The foundational giallo, for your eyes only!!
What They Say:
Emerging at the peak of the giallo boom of the early ‘70s, Luciano Ercoli’s Death Walks films are two superlative examples of the genre linked by their shared casting of the stunning Nieves Navarro (billed under her adopted stage name of Susan Scott) as the lead woman in peril.
In Death Walks on High Heels (1971), exotic dancer Nicole (Navarro), the daughter of a murdered jewel thief, finds herself terrorised by a black-clad assailant determined on procuring her father’s stolen gems. Fleeing Paris and her knife-wielding pursuer, Nicole arrives in London only to discover that death stalks her at every corner.
Returning in Death Walks at Midnight (1972), Navarro stars as Valentina – a model who, in the midst of a drug-fuelled photoshoot, witnesses a brutal murder in the apartment opposite hers. But when it becomes clear that the savage slaying she describes relates to a crime that took place six months earlier, the police are at a loss – forcing Valentina to solve the mystery alone.
Offering up all the glamour, perversity and narrative twists and turns that are typical of the giallo genre at its best, Luciano Ercoli’s Death Walks on High Heels and Death Walks at Midnight anticipate the super-stylized trappings of Brian De Palma’s early psycho thrillers (most notably, Dressed to Kill).
The Review:
Audio:
These movies were made in 1971 and 1972 respectively, but they sound great here!! On BD, there’s a noticeable sound difference between a modern movie and this one, but it’s not a bad thing. These kinds of perceived flaws give the movie character. Also, it’s not really a flaw.
Video:
Being 40+ years old, you’d expect a decline in video quality from a movie now. But there’s nothing lost on these films and Arrow Films does a great job at restoring these films for BD. From my amateur eye, there’s no discernable difference. Most differences I see are in filmmaking decisions rather than video quality.
Menu:
The menus for both movies have the standard options, then a moving marquee of moments from the film to captivate you even more into the glory you’re about to watch.
Giallo is a type of film I had never heard of until fellow Fandom Post writer Chris pointed them out to me. I probably would have never heard of most of the weird movies I watch if not for him, and I’m better off for it. Giallo films themselves are, way too simply put, Italian thrillers. But they’re much different from a “typical” thriller movie, and this first foray into giallo proves that beyond a doubt.
Throughout Death on High Heels, I didn’t know what to expect. From Chris, I expected something as weird as Giulio Paradisi’s The Visitor, but I got an Italian twist on a thriller film. The film starts off weird, with an unknown man being killed by a masked assailant with striking, almost unnatural blue eyes. This man’s identity isn’t revealed until much later in the film, but it’s implied several times before.
The following moments of the film are not focused on finding this man—who encounters the main character Nicole and threatens her with death over the location of some diamonds—but on her trying to escape. Its focus is on her peace of mind by fleeing from the man who she thinks is the man in the mask with the blue eyes into the arms of a doctor. Not on the mystery, but on Nicole’s safety.
The twist being that she was never really safe, her masked man with blue eyes being the very man she’s trying to escape into. The film, and the doctor, pulled us along for the film’s entirety, using misdirections and characters’ perceived weird actions, to lull me into thinking that this film was anything but what it truly is: weird Italian giallo. It was beautiful.
If Death Walks on High Heels was about comforting Nicole, Death Walks at Midnight was about unnerving Valetina in every scene of the film. Killers are laid out at the beginning of the movie only to be proven wrong, or their motives clarified, later in the movie. The damn movie ends with friends becoming the worst enemies and new characters turning out to be the masterminds of it all. And for what? Money. Always money.
Midnight was much more a horror film than a thriller at its base as a result of its constant torment of Valentina. Even the way in which people are killed instills fear. Punching someone through with an iron fist with spikes on it doesn’t exactly scream “day at the park” when it comes to killing methods. The movie gets weirder when people keep showing up with their necks slashed or knives in their bodies.
This is where the movie is brilliant. When you finally see someone with those same knives, it’s scary. It’s scary because he’s capable of much more than standing there and laughing creepily; he can also kill you, and will.
In Summary:
Death on High Heels and Death Walks at Midnight are packaged together only because they’re both giallo films from writer Ernesto Gastaldi and director Luciano Ercoli, but they could not be more different. I’m told these are both foundational films for giallo and there’s certainly a reason for that. Not only are these films great, but they give you a good sense of what’s great about giallo and how different they are from American films that draw easy comparisons (Halloween or Scream, maybe—I haven’t seen either). For someone just jumping into giallo, this is a nice place to do it because these are also just straight up good movies. High Heels zigs when you expect it to zag, as they say, and comes out at the end very satisfyingly. Midnight puts you straight in Valentina’s nigh on paranoia, wondering if she’s really going crazy from the drug or not, but reveals everything in the end, only making everything creepier.
Content Grade: A-
Audio Grade: A-
Video Grade: A
Menu Grade: A
Released By: Arrow Films
Release Date: March 29, 2016
MSRP: £44.99
Running Time: 208 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Review Equipment:
PS3, LG 47LB5800 47” 1080p LED TV, LG NB3530A Sound Bar
