FH Mini 127 - Always Room for Giallo, with Alejandro Arbona

[0:00] Hey, oh yeah, this is the Flophouse and it's a Flophouse mini.

[0:08] That is a mini episode of the classic hit podcast, the Flophouse podcast, where we normally

[0:14] watch a bad movie and talk about it.

[0:16] But today we're doing one of our minis where we kind of do something a little bit different.

[0:20] I'm joined as always by my co-host Dan McCoy.

[0:23] Hello.

[0:24] And we have a very special guest, my friend, comic book author, writer, and editor, Alejandro

[0:32] Arbona.

[0:33] Alejandro.

[0:34] Hello, guys.

[0:35] Thank you.

[0:36] Do I give you too many credits, author and writer?

[0:37] Is that too much?

[0:38] You know, when it comes to comics, authorship is really the artist and the writer.

[0:42] Yeah.

[0:43] So thank you for correcting me.

[0:44] Of course, Elliot is, I don't know, on the moon fighting scrolls or something.

[0:48] Right.

[0:49] Yeah.

[0:50] Elliot is doing something or other.

[0:51] I was like, hey, we got a mini scheduled and he's just he just held up his hands holding

[0:56] what a slice of bread with mayonnaise on it and one with mustard.

[1:00] And he's like, too busy.

[1:02] Yeah.

[1:03] Yeah.

[1:04] So, Alejandro, you were kind enough to come down because you have a new book on the way.

[1:10] And I just want to say I've been friends with Alejandro for a while.

[1:13] You've been coming to the bar, one of my bars.

[1:16] Is that OK?

[1:17] I don't know.

[1:18] Yeah, of course.

[1:19] And yeah, we've we've connected and talked about comics and things like that.

[1:24] You worked for Marvel for quite a while.

[1:27] I'm a longtime editor and writer of comics.

[1:30] And in that capacity, I first met Elliot.

[1:32] We had a chance to work together a couple of times at Marvel and later at a company

[1:35] called Valiant.

[1:36] Oh, I'm so sorry about Elliot, not Valiant or Marvel.

[1:41] And then I was living in Kensington when Hinterland's opened.

[1:44] So I quickly became a regular there.

[1:46] That's how we all got to know each other.

[1:47] And yeah, I came to be here.

[1:49] How did you how do you get into working for working in comics?

[1:53] There's really nothing to that story.

[1:54] I thought it would be fun.

[1:55] And I wrote a letter into Wizard magazine.

[1:59] They hired me.

[2:00] There's something to that.

[2:01] I feel like writing a letter into Wizard magazine is like that's like a kid's dream of how to

[2:06] get hired in comics.

[2:07] Yeah, I was I was doing a little bit of freelance like publishing type stuff.

[2:11] And I bought an issue of Wizard magazine.

[2:14] They said they were hiring.

[2:15] And that was 20, a little more than 20 years ago, I started my career in comics at Wizard

[2:19] magazine.

[2:20] But did you have like a writing background or?

[2:23] Not really.

[2:24] I went to film school.

[2:25] I was very interested in comics.

[2:26] I was actually trying to break into working in comics.

[2:30] I was hoping to, you know, I was trying to cold email people at Marvel in D.C. and see

[2:34] if I could get hired.

[2:36] And then that's the kind of backdoor of how I ended up at Wizard just because I was looking

[2:39] at all the stuff that was out there.

[2:42] And I saw they were hiring and then that's there.

[2:45] That's awesome.

[2:46] We, you know, Dan and I both kind of backed into working in comics as well as both lover.

[2:51] But I mean, like the way we got around to working in published comics is kind of weird

[2:56] when we when we got invited to write for the Flash Gordon holiday special.

[3:00] Yeah.

[3:01] I mean, I just laughing because, like, you know, I haven't written anything for a comic

[3:05] in in so long at this point that I but I have like been like, maybe I should get back in

[3:11] touch.

[3:12] Maybe I should look.

[3:13] Yeah, you totally should.

[3:14] It just goes to show there is no one way to break into comics.

[3:17] Everybody comes in with their own story.

[3:19] Uh-huh.

[3:20] No two stories are alike.

[3:21] Big hopes and big dreams.

[3:22] Oh, yeah.

[3:23] Big money.

[3:24] So it's funny that you mentioned that you have a like a film background because the

[3:33] you have a new comic that is coming to Kickstarter soon.

[3:37] You want to talk about it's interesting to me because it is so related to film.

[3:41] And we are, in fact, I believe checking the 10, a film podcast.

[3:45] Well, thank you.

