THE EDITOR: A Look At The Teaser & Giallo Inspirations

At last year's Festival, Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani's gorgeous giallo, The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears, screened as part of the Vanguard programme. This year, the Astron-6 collective is bringing their own take on the giallo to Midnight Madness with The Editor.

Although the teaser trailer for the movie is less than a minute, there's a lot to unpack in terms of cinematic references, so we thought we'd examine them more closely.

That tinkly, vaguely music box sound you hear sounds a lot like Goblin, particularly their score for Suspiria, directed by Dario Argento.

One of the first images we see is a hand holding a straight razor, a murder weapon used in many giallos, such Tenebre (1982), directed by (surprise!) Dario Argento. 

The hand holding the straight razor is wearing black gloves, which might be the most iconic giallo image that exists. Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace (1964), is one of the earliest films (if not the very first) to use that iconography. (Please note the straight razor.)

Cradled in those black-gloved hands is a tarantula and wouldn't you know it? There's a movie about that (sort of). It's called The Black Belly of the Tarantula, directed by Paola Cavara in 1971.

It wouldn't be a giallo without a lot of scantily clad, if not outright naked, women in compromising positions, and there's some of that in The Editor, too. One of the most beautiful women in giallo, Edwige Fenech, is naked throughout most of Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have The Key (1971)

As if straight razors weren't enough, there's also a chainsaw in The Editor teaser trailer. Although Aquarius: Stage Fright came out in 1987, several years past the 1960s and 1970s Giallo heyday, it was directed by Michele Soavi, who acted in several giallos over the years. (And check out how the killer holding the chainsaw in The Editor is filmed from a point of view angle, much like the killer in Your Vice!)



There's also a chainsaw in 1982's Pieces, another quasi-giallo that has one of the best trailers in existence.



Besides black gloves and straight razors, giallos like to feature a lot of red blood and red lighting (which really reddens things up). What could be more giallo than a movie directed by Dario Argento called Deep Red (Profondo Rosso)?



The Editor also has a car chase, which is not so much giallo as it is Italian crime drama. Like Shoot First, Die Later (1974) by Fernando Di Leo.



The Editor even uses the Mario Bava zoom towards the end of the trailer, a stylistic convention used in his 1963 ode to Hitchcock, The Girl Who Knew Too Much (The Evil Eye).



Finally, The Editor is about a film editor who becomes a murder suspect. This kind of movie about movies is not without giallo precedent: 1983's A Blade in the Dark was about a horror film composer being stalked by a killer.



Let us know which other movies you think the The Editor references when you check it out at the Festival!

THE EDITOR screening times:
Thu., Sept. 11th, 11:59 PM, RYERSON
Fri., Sept. 12th, 9:15 AM, SCOTIABANK 3
Sat., Sept. 13th, 6:15 PM, SCOTIABANK 4