Jane lives in London with Richard, her boyfriend. When she was five, her mother was murdered, she recently lost a baby in a car crash and now she’s plagued by nightmares of a knife-wielding, blue-eyed man. Desperate to ease her pain, Jane decides to follow her new neighbor’s advice to attend a Black Mass, only to fan her already horrible visions, making her reality a living hell. Is there an escape from the clutches of the darkest evil?
Day of the Maniac, Demons of the Dead, They're Coming to Get You, Toutes les couleurs du vice, L'alliance invisible, Todos los colores de la oscuridad, Die Farben der Nacht, Strange Vice of Mrs. Ward No.2, All the Colours of the Dark, Sve boje mraka, Yılan Ruhlu Kadının Kâbusu, Karanlığın Tüm Renkleri, Todas as Cores da Escuridão, A sötétség összes színe, Все оттенки тьмы, เสียว, 梦魇之瞳, Wszystkie odcienie mroku, 올 더 컬러스 오브 더 다크
Italy
USAR
Germany16
Germany16
Germany
Italy
USA
Sergio Martino’s psychedelic/psychosexual satanic panic rural hallucinogenic gothic giallo—occupied by sex blood orgy cults, nefarious blue eyed stalkers, numerous red herrings, fingernails that look like evil death talons, and the lacerated psyche of an unreliable narrator.
Equal parts kaleidoscopic surreal dream and phantasmagorical nightmare logic, All the Colors of the Dark Initially opens with bizarro grotesque dreams and the mystery of the psychological trauma surrounding them before spiralling into a trippy supernatural satanic cult jam where ultimately the greatest mystery isn’t necessarily a murder or said nefarious blue eyed demon man watching your every move—it’s what is real and who can you trust?
Edwige. Hilton. Rassimov. Nieves. Staples from the giallo Golden age, all in top form, as Martino (also in…
I mean if Edwige Fenech joined a cult I feel like that’s a pretty solid endorsement. If she asked me to join with her I’d be like “gee gosh you’re pretty ok let’s do it” because she really is one of the greatest, most beautiful non-divalike divas of ALL TIME.
Sigh...I love this psychedelic giallo so much. Crazy sex cults. 70’s fashions. Amazing music. Shady characters. Edwige. George Hilton. Nieves Navarro. Ivan Rassimov. Fingernails that look like metallic Bugle snacks. Beautiful apartment building I’d totally live in. Red herrings galore. J&B all around. Crazy camera angles. As far as I’m concerned, Sergio Martino only makes 4 and 5 star gialli. Have I mentioned that Edwige Fenech is FAB? Because she really is and there will never be enough gialli or sex comedies with her in them. There also just aren’t enough Martino-made gialli for us to treasure even if I’ll never ever get tired of the ones we do have.
inarguably the greatest pure giallo, Martino's masterpiece, and (at least for me) Edwige Fenech's most iconic role. here she's a perpetually terrified lady suffering from extreme penetration anxiety (in bed with her spicious-actin fiancé George Hilton the poor woman has flashbacks to her mother's fatal stabbing) who essentially finds herself sexually awakened after being hypnotized by a Satanic rape cult. this is some classic freakout stuff, subtexually pretty misogynist, with an absolutely drop-dead score by Bruno Nicolai, and Martino shoots everything with these perspective shredding anamorphic short lenses. also it's got one of the best out-of-nowhere, bluntly expository wrap-ups the genre ever saw.
Spooktober IV: Morte all'italiana
My rather uneven journey through Martino's work fortunately ends on a high note as the director takes on the subject of trippy satanic cults as we follow a traumatized woman who joins a satanic cult on the advice of a neighbor, and, to no one's surprise, this does not go well and she finds herself haunted by disturbing nightmares and people out to get her.
This is another stunningly shot film. More so than many of the other films I've mentioned that use the glossy look, this one is among the greatest to use it in specific scenes -like everything in the Black Mass- to create these nightmarish, trippy sequences, which are heightened by some incredible…
#Giallo
'Consider yourself neither crazy nor someone who's seeing things. Real madmen never think of themselves as crazy.'
The mind. A confluence of wealth and a wealth of destruction. More often our own enemy than we'd like to admit. Many people link the mind purely to intellect. That, of course, is an apt approach, but in itself, not adequate. The mind is an amalgam of much more, springing both from our cerebral realm of reason and our creative center that spurs imagination.
After ticking off 5 entries in Martino's filmography, I think I figured out why his takes on self-oriented–and destructive psychology resonate with me. He seems to care less about intellect, and instead places reason (among whose prerequisites intellect…
🪬 Giallo— Sergio Martino (1972) 🇮🇹 Italy
"I already lived this moment."
All the Colors of the Dark did something special: it spooked me during the opening sequence, and I had to pause before continuing.
I don’t know exactly how this happened. I stopped being easy to scare two years ago, and here there’s just creepy imagery and music—nothing extreme. But the imagery was disturbing somehow, and it was more effective than films exponentially more bloody.
My reaction reminded me of the experience I had when I had to pause the very uncomfortable father/son “coaching” scene about 20 minutes into What Josiah Saw. The content is not gruesome, but the creepiness is very high.
To be clear, all of this…
86
Intensely vulnerable. Pills and nightmares and evil men. Piercing blue eyes constantly in pursuit. A Giallo that is both perverse and fearful - a paranoiac journey of institutions and ceremonies.
Giallo meets Rosemary‘s Baby.. but of course with much more naked skin.
Instead of razor blades and black gloves, there is an occult sect, satanic symbols and many surreal dream sequences.
As a completely overwhelmed, exhausted woman, Edwige Fenech is allowed to wander through densely arranged scenes between paranoia and nightmare.
In some scenes, the movie borders on the ridiculous and offers hardly any noticeable facets apart from an interplay of delusion and reality, but fortunately the audiovisual design tears something out.
Dialogues, characters and above all the final resolution are weak, but for Giallo fans who also want to see something different within the genre, this one is worth seeing.
i've had this film embyonic like in my head for some time, seed planted by The Electric Wizard, moons ago. and, i gotta say, i am so echoing (body mind-wise) to the british setting. all castles and cool air and autumn leaves.
the autumn leaves, man. the decaying fall. that special post '69 british remoteness. impressions of a pale green sea and vast occult stillnesses.
all befitting a tale of satanic mind control cults and evil possession.
all coming to a head for me. and i've loved these films the most when they build in these supernatural, occult vibrations. here's the Black. Mass. see it through smears of hippie and the haze of the comedown zeitgeist:
the black…
Instantly my 2nd favorite Sergio Martino film after The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh. Edwige Fenech is at her best here, the use of colors is amazing--I'm talking Blood and Black Lace level of mastery, and I love that hypnotic score too. All the Colors of the Dark is packed with memorable, haunting sequences making it an essential giallo experience.