[3:46] Thank you for that prompt.

[3:47] Yeah.

[3:48] I wrote a 90 page graphic novel.

[3:51] It's almost finished and we are about to hit Kickstarter with basically just the goal of

[3:57] paying to print it and ship it.

[3:59] OK.

[4:00] It's called.

[4:01] Is that is that traditional for comics?

[4:02] Kickstarters?

[4:03] No.

[4:04] You know, when it comes to comics, Kickstarter is it can be a really risky thing to back

[4:06] one because a lot of times you're paying a high funding goal for a team or a singular

[4:12] cartoonist to write and draw the whole thing.

[4:14] It could take two years.

[4:15] I'm still waiting to get a book that I backed in twenty eighteen.

[4:18] Whoa.

[4:19] That person keeps posting updates that is happening.

[4:22] Yeah.

[4:23] Anyway, usually that's the case.

[4:25] You back a Kickstarter in order to finance the creators working on the book and it could

[4:31] take a year or so.

[4:33] This one, I had a rare opportunity.

[4:35] I was able to do this book on my own.

[4:37] Ninety pages.

[4:39] It's almost finished now.

[4:40] The art is finished.

[4:42] Coloring will be finished right after the Kickstarter campaign.

[4:45] That's awesome.

[4:46] So we'll be able to pretty much wrap it up and ship it pretty quickly.

[4:50] It's called Lake Yellowwood Slaughter.

[4:53] It is a it is a very tongue in cheek.

[4:56] It is a slasher.

[4:58] It is a 1983 slasher movie.

[5:00] That's basically the idea.

[5:01] It actually started as the idea came to life when I was watching a movie with some of my

[5:07] old wizard magazine friends.

[5:09] We were watching Sleepaway Camp, too.

[5:11] We were all kind of reminiscing about childhood summer camp memories.

[5:16] And I jokingly I just said, imagine a slasher movie where the parents are excited to have

[5:24] their child free summer of sex and booze and drugs.

[5:29] And then the killer goes after them instead.

[5:31] OK, yeah, that's that's the elevator pitch.

[5:33] Basically, it gets a little more meta because it is, in fact, the quote unquote official

[5:39] comic book adaptation of a 1983 slasher movie that never existed.

[5:44] Yeah, there's definitely a part of Stewart that's like, I love that idea.

[5:48] That's so amazing.

[5:49] It gets even it gets even more meta.

[5:51] And this is where people often advise me to stop pitching because it gets too confusing.

[5:55] It is a slasher movie that was made by a Giallo director who came from Italy to Hollywood

[6:00] to cash in on slashers because it was the early 80s and the Giallo moment was dying

[6:05] down and his career was winding down.

[6:08] OK.

[6:09] And yeah, so that's all of that is the behind the scenes stuff.

[6:12] But basically, it's just a tight 90 page.

[6:14] You're in, you're out.

[6:15] The killing.

[6:16] Yeah.

[6:17] But you're checking all the boxes.

[6:20] People who like comics, people who like slaughters, people who like Giallo, people who like complex

[6:26] layers.

[6:27] Well, I think that that's really funny because I so I promised that I was going to for one

[6:32] of our bonus content that make this an audio version of this sitcom thing that I wrote.

[6:37] And when I gave it to Elliot, he's like, this has two framing devices, probably remove one

[6:43] of them.

[6:44] And I'm like, no, I'm not going to.

[6:46] I already cut a third framing device out.

[6:49] So I can't kill these other darlings.

[6:52] I feel beholden to mention since I said earlier that the authorship of a comic is always the

[6:57] artist and the writer.

[6:58] Yeah.

[6:59] And the artist is Gavin Guidry.

[7:00] Great.

[7:01] Who is a really great young artist who I'm very, very, very excited to do this comic

[7:03] with.

[7:04] Awesome.

[7:05] Has this artist done anything else that you can direct people to?

[7:08] He as we speak, has just finished drawing a run on Action Comics.

[7:11] Oh, cool.

[7:12] Featuring a guy you might have heard of, Superman.

[7:14] Oh, what's his deal?

[7:16] What powers does he have?

[7:17] Well, there's a there's a movie coming this summer.

[7:19] You can see for yourself.

[7:20] Who's who's the verse?

[7:22] I'm sure that everyone's really happy about this movie.

[7:24] And there's no like weird group of people who would prefer it to be like some bad movies

[7:28] that happened in the past.

[7:29] And that is a weird group of people might be our hugest fans.

[7:33] That is none of my business.

[7:35] Gavin also recently did some Uncanny X-Men.

