The Big Picture

• Knife+Heart is a modern love letter to classic giallo films, featuring vibrant colors and a unique, queer representation in the genre.
• The film subverts traditional giallo tropes by emphasizing LGBTQ characters and their complex relationships, setting it apart from earlier entries.
• The masked killer in Knife+Heart is a creepy and tragic figure, embodying themes of repressed sexuality and the dangers of internalized homophobia.

Slashers tend to be the first horror subgenre that comes to mind when one thinks about mysterious killers and creative death scenes, and it helps that slashers have seen a revival. But predating the classic slashers of the 1980s is the giallo, an Italian crime-horror film, which is also seeing a slower but steady return to modern audiences. These are stylish films with intense colors, while an amateur sleuth is made to solve a murder mystery. Malignant (2021) is a strange film, but its weirdness makes sense when viewers realize it’s a neo-giallo, updating what came before for something new. Immaculate (2024) then brings a stylish flair (with a giallo needle drop), for a motivation behind the central villain that owes how deranged it is to the Italian genre. Before these two films, there was a vintage throwback with Knife+Heart, a sexy, disturbing, and liberating French film from 2018 that deserves more recognition. It’s a shame too, as it boosts one of the most visually-arresting horror stories while exploring queer themes and characters that we haven't really seen in giallo films or even slashers.

‘Knife+Heart’ Is a Bloody Love Letter To Italian Horror Cinema

In Paris 1979, producer Anne (Vanessa Paradis) is the leader of the cast and crew of a softcore gay porn studio, but trouble hits when a masked killer targets the men connected to Anne’s productions. She instigates it further by deciding on a rather unpredictable approach to facing this danger: she adapts the murders as the plot of her new porno. From this premise and with what follows, Knife+Heart is lovingly made as the kind of classic giallo that was a popular part of Italian cinema during the 1970s; except this 2018 film has a unique story that could only be made today. While LGBTQ characters in classic giallo weren’t anything new, they had far smaller roles, with their sexuality their defining character trait.

LGBTQ Characters in Classic Giallo Were Defined by Their "Otherness"

Many Italian directors put their own touch on the genre, but Dario Argento made some of the most celebrated entries, and queerness frequently showed up in his films. In Argento’s second giallo, The Cat o’ Nine Tails (1971), the main reporter, Carlo (James Franciscus), needs to question Dr. Braun (Horst Frank), a scientist involved in the central mystery. “He’s a strange type,” Carlo is told, and when he wants that clarified, he’s told, “Well, for one thing, he hangs out at the St. Peter’s club.” Carlo understands what that means, and in the next scene, so do the viewers. It’s a gay bar, and Carlo, a straight man, is outside his comfort zone as he passes a man putting on makeup and a drag queen to locate Dr. Braun.

Knife+Heart gives a much-needed update to how queerness is presented in the giallo, where every major character is part of the queer community for representation that is messy, campy, and complex. Anne views herself as the cinema queen of tastefully sleazy porn, but her self-centered ideas to use the murders as inspiration is really because of a broken heart. It’s to catch the attention of her editor, Loïs (Kate Moran), who has ended things with Anne due to her toxic behavior. Beyond these exes, there is Anne’s close friend Archibald (Nicolas Maury), who can help direct the thrusting actors while behind the scenes or step in front of the camera to get in on the action when needed.

Gloriously, this is a very queer giallo, which is especially important in how it evolves the genre, as the giallo was the prototype of what the slasher became; and when it comes to queer slashers nowadays, queerness is still limited in them. The last two Scream didn’t do much with Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown). For anyone who can’t forgive They/Them (2022) for squandering a terrific title with a lackluster plot that couldn’t figure out how to balance the drama with the horror, Knife+Heart is here to show you how it can be done.

‘Knife+Heart’ Has Dazzling Queer Safe Spaces

A notable element of the giallo is the bold colors in the lighting and sets. Although the gay bar in The Cat o’ Nine Tails is not shown as a seedy bar thanks to bright overhead lights, there’s no imagination given to the scene. This is a big difference from the locations in Knife+Heart that are simmering with passion because of how vibrant they are. A Spanish disco song plays as Anne enters a nightclub to find Loïs, the space glowing in pink and blue, with the camera placed in Anne’s POV as she navigates through the dancers lost in the music. It's so immersive that it can make you jealous that you aren’t on the other side of the screen.

