Giallo
master Sergio Martino, the sadly lesser known of the Italian exploitation
horror giants when compared to Lucio Fulci or Dario Argento, was on a creative
stride in the early 1970s. Cranking out
several giallo genre classics like no tomorrow between 1971 and 1973, Mr.
Martino’s eclectic mixture of suspense and sleaze with his own unique visual
panache churned out a giallo picture the likes of which hadn’t been seen
before. Well before Dario Argento’s Suspiria
flirted with audiovisual sensory overload filtered through the giallo
picture, Martino unleased the explosive, hallucinatory and still nerve-wracking
shocker All the Colors of the Dark.
Released
in between Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key and his
legendary giallo shocker Torso, All the Colors of the Dark follows
Jane (Edwige Fenech from Your Vice in a career defining role) a
young woman recently recovering from the trauma of a miscarriage. Plagued by recurring nightmares of a knife
wielding man and increasingly bizarre visions of Satanic violence, Jane and her
boyfriend Richard (giallo regular George Hilton) try to find a cure for her
strange premonitions.
After
pursuing psychiatry, Jane bumps into mercurial new neighbor Mary (Marina
Malfatti) who suggests she try purging her demons by attending a Black
Mass. After reluctantly agreeing, she’s
introduced to devil worshipping priest J.P. McBrian (Julian Ugarte), a
long-fingernailed creep with sinister intentions for the new recruit. After being forced into a Satanic orgy, Jane
finds her sanity unraveling until neither she (or we) know for certain what’s
real or imagined anymore.
Undoubtedly
Martino’s most overwhelming giallo in terms of playing with the psychology of
the main character and conveying her dizzying and terrifying journey into
madness and murder, All the Colors of the Dark is highly stylized,
provocative, unsettling and deliberately genuinely confusing. Predating the mind-warping blending of
fantasy and reality that characterized Satoshi Kon’s anime classic Perfect
Blue with many sequences that yank the rug out from under the viewer,
Martino’s film presents the director at his most psychedelic and kaleidoscopic.
Edwige
Fenech was already strutting her way into the giallo underworlds purported by
Martino, but here she takes on a demanding role which catapulted her into the
status of a sex symbol. Her she goes the
full distance with many nude scenes including but not limited to the infamous
Black Mass scenes. She conveys terror,
confusion, curiosity and growing unease so well some of her best scenes are
bereft of dialogue, focusing in on close ups of her face and eyes. Also strong is giallo regular George Hilton
who, much like The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail, doesn’t make it clear
right away whose side he is on, keeping the audience on their toes.
Visually
and sonically, All the Colors of the Dark excels, with stunning panoramic
widescreen cinematography (and occasionally wide-angled) lensed by both
Giancarlo Ferrando and Miguel F. Mila.
Many sequences in the film involve characters looking directly into the
camera or creeping towards it, placing you in the heroine’s shoes and conveying
her experience of terror so completely it may as well be happening to us.
Probably
the strongest element of all in Martino’s film, however, is the score by Bruno
Nicolai. Genuinely creepy, unsettling
with atonal strings echoing Penderecki and at times bombastic with an eerie
vocal chorus, Nicolai’s score finally infuses the film with a distinctive
personality and mood that doesn’t quite resemble any other giallo score out
there. Of all the cinematic elements that stand out in Martino's film, Nicolai's score easily shines the brightest.
Recently
re-released in a 4K restored blu-ray by Severin Films, Martino’s notorious giallo
classic represents one of the high points of the director’s career as well as
the genre itself. Though arguably Torso
still packs a more direct punch, getting lost down this rabbit hole of a
movie was a journey that was frightening, shocking but ultimately
mesmerizing. One of the most daring and
confident giallo thrillers by one of the genre’s greatest purveyors.
--Andrew Kotwicki