[7:37] Oh, right.

[7:38] That he's he's great.

[7:40] He's a he's a he's been working for a little while, but he's he's like an emerging artist.

[7:44] I think he's about to break out in a big way.

[7:47] I'm really excited.

[7:48] I think I got very lucky to be able to get him on board for this right before he has

[7:52] a big moment.

[7:54] I feel like I don't know, again, Dan and Dan, I've both worked within the comics world a

[7:59] little bit, and it still hasn't got I still haven't gotten over the feeling of like having

[8:05] an artist draw the thing I wrote and how cool that is.

[8:09] Stuart, I have worked in comics for 20 years.

[8:12] Yeah.

[8:13] And when Gavin started sending me pages for this, I felt like this is a dream come true.

[8:18] Yeah.

[8:19] This comic is actually turning out better than I ever imagined it.

[8:22] It is a dream come true.

[8:24] I'm so lucky.

[8:25] So what are some of your influences here, film wise, because you I mean, specifically

[8:30] mentioned Giallo and slasher movies.

[8:32] Do you was it do you have like a firm bet, like a big background in those two things?

[8:37] I've definitely been a longtime lover of slasher movies in particular.

[8:41] Giallo is kind of a newer thing to me, but I've spent the last two years, I'd say, maybe

[8:45] immersing myself to a degree that may not even be healthy.

[8:49] I think at this point I've watched about something like 100 Giallo movies, and I have

[8:53] a list.

[8:54] It's far from complete.

[8:55] I have a list of maybe like 100 more that I still want to get to.

[8:59] Where does one find this list?

[9:02] I have a list on Letterboxd, but it is private because I don't want people quibbling with

[9:08] me about the definition of Giallo.

[9:10] Oh, that's a big thing with Giallo fans is that people are like kind of doctrinaires

[9:14] and people are kind of strict about what is or isn't a Giallo.

[9:17] Are Giallo fans are weirdly specific about their niche genres?

[9:21] Can you speak about like what the issue is?

[9:25] Because I know that a lot of people do use it to sort of refer to Italian horror, which

[9:32] is not correct.

[9:33] I mean, like it's like, you know, there's horror movies that are Giallo's, but they

[9:38] are like non-supernatural.

[9:39] Like it's a it's about, you know, killers.

[9:42] It's more of a thriller horror, you know, in its most strict sense.

[9:47] Are there other issues that people have?

[9:50] No, absolutely.

[9:51] There is a definition of Giallo that is very specific and very easy to wrap your mind around.

[9:55] But then that becomes the sticking point where people insist on it being exactly that.

[10:00] I would say for the casual viewer, for people who don't necessarily know Jalo in depth,

[10:05] when you say Jalo, people think of Suspiria right away.

[10:09] Suspiria is pretty much not a Jalo.

[10:12] Yeah, it's about witches.

[10:13] It's about witches.

[10:14] It's a very supernatural.

[10:15] I think people associate Suspiria with Jalo because it does have some strong Jalo elements.

[10:20] It has a mystery element, which is a big part of the thing, and I'm going to give you a

[10:24] definition in a moment.

[10:25] A lot of close-ups on eyeballs.

[10:28] I think it also has to do with the fact that Dario Argento, in particular, the director,

[10:32] is so singularly associated with Jalo that when he makes a non-Jalo movie, people are

[10:37] like, it's the pointing at the butterfly meme is this Jalo.

[10:40] Whereas Mario Bava, arguably the other father of the Jalo, Mario Bava made crime movies

[10:48] and he made gothic horror and he made sci-fi, Planet of the Vampires and things like that,

[10:54] and no one ever confuses those for Jalo.

[10:57] What's the other one?

[10:58] I don't have Italian, so I can't say it right, but there's like the Polizia ones.

[11:02] Polizia Teschi.

[11:03] Yeah, which is like different somehow.

[11:05] Yeah, well, Polizia Teschi is like a cop movie.

[11:10] Sort of a genre into itself, but there's a lot of Jalo, especially later.

[11:13] Would you call it like a police story?

[11:17] Super cop.

[11:18] Or a police story, too.

[11:19] But to give you a definition, I would say the real definition of Jalo is that it is

[11:24] a murder mystery, specifically.

[11:26] It is a whodunit.

[11:28] It has a cast of characters and the killer is one of that cast.

[11:32] It's not like your anonymous slasher who is out for revenge.

[11:36] It's somebody in the cast who has some kind of motive, often profit or, you know, like

[11:42] knocking off a family one by one to get the inheritance or revenge or some kind of psychological

[11:49] trauma.

