In the 1970s, no one else was making horror movies like Italians. This was the height of Giallo’s popularity, a particular type of Italian horror that literally translates in English to yellow. Giallo movies are defined by the pulpy style of paperbacks with thrilling horror undertones. These films include elements from slashers, procedurals, supernatural stories, and psychological cliffhangers.
While not all of the films on this list are technically Giallo movies, they are all informed by the Giallo style. They are also films often excluded from “best of” lists, and they deserve their own spots in the canon. Spooky, erotic, and beautifully grotesque, these Italian horror movies from the 1970s are worth checking out.
Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972)
An early feature from cult director Lucio Fulci, Don’t Torture a Duckling deals with the fallout in a small village after multiple boys are brutally murdered. The movie highlights the Catholic influence in Italy while also emphasizing local traditions and superstitions.
When a police officer named Tomas Milian comes to the town to investigate the murders, he finds the local priest the most peculiar. Milian becomes convinced the priest has serious complexes about his own youth and envies the dead boys for their eternal innocence.
The House of the Laughing Windows (1976)
In this film, an art restorer travels to a tiny village in Italy, where he’s been tasked with restoring an old fresco that depicts the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. The artist takes up residence in the house previously owned by the dead fresco painter’s two sisters.
Stefano, the restorer, soon discovers the artist, Legnani, participated in brutal murders with his sisters’ help. These deaths gave him macabre inspiration for his paintings. As Stefano digs deeper into the murders, residents of the village begin to die. Stefano suspects someone is trying to keep him from the truth.
A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (1971)
Another from Lucio Fulci, this subversive psychodrama is full of sex, death, and drug use. A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin has developed a cult following since its release because of its status as an emblematic Giallo film.
At its core, this movie is a whodunit that includes a lot of gore and violence. It also openly focuses on LSD use and horrific nightmare sequences. Finally, the movie incorporates noir detective drama tropes, from the anti-hero police detective to the mysterious and elusive beautiful woman at the center of all the action.
Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972)
Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Black Cat,” this movie inverts the action in Poe’s work, instead telling a tale about a wife seeking vengeance against her abusive husband. Oliviero is a failed writer and alcoholic who hosts lavish parties and frequently abuses his wife, Irina. He also loves the cat he adopted from his late mother, aptly named Satan.
Things get bloody after Oliviero’s mistress is murdered, and the movie reaches its climax when Oliviero is murdered by Irina and his niece, Floriana. Things get even more absurd from there.
Last Stop on the Night Train (1975)
This revenge thriller is in the same vein as Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left. It involves two young women who are brutalized by three criminals on a train. The trio torture and murder both girls, and when the train arrives without the girls departing, the parents of one of them become suspicious.
Like the film it’s based on, the parents of the murdered girl, Lisa, invite the killers to their home. While the trio believes they have found more victims to take advantage of, they soon realize the parents are intent on exacting revenge for the barbarous deaths of their daughter and her friend.
All the Colors of the Dark (1972)
A Satanic cult feature taking place in England, All the Colors of the Dark finds 1970s Italian star Edwige Fenech as a young woman targeted by the leader of a devil-worshipping group. Fenech’s character is in therapy, trying to overcome the trauma she endured as a child after her mother was murdered.
A neighbor offers to take her to a sabbat, which turns out to be a Black Mass. She is seduced and brainwashed by the leader of the Black Mass, who convinces her to murder on behalf of Satan. The movie is a bit frenetic, but it’s still a fun watch for any fans of the genre.
The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1971)
This representative Giallo mystery follows an American socialite in Vienna who is being blackmailed by a serial killer. The woman, Joan, suspects her ex-lover Jean, with whom she had a problematic and toxic relationship.
Unwilling to confide in her husband Neil, Joan takes on a new lover, a man named George. As things become more confusing, and as the killer closes in on her, Joan’s paranoia reaches new heights. The film keeps audiences on edge by keeping the killer’s identity at bay.
The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972)
Based on an old German folktale and taking place in a German castle, this movie is a gothic Giallo classic. Its prologue in 1958 sets up the framework for the movie. Two young girls learn about the existence of an evil force in the castle, known as the Red Queen. Every 100 years, she returns to claim seven new victims.
The movie jumps to 1972, the year of the Red Queen’s return. She begins to claim her victims one by one, targeting the young girls first seen in 1958: Kitty and Franziska. The movie has beautiful cinematography and engrossing murder scenes.
Beyond the Darkness (1979)
A disturbing, incendiary movie about love and family, Beyond the Darkness focuses on a young man named Francesco, orphaned as a child. He lives in a house in the woods with his caretaker Iris, who is a little too attached to him. She uses a voodoo doll to end the life of Francesco’s girlfriend, Anna.
Heartbroken and unwilling to accept she’s gone, Francesco digs up Anna’s corpse and uses his taxidermy skills to preserve her forever. Things get more and more toxic with Iris, reaching their peak when Anna’s identical twin, Elena, comes to visit.
The Bloodstained Butterfly (1971)
A well-received detective thriller, The Bloodstained Butterfly is about a police officer investigating the death of a female French student who was stabbed multiple times in a park in the middle of a massive thunderstorm.
As the investigation continues, a local sportscaster is framed by his wife and her lover. However, while the sportscaster is imprisoned, the murders continue. Soon, the dead girl’s lover becomes the prime suspect, but nothing is ever what it seems.
