Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on September 2010

Giallo: ©2008 by Giallo Productions Limited

Formulaic, gory Euro-thriller from Dario Argento, the once-great Italian master of horror. A moody American cop (an extremely slumming Adrien Brody) is trying to catch Giallo, a serial torture-killer of beautiful women (Brody again, in rubbery, prosthetic makeup, and billed as the anagrammatical “Byron Deidra”) in a Turin where everyone, even the bad guys, speak fluent American English. “Giallo,” or “Yellow” in Italian, by the way, refers to Argento’s own sado-sexual genre, which focuses on theatrical and arty murders. The genre probably led to today’s banal torture-porn trend. Skip it.