[11:50] The killer usually wears a trench coat?

[11:53] Yes.

[11:54] So an American scream would be a Jalo, but not Friday the 13th.

[11:58] Yes.

[11:59] Friday the 13th is is is definitely your textbook slasher.

[12:02] Although the first one maybe actually would be more of a Jalo.

[12:05] Well, it's funny you say that because of those early slashers.

[12:10] The first Friday the 13th or the first two certain movie or or well, certainly part two,

[12:16] which steals two kills in a row from Bay of Blood.

[12:20] Two kills that happened in a row in Bay of Blood.

[12:22] Wow.

[12:24] You heard it here, folks.

[12:25] I mean, Jalo fans can tell you this.

[12:28] Everyone knows that.

[12:29] But where was I?

[12:31] Yeah.

[12:32] The definition of the Jalo is is frequently the knocking off a cast of characters one

[12:36] by one to building up to the eventual reveal of what is the trauma, what is the motive,

[12:41] what is who is the killer behind the mask?

[12:45] Whereas with slashers, it's always like a purely revenge driven, you know, or some kind

[12:50] of obsession or.

[12:53] Is New York Ripper a Jalo?

[12:55] New York Ripper is a Jalo.

[12:56] New York Ripper is late in the history of the Jalo phase.

[13:00] It's from the 80s that, you know, there are still Jalos being made today, obviously.

[13:04] But the golden age of the Jalos is basically from at some point in the mid to late 60s

[13:11] going through the late the late 70s.

[13:13] It's basically like a 10 solid years.

[13:15] That's the prime time of the Jalo, the the I'll give you the quick evolution of how they

[13:19] came along.

[13:20] Sure.

[13:22] There was a publisher in Italy called Mondadori that famously would publish genre books with

[13:28] a colored cover for each genre.

[13:31] OK.

[13:32] And they would publish mysteries, murder mysteries and thrillers with yellow covers.

[13:36] Jalo is the Italian word for yellow.

[13:38] So people started calling the books themselves Jali as a shorthand for what that was.

[13:45] Incidentally, those Mondadori yellow books would frequently publish translations in Italian

[13:51] of Agatha Christie novels, of Edgar Allan Poe novels.

[13:55] As a result, a lot of people in Italy growing up reading these books are obsessed, obsessed

[14:00] with Edgar Allan Poe and Agatha Christie.

[14:03] Agatha Christie in particular wrote one book and then there were none.

[14:08] That book by itself is like the blueprint of what a Jalo is.

[14:11] OK, that has that has the structure.

[14:13] It has certain visual elements.

[14:15] It's a book about, you know, a group of strangers are gathered in a place by someone and they

[14:20] don't know why.

[14:21] They're in a private island.

[14:23] They're on a private island.

[14:24] They don't know who brought them there or why.

[14:25] And then they start being killed off one by one.

[14:28] And there's even a visual element of like the dinner table is decorated with figurines

[14:33] and each time that someone gets knocked off, one figurine disappears, which is the textbook

[14:38] like a Jalo movie.

[14:40] The only key difference between that and a Jalo is that the author, the killer doesn't

[14:44] wear any glove mask, nothing like that, of course, because it's a book.

[14:48] So concealing their identity just means not describing.

[14:52] Yeah.

[14:53] Yeah.

[14:54] If you don't describe them, then the reader doesn't doesn't see them.

[14:56] But when you turn that turn that into a visual element, then you have to add a mask, a hat,

[15:01] a glove.

[15:02] Yeah.

[15:03] And like, I guess I guess the trench coat and like gloves are only there to like disguise

[15:07] the identity.

[15:08] Right.

[15:09] And frequently to disguise the gender because, you know, a killer can always be revealed

[15:12] to be a woman.

[15:13] But with black leather gloves, you wouldn't suspect it necessarily.

[15:16] It's a funny thing that that became such a trope in early Jalo movies that they eventually

[15:21] had like the the the the the false flags on different gender, right?

[15:26] Yeah.

[15:27] The killer being revealed to be a woman, it's like, well, like De Palma stuff, like what's

[15:32] what's what you would call it, but not not body double dress to kill, dress to kill,

[15:38] dress to kill.

[15:39] I'm so happy you brought that up because that brand De Palma movies and Jalo are kind of

[15:44] tied together closely.

[15:46] The other thing that all these Italian filmmakers were so obsessed with, aside from Christie

[15:51] and so forth, was Alfred Hitchcock.

[15:54] Yeah.

[15:55] Same as the French, like New Wave, Cahiers du Cinema people were obsessed with Hitchcock.

