these. Definitely worth a purchase.