Later, at a lesbian bar, a small stage has two women doing an odd but sensual musical performance. One is dressed in a fishnet bodysuit, singing about falling in love with another woman in a bear costume. The lyrics are sexual and desperate as the “human” is drawn to this love affair even though when the two embrace, the “bear” kills her, spraying scarlet-red fake blood over the stage. There is danger in Knife+Heart, but its sexually liberated characters ensure this film doesn’t feel bleak. Queer folks are dancing in the clubs and heading out to the bars, not letting fear rob them of enjoying life. The plot takes place on the eve of the 1980s when the AIDS crisis hit, and there are already worrying signs of what is to come.

The police, as the faces of authority, are not the protectors. When Anne goes to the police to demand what it will take to find the elusive killer, they simply tell her to stop production and keep her cast and crew “safely” in their homes. The porn film Anne makes feels like an act of rebellion in how unashamed it is. There have been movies about filmmaking and what goes on in the industry, but this one dives into every step of creating the porno, from casting to production to editing. A young man is willing to do gay-for-pay work. A long take captures Archibald turning a police interrogation scene into an orgy. Loïs carefully and expertly slices into the celluloid film to piece it together. Director Yann Gonzalez gives each of Anne’s projects as much attention as Knife+Heart itself. Still, it does all of this while not forgetting the main source of danger in a giallo.

A Giallo Villain Dresses the Same But Kills in Unique Ways

The masked murderer in this mystery is easily one of the creepiest and most tragic giallo villains. The genre is known for transgressive plot lines that go further than what the standard murder mystery would do. The motives of its killers can be due to repressed sexuality or trauma that resurfaces; and many times, these villains are women. In Knife+Heart, the mysterious killer is a male figure who is aroused by the young men they are about to kill, and it seems a desire to be with them rises. Then they lash out, taking out a switchblade dildo (you heard that right) to viciously stab their prey.

During their frenzied attacks, the killer lets out a moaning sound from behind their leather mask that is downright chilling from how unexpected and unusual it is. Their motive revolves around internalized homophobia, but when their backstory is uncovered, the evils go back to homophobia and violence caused by straight people who are unable to accept the LGBTQ community. And then, as Knife+Heart goes on, it leans more toward the dreamy, weirder entries within the genre. It doesn’t happen all at once though, there’s a slow build to things getting stranger and stranger.

This Neo-Giallo Can Get Weird

Anne seems to have dreams of scenes that appear like film negatives, devoid of the saturated colors seen elsewhere. They appear to be dreams, but they also might be memories — and not ones she experienced herself. Things get surreal as she finally begins to investigate the killings, but no spoilers here! It's standard for giallo movies to venture into more surreal territory, what with the lush stylized colors in the lighting and settings already moving them away from real life. In Deep Red, there is a scary moment where viewers are tricked into expecting the killer to pop out, but a creepy doll rushes out of the darkness instead. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s done to keep viewers off-balance.

These moments also highlight the importance of the score in giallo movies. In Knife+Heart, the soundtrack is by M83, their dream-pop synth aesthetics perfectly matching the beauty and terror of this story. It also fits nicely with iconic giallo scores, like the pulsating sounds of Goblin in Argento films, where the music can be overpowering, or deceptively serene. Immaculate does the latter during a montage that follows Sydney Sweeney's young nun through her day, set to a needle drop of Bruno Nicolai’s score for 1972’s The Red Queen Kills Seven Times. Whether M83's synth sounds are playing or not, director Yann Gonzalez always makes sure the lighting and cinematography in Knife+Heart are breathtaking and exciting, inside the queer club or bar, and in the outside locations. The camera spins around a soon-to-be victim as the masked killer approaches, both standing within shafts of sunlight that are cast down as a windy rainstorm occurs in a richly verdant forest. The film is tremendous eye candy, that is for sure.

The giallo genre has seen small moments of revival here and there, but it’s picking up speed. Once viewers know what to look out for, they can spot the influences, from the tropes that include black-cloaked killers, violent deaths, and intense use of color. Murder, She Wrote is a cozy whodunit series that includes a giallo-inspired episode, where a masked killer gives the series its bloodiest kill. Now, Malignant and Immaculate are making sure the giallo legacy lives on in vicious splendor. Among these entries that update the stylish and violent genre for modern audiences, Knife+Heart is a mesmerizing queer giallo that brings a double meaning to the word "body count."

Knife+Heart is streaming on AMC+.

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