[15:59] The Italians were obsessed with Hitchcock.

[16:01] So in 1960, Hitchcock made Psycho.

[16:05] And coincidentally, a British director, Michael Powell, made this movie Peeping Tom.

[16:10] And those two movies, same as and then there were none.

[16:13] Those two movies seem like blueprints for the Jalo.

[16:16] Interestingly, Psycho is black and white and Peeping Tom is like lurid color, technicolor

[16:21] greens and purples.

[16:22] I feel like color is such a big part, like color, like specific clear color choices is

[16:28] such a big part of Jalo.

[16:30] Yeah.

[16:31] And that's singularly down to Mario Bava.

[16:34] So Mario Bava, only a couple of years after Psycho, he made a movie called The Girl Who

[16:38] Knew Too Much, which by itself is a Hitchcock reference already.

[16:42] And that is considered to be the first Jalo because it has that particular story structure

[16:46] of she thinks she witnesses a murder and now someone is after her.

[16:51] The killer's identity is unknown all the way until the end.

[16:55] It features John Saxon.

[16:59] And then that kind of kickstarted everything.

[17:00] And then immediately, people started to make a million of these movies.

[17:04] And then a few years later, he made, but The Girl Who Knew Too Much was in black and white.

[17:09] A few years later, he made Blood and Black Lace, which is like you were saying, it's

[17:14] lurid technicolor.

[17:15] That's kind of the movie that set the standard for the use of color in Jalo.

[17:19] Oh, cool.

[17:20] And then some years after that, Dario Argento made his first movie, The Bird with the Crystal

[17:24] Plumage.

[17:25] And that's the last piece of the puzzle.

[17:29] Like that became the final influence for what would be the textbook Jalo movie.

[17:34] And then now all Jalo is everything.

[17:38] It's all measured against those things.

[17:40] Pretty much.

[17:41] Yeah.

[17:42] And the reason I responded to when you mentioned Brian De Palma before is that Brian De Palma

[17:45] was himself so influenced by Alfred Hitchcock that when he started to make his thrillers

[17:49] in the 70s and 80s, everyone kind of people who knew Jalo started to refer to Brian De

[17:55] Palma as like a Neo Jalo or American Jalo, which I think he claimed he disavowed that

[18:02] influence.

[18:03] He said he's not familiar with Jalo.

[18:04] That's not what he was trying to do.

[18:05] It's strange, though, because like, I mean, I don't it's not like I disbelieve him, but

[18:09] to me, what he does is so much closer to Jalo than actually Hitchcock.

[18:15] Like, you know, he pulls things from Hitchcock, but his style is so florid, like a Jalo director.

[18:23] Not like Hitchcock is, you know, it's very like well-constructed sequences, but it's

[18:27] more of a classical sort of way of doing it, I think.

[18:31] Yeah, I agree.

[18:32] I don't disbelieve him either.

[18:33] But it's interesting that if his big influence was Hitchcock, it's funny that it should come

[18:37] like Body Double, for example, is such a Jalo, it feels like.

[18:41] Well, and that he that he evolved, like his evolution of that Hitchcock influence is so

[18:47] similar to the like Italian evolution of the Hitchcock influence.

[18:51] You know, one thing that's really interesting to me is when people talk about like making

[18:55] and making Neo Jalo or making a modern Jalo, I've never heard anyone else talk about this,

[19:00] but I really feel like like a 90s erotic thrillers are effectively like a lot like

[19:06] Jalo movies.

[19:07] Yeah.

[19:08] In particular, I think the one that that stands out the most is Color of Night.

[19:11] Yeah.

[19:12] It's like starting with the title alone is already so Jalo.

[19:16] Yeah.

[19:17] The what about have you I don't just want to go down a list of like, have you seen this

[19:22] Jalo?

[19:23] Have you?

[19:24] But have you seen the editor, the the like kind of the parody of Jalo about it's it's

[19:31] from the the the you know, the same collective of guys who made like Psycho Goreman and Father's

[19:39] Day.

[19:40] Oh, no, I haven't seen that one.

[19:42] And yeah, it's it's really funny.

[19:45] And it you know, it's obviously like a love letter to it's both a parody and a love letter

[19:51] to Jalo.

[19:52] Yeah.

[19:53] I'm going to add that to my private letterboxd.

[19:54] Yeah.

[19:55] There's also I watched this I watched this weird little one from there was like a micro

[20:00] budget one shot in like Southern Indiana called Three Tears on Bloodstained Flesh, and it

[20:07] is like, it has all the hallmark, it's like a weird like, Midwestern giallo that works

[20:13] so well.

