About

Co-presented with Brisbane Festival, 'Gothic, Giallo, Gore: Masters of Italian Horror' celebrates the works of three major figures of Italian horror and giallo cinema: Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, and Dario Argento.

The word giallo is Italian for 'yellow' – a reference to the colour of the covers that adorned pulpy paperbacks in post-war Italy. The genre first emerged in the 1960s, showcasing highly stylised and gruesome thrillers that took this form of cinema to new and often outrageous extremes. Throughout the 1970s, the style became more pronounced – with innovative cinematography, complex scenes of death and mayhem and an intense psychosexual edge – making it one of the most alluring forms of European horror.

This program explores the world of giallo cinema by presenting a collection of works by the genre's most renowned auteurs, alongside a selection of its most important gothic horror influences. It also looks at the visceral and blood-spattered later works of Bava and Fulci, who would themselves be key in shaping international horror cinema for decades.

Bava, Fulci, and Argento were masters of their craft and played a crucial role in the advancement of Italian horror. The program features rare 35mm prints from private collections and national archives, alongside vibrant new digital restorations.

The program also includes the incredible live performance 'Claudio Simonetti's Goblin Play Suspiria' on Friday 22 September at The Tivoli. At this special event, masters of Italian horror movie soundtracks Claudio Simonetti's Goblin will perform their iconic Suspiria soundtrack live alongside a screening of the film.

On the opening weekend of the program, film critic and author Alexandra Heller-Nicholas delivered a free lecture 'Strange Vices: The Lush Perversity of Giallo Cinema'.