Giallo Notte

My newest Halloween music mix at 8tracks is called “Giallo Notte” and it contains 14 great music tracks from some of my favorite giallo films such as Dario Argento’s Deep Red (1975), Aldo Lado’s Short Night Of Glass Dolls (1971), Sergio Martino’s The Strange Vice Of Mrs. Wardh (1971) and Emilio Miraglia’s The Red Queen … Continue reading »

Reinventing Lolita

Top: Sue Lyon in Murder in a Blue World (1973) Bottom: Sue Lyon in Lolita (1961) From my latest post at The Movie Morlocks: One of the most iconic images to emerge from the cinema in the 1960s is the figure of a young Sue Lyon, peering over her sunglasses at a leering James Mason … Continue reading »

ZEN on PBS

Actress Catherine Spaak in 1966 I rarely write about modern films or new television shows but if you happen to follow me on Twitter or Facebook you’ve probably noticed that I occasionally mention movies and TV shows that don’t warrant a full post on Cinebeats. My latest obsession is the BBC import currently playing on … Continue reading »

Fulci & Jodorowsky at Severin

Marisa Mell in Perversion Story (1969) The kind folks at Severin recently invited me to participate in a series of month-long guest blog posts at the Severin Blog where we’re asked to share clips from one of our favorite Severin DVD releases. I decided to write a little bit about Luci Fulci’s excellent Italian thriller … Continue reading »

Ennio Morricone’s My Dear Killer OST

George Hilton in My Dear Killer aka Mio Caro Assassino (1972) This month Digitmovies is scheduled to release Ennio Morricone’s incredible score for the excellent giallo thriller My Dear Killer aka Mio Caro Assassino (1972). This will be the 9th volume from Italy’s Digitmovies devoted to the original soundtrack recordings of Ennio Morricone and if … Continue reading »

March Madness

Over at The Destructible Man blog an impromptu blogathon has started simply called Destructible Blog-a-thon.1. The gory details: We want everybody to bundle up, dig deep into the recesses of their consciousness, fiddle about a bit and then go over to your laptops by the fireplace and post about the cinematic ANIMAL dummy death that … Continue reading »

The Devil with Seven Faces (1971)

Top: Carroll Baker has just seen the final cut of The Devil with Seven Faces (1971) Bottom: Even a cheap gorilla mask couldn’t make the movie any better. Normally I neglect to write anything about movies I dislike. I never have enough time to write about all the films I like so why waste my … Continue reading »

My Top 20 Favorite Films of 1968

At the Britannica blog Raymond Benson has finished listing off his Top 10 Favorite Films of 1968 so if you’re interested in the final results stop by and give them a look. I’ve mentioned on numerous occasions how much I dislike making lists of favorite films myself since they’re limited by what I’ve seen and … Continue reading »

Brian G. Hutton’s Night Watch (1973)

By 1973 Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s nine year marriage was coming to an end and both actors wanted to focus on their individual careers. Night Watch (1973) features one of Elizabeth Taylor’s few solo performances as an actress while she was married to Burton and it’s one of my favorite Taylor films from the … Continue reading »

Top 20 Soundtrack Releases of 2007

I’m still working on compiling my list of my Favorite DVDs from 2007, which I plan on sharing here before the end of the month, but in the meantime I thought I’d put together a list of my Top 20 Favorite Soundtrack CDs of 2007. Not surprisingly, Italy’s Cinedelic Records, Japan’s Hotwax Trax, Sweden’s Fin … Continue reading »

Scream… and Die! (1973)

Despite its somewhat misleading title, Scream… and Die! (1973) is a fascinating film directed by José Ramón Larraz that’s well worth a look if you enjoy unusual European thrillers. Larraz is a talented Spanish director who’s mostly known by American film audiences as the man behind the erotic horror film Vampyres (1974) and only a … Continue reading »

The Painter of Agonies

Above: Pupi Avati At this time of the year it seems like every film critic suddenly becomes an expert on horror films and starts publishing their quickly put together “Top 10 Scary Movie Moments” or “Best Films to Watch on Halloween.” These lists are often compiled by people who’ve seen a limited amount of films … Continue reading »

Revisiting the Bay of Blood

Welcome to the Bay of Blood When Stacie Ponder first announced her Friday the 13th blog-a-thon I didn’t sign-up right away since here at Cinebeats I try and keep the focus on sixties and seventies era films, and the first Friday the 13th movie was released in 1980. Then I remembered the obvious. Long before … Continue reading »

Dario Argento News

David Hemmings and Dario Argento on the set of Profondo Rosso (1974) One of my favorite Italian directors has been making lots of news lately. On July 7th Dario Argento launched his first official website which is shaping up to be a really magnificent site jam packed with lots of info and eye-candy spanning Argento’s … Continue reading »

Edwige Fenech Returns to Horror

Europe has produced many lovely and talented actresses who have had memorable careers in horror cinema and one of my favorite European “Scream Queens” is the beautiful Edwidge Fenech. Fenech was born on December 24, 1948 and began her career as a model before getting into acting in the late sixties. She started out making … Continue reading »