[20:14] I think like, it's obviously not perfect or anything, but it's, I found it to be really

[20:19] funny and fun, and it's not a parody at all, it's just like a straight like, what if these

[20:26] tiny budget filmmakers in the Midwest decide to make a, make a giallo in their backyard

[20:32] basically.

[20:33] I like it.

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[21:22] Alright, we're over 70 episodes into our show, let's learn everything.

[21:25] So let's do a quick progress check.

[21:28] Have we learned about quantum physics?

[21:30] Yes, episode 59.

[21:32] We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

[21:34] Yes we have.

[21:35] Same episode, actually.

[21:37] Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

[21:39] Episode 64.

[21:40] So how close are we to learning everything?

[21:43] Bad news.

[21:44] We still haven't learned everything yet.

[21:46] We're ruined!

[21:47] No no no, it's good news as well.

[21:51] There is still a lot to learn.

[21:54] I'm Dr. Ella Hubber.

[21:55] I'm regular Tom Lum.

[21:56] I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything

[22:00] else too.

[22:01] And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about

[22:05] this next episode.

[22:06] Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

[22:09] So yeah, you were saying, in addition to dragging you on here to talk giallo, you have a quiz

[22:16] for us.

[22:17] Yes, I brought you one of the most fun things about giallo movies is the title.

[22:23] The titles of giallo movies are so floored and so great, and I'm a huge fan of them.

[22:27] So I brought you guys a giallo title quiz that I'm springing on you completely, completely

[22:33] unseen.

[22:34] This is going to be entirely new to you.

[22:36] And you know the expression, you know the expression, play stupid games, win stupid

[22:41] prizes.

[22:42] This is going to be a stupid game, and I brought a stupid prize.

[22:47] Whoever racks up the most points gets to keep this already opened two-thirds empty

[22:53] bottle of J&B.

[22:55] Why J&B?

[22:56] J&B is giallo's liquor of choice.

[23:00] It is in practically every mood.

[23:02] Linden scotch whiskey.

[23:05] Look at this.

[23:06] What I like is that it's, knowing Alejandro, I feel like how much of how at what point

[23:14] did you realize that you don't actually like this bottle that you're drinking?

[23:20] Have you developed a taste for it?

[23:21] I kind of have.

[23:23] I love the look of the bottle.

[23:25] I don't like the flavor of the scotch.

[23:28] It's also very hard to find around here because it is very little in demand, so most liquor

[23:33] stores don't carry it.

[23:35] I had to search far and wide to find one place that did.

[23:39] And then, you know, I've bought a few bottles.

[23:41] This is not my first bottle here.

[23:44] This was actually a prop bottle that I was using a couple of days ago when we shot the

[23:47] video for the Kickstarter campaign.

[23:50] Shot at Flop House's favorite movie theater, the Nighthawk.

[23:53] Yes, indeed.

[23:54] The Nighthawk Cinema very graciously allowed us to shoot in there, and we're very excited

[23:58] for how it's going to turn out.

[23:59] I haven't seen it yet, but yeah, when I was watching a lot of giallo movies, I started

[24:04] to notice, like, oh, wait a second.

[24:06] It's J&B again.

[24:07] Oh, my God.

[24:08] And then I started to realize, no, it's practically every single movie.

[24:12] With exceptions, but then you start to realize it's not only giallo, it actually turns up

[24:18] in a lot of movies.

[24:19] I mean, one of my favorite directors is John Carpenter, and it's in The Thing.

[24:22] He plays a big role in The Thing where McCready pours it into the computer after it beats

[24:28] him a chest.

[24:29] Well, the J does stand for Justarini.

[24:32] Maybe that's an Italian.

[24:34] It started as an Italian brand, and then it was, centuries ago, weirdly, and then it was

[24:39] bought by a British guy, which is the B, Brooks.

[24:42] So, yeah, Justarini and Brooks.

[24:45] It has a long history.

[24:47] I don't know in detail what the history is, but it is a centuries-old brand, weirdly.

[24:51] Anyway, here we go.

[24:53] I brought you guys a little answer key, a little key of shorthand to what titles I'm

[24:59] going to be quizzing you on because they're long and confusing, and I want to give you

[25:04] some shorthand, but here we go.

[25:07] If you guys are ready to begin, put on your black leather gloves, sharpen your straight

[25:12] razor, pour yourself a highball glass of J&B.

[25:16] We're going to play the Jallo title quiz.

