Amer (cert. 18) is released by Anchor Bay Entertainment and will be available to buy on DVD and Blu-ray from 31st January 2011.
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AMER is a new film that takes Giallo style and Italian Horror tropes in order to create a new arthouse take on the genre. Cult genres all have their cliches, it one of the reasons that fans get so attached to them. There’s a warm feeling inside every time the gang split up for the first time in a teen horror movie, a feeling of nostalgia when the stakes come out in a vampire flick (not to mention a sinking feeling when you realise Twilight is actually Dawson’s Creek with fangs…) and my personal favourite, the flashback slasher film intro, when we inevitably discover that a childish prank has badly backfired, leaving the victim badly burned/mutilated/mentally scarred and wishing for revenge.
Giallo has it’s fair share of stylistic ticks, so many in fact, that the genre can inspire a work like AMER (and doubtless, a potentially lethal drinking game). On the CULT LABS FORUM a few weeks ago, we ran a thread asking members to share their favourite tropes from the genre. Here’s my top five…
5) RED HERRINGS
The Giallo movie thrives on false leads, dead ends and plot tricks. In some ways, it just wouldn’t be a Giallo unless the last person standing is both the least likely to survive and the least likely to have enatched a black gloved killing spree of attractive young Ballerinas/Models/Classical music students in the first place.
4) EYEBALLS
It seems only appropriate that a genre that turns leering camera work into an artform should be so obsessed by eyeballs. Whether zooming from across the room to focus on a victims wide-eyed fear or sexual arousal or as a target for sharp, shiny steel, the eyeball is often an essential ingredient of the genre, there’s even a film called simply ‘Eyeball’ just to drive that point home (through the socket).
3) J&B WHISKEY
It wasn’t just Sid James from the Carry On films who insisted on getting his favourite tipple on screen (doubtless in exchange for numerous crates of the stuff), the Giallo genre at times seems like an extended ad for this particular brand of strong liquor. In the world of Italian cult thrillers, a glass or two of this stuff certainly takes the edge of whatever psychosexual calamities you’re dealing with.
2) WILD ZOOMS
In the modern cinematic world of computer aided post production, there’s simply no need for an in camera zoom with all it’s attendment wobble and focus problems but in 70s Italy it was the golden era of ramping up the tension by wildly zooming from distance to screen filling close up. Depending on where a particular Giallo fell on the delirium scale, this could lead to occasional motion sickness in the viewer
1) BLACK LEATHER GLOVES
What makes a killer’s knife look sexy? Why a pair of bespoke, handcrafted black leather murder gloves of course. Stylish yet practical, these essential accessories for the fashion obsessed psycho look great when teamed with a long black coat or a facial smock that obscures the features but looks creepy under a red light. Black leather gloves also look fabulous when coordinated properly with a crash helmet.
