Giallo!

<p><b>Traces the </b><b><i>giallo </i></b><b>mystery/horror genre from its genesis in Italian cinema of the 1960s and 1970s to its contemporary place in the global cult-film canon.</b></p><p>Italian <i>giallo</i> films have a peculiar allure. Taking their name from the Italian for yellow- reflecting the covers of pulp crime novels-these genre movies were principally produced between 1960 and the late 1970s. These cinematic hybrids of crime horror and detection are characterized by elaborate set-piece murders lurid aesthetics and experimental soundtracks. Using critical frameworks drawn from genre theory reception studies and cultural studies <i>Giallo!</i> traces this historically marginalized genre's journey from Italian cinemas to the global cult-film canon. Through close textual analysis of films including <i>The Girl Who Knew Too Much</i> (1963) <i>Blood and Black Lace</i> (1964) <i>The Bird with the Crystal Plumage</i> (1970) <i>The Black Belly of the Tarantula</i> (1971) and <i>The Case of the Bloody Iris</i> (1972) Alexia Kannas considers the rendering of urban space in the giallo and how it expresses a complex and unsettling critique of late modernity.</p>