[25:19] It's a few short rounds, a couple of questions, one question for each of you per round, each

[25:26] question one point, so let's go.

[25:29] Round one.

[25:30] Let me discard this paper.

[25:33] Round one.

[25:34] Jallo titles are frequently very elaborate phrases and even complete sentences.

[25:39] However, unlike Hollywood titles like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward

[25:44] Robert Ford or Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, these elaborate Jallo titles don't necessarily tell

[25:49] you what happens in the movie.

[25:52] I will read you a plot synopsis from Letterboxd.

[25:55] You match it to the Jallo title.

[25:57] Okay.

[25:58] First, Dan.

[25:59] Oliviero is a drunk, burned-out writer who amuses himself by hosting orgies at his grand

[26:04] country manor and humiliating his wife, Irina.

[26:08] When a number of women are murdered in grisly fashion, Oliviero becomes a prime suspect.

[26:13] Is this All the Colors of the Dark, A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, Your Vice is a Locked Room

[26:19] and Only I Have the Key, or Seven Bloodstained Orchids?

[26:24] These are all real names.

[26:26] You didn't make these up.

[26:28] I have prepared this quiz with great intellectual rigor.

[26:31] Everything here is very thorough.

[26:33] Everything here is accurate.

[26:36] Well, going by what you say, C seems almost too much like what you're talking about, about

[26:47] orgies, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key.

[26:49] Which is such a banger of a title.

[26:52] Yeah.

[26:54] It definitely sounds like some 2000s alt-rock band would have named their album that.

[27:02] So I'm going to go with Seven Bloodstained Orchids, D.

[27:06] The same director, Sergio Martino, made a movie called The Strange Vice of Mrs. Ward.

[27:10] And in that movie, there's a scene where the titular Mrs. Ward, Edwidge Fenwick, great

[27:15] queen of Jallo, is sent a note from her abusive ex-husband that says, Your Vice is a Locked

[27:22] Room and Only I Have the Key.

[27:24] Wow.

[27:25] That is, in fact, the title of his next movie, which is this one.

[27:28] So the correct answer was C, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key.

[27:32] Oh, that was cool.

[27:33] Oh, I talked myself out of it.

[27:34] Yeah.

[27:35] Okay, next question.

[27:36] Stuart, a reporter and a promiscuous young woman try to solve a series of child killings

[27:42] in a remote southern Italian town rife with superstition and a distrust of outsiders.

[27:48] Is this the suspicious death of a minor?

[27:51] Seems too obvious.

[27:52] The police are blundering in the dark.

[27:54] Hmm.

[27:55] The case of the scorpion's tail.

[27:57] It's pretty cool.

[27:58] Or don't torture a duckling.

[28:01] I think I'm going to say don't torture a duckling.

[28:04] That is correct.

[28:05] Yeah.

[28:06] Don't torture a duckling.

[28:07] Why didn't I get that one?

[28:08] I've actually seen Don't Torture a Duckling.

[28:09] Don't torture a duckling.

[28:10] It's the only one so far that I've seen.

[28:11] Don't Torture a Duckling is a Jallo directed by Lucio Fulci, who, in general, is not one

[28:16] of my favorites because his movies are so, so gory.

[28:20] But this is an early one and it's actually very beautiful.

[28:23] It does have a lot of weird psychosexual issues.

[28:27] But I think it's one of the best.

[28:29] It's actually one of my favorite Jallos.

[28:31] Later, in the early 80s, he directed New York Ripper, which you mentioned earlier, Stuart.

[28:36] And that movie is so gross.

[28:38] I have a hard time watching it.

[28:39] See, we have opposite tastes.

[28:41] I'm like, I want my Jallo to be gross and weird.

[28:43] And so I love New York Ripper and Don't Torture a Duckling is almost too sad to me because

[28:47] it's about child murders and the provincialism of this Italian town.

[28:53] I'm like, I don't want actual stuff in my movie.

[28:57] It is a weird thing being a Jallo fan because it's hard to recommend these to people.

[29:01] A lot of times, even the best ones can be so tough to watch.

[29:05] And they should come with a lot of content warnings and all that kind of thing.

[29:08] I want a movie where a guy murders people with a flute.

[29:12] There are two different Jallo movies where the murder weapon is a carved wooden dildo.

[29:19] Oh, okay.

[29:20] Yeah.

[29:21] Cool.

[29:22] That's the kind of thing.

[29:23] There you go.

[29:25] Round two, multiple choice question.

[29:28] Jallo movies could sometimes go through multiple releases and re-releases, international releases,

[29:34] different edits on home video, often collecting new titles along the way.

[29:38] I'll give you a Jallo's better known original title.

[29:41] You pick the alternate title.

[29:43] It was also released under.

[29:45] Dan, your movie is Deep Red.

[29:48] Is the alternate title, A, The Hatchet Murders, B, Carnage, C, Red Rings of Fear.

[29:56] Okay.

[29:57] I've seen Deep Red and I don't...

[30:00] think used a hatchet or whoever it was I can't remember who the murderer was

[30:05] maybe a she I'm gonna go with B carnage the correct answer is a the hatchet I am

[30:13] so sorry I should point out this is how seriously I took this quiz all of these

[30:18] titles are all alternate title wasn't that a straight razor in deep red um the

[30:24] first person he kills is the is the telepath the psychic woman uh-huh he

[30:29] gives the hatchet to the back of the head okay I got a revisit deep red I

[30:35] remember really liking that one hi this is Alejandro with the voice memo the

[30:39] morning after recording this episode I woke up in a cold sweat with the

[30:43] sickening sickening realization that I had said something wrong on the internet

[30:48] Dan was right there is no hatchet in the hatchet murders the scene I was thinking

[30:53] of involved a meat cleaver so my apologies to Dan it's funny the same

[30:58] thing happens in a Mario Bava movie it was called the red sign of madness in

[31:02] Italian and they released it in the US as a hatchet for the honeymoon despite

[31:07] the fact that the killer obviously uses a meat cleaver um Stuart your movie is

[31:12] blue eyes of the broken doll is the alternate title yeah it's the alternate

[31:19] title a the psychic be the evil I see house of psychotic women and it was blue

[31:26] eyes of the broken doll I'm gonna say I think I'm gonna keep it simple I'm gonna

[31:33] say the psychic the psychic is the alternate title of another Lucio Fulci

[31:39] movie that was also called seven notes in black the alternate title of blue

[31:43] eyes of the broken doll inspired the title of Kira Lajon is his seminal book

[31:47] house of psychotic women yeah I have a round two bonus question okay speaking

[31:55] of alternate titles highly controversial upon its release Bay of Blood went on to

[32:00] become one of the most successful and influential giallo of all it had two

[32:04] theatrical runs in Italy a theatrical run in Spain a u.s. theatrical release

[32:09] and multiple recut home video releases which of these five titles was not an

[32:15] alternate title for Bay of Blood you can each take a turn answering is it chain

[32:21] reaction twitch of the death nerve ecology of crime last house on the left

[32:27] part two or Bay of Blood Dan you go first I'm gonna go with ecology of crime

[32:35] okay Stuart I'm gonna say twitch of the death nerve um you're both wrong

[32:41] twitch of the death nerve is the best alternate title the best alternate title

[32:47] any movie has ever had ecology of crime I'm sorry is also wrong the which of

[32:54] these five titles was not an alternate title for Bay of Blood ecology of crime

[32:57] is actually the original title whoa blood was an alternate title oh okay it

[33:03] was actually released in theaters as ecology of crime and chain reaction and

[33:08] then it was released in Spain with the title Bay of Blood okay round three so

[33:15] it was last house on the left part two is that the wrong one no they are all

[33:20] they're all they are all actual titles that were used for Bay of Blood but only

[33:25] ecology of crime was not an alternate title it was the original title oh okay

[33:31] yeah who is right who what was the right answer is what I'm asking oh you know

[33:34] what I got that wrong you're right okay oh okay my mistake I'm sorry I scored

[33:39] that one wrong Dan my apologies no that's all right we

[33:43] retake that no no no that's all the confusion is what the it's what flap

[33:48] house plant fans clamor for how ramshackle we are well like the plot of a

[33:53] jello this quiz is very convoluted and very confusing so confused even me god

[34:00] damn it this these titles okay round three now you know that Bay of Blood was

[34:05] originally titled ecology of crime and then chain reaction theatrically in

[34:10] Italy yet it's best known by its theatrical release title from Spain Bay

[34:14] of Blood likewise many US jello releases discard the original Italian title

[34:20] entirely in the reverse of round two this time I will give you a jealous

[34:24] better-known alternate title you pick the original translated Italian title

[34:29] Daniel go first the fifth chord was this titled concerto for solo pistol black

[34:38] day for Aries the zodiac sign Aries one on top of the other oh boy I assume

[34:47] here's the problem like I assume that these are all actual you know titles for

[34:52] other ones so I can't go like oh you know like one on top of the other sounds

[34:57] like it's a you know Italian translated from but I'm I'm just gonna go with my