Yellow Fever: The Rise and Fall of the Giallo

A must see for fans of the giallo genre..tonnes of information and clips from 1960s ,70s and 80s classics

This documentary provides an easy-to-understand introduction to Giallo, to its origins, where it came from and how it developed, up to its decline in the late 90s / early 2000s. If you'd like to know more about the genre, just listen to the great Giallo directors giving some background information and sharing their memories of the times gone by. Giallo came a long way from its beginnings, and these directors and movie historians shed some light on that journey. If I was to name one negative thing about it, it would be too much time devoted to Dario Argento. Sure, he is the father of Giallo movies, but others deserved a bit more screen time, especially considering the information they provided. Still, it's well worth your time.

Yellow Fever: The Rise and Fall of the Giallo (2016)

*** (out of 4)

Calum Waddell's fascinating and entertaining look at the rise and fall of Italy's Giallo sub-genre is the focus of this 89-minute documentary, which features interviews with the likes of Dario Argento, Umberto Lenzi, Luigi Cozzi, Ruggero Deodato, Richard Stanley and authors Maitland McDonagh and Kim Newman among others.

The documentary pretty much starts with some early pre-Giallo titles and then moves on to the likes of Mario Bava's THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH and of course BLOOD AND BLACK LACE. From here the focus is pretty much all over the place as we learn about what made the genre so popular in Italy and why these films were such a success overseas as well. The director's share their stories on the production of their movies with the author's do a nice job at telling us the history side of things.

This documentary was released on the TENEBRE Blu-ray so that film gets a lot of discussion as does the rest of Argento's Giallo films. In fact, the documentary probably would have been better had it just focused on Argento since he gets so much of the running time devoted to him. There are some fascinating interviews to be had here including Lenzi who appears to be quite angry that people thinks he borrowed anything from Argento. Deodato also comes across quite bitter as he talks down on the genre. Argento shares plenty of nice stories but at the same time I felt a little bad for him since they also talk about some of the terrible movies that he's made here recently.

If you're a fan of the Giallo genre then this here is certainly worth watching. Not only are the interviews interesting but we also learn about box office numbers as well as get to see posters and lobby cards for dozens of films from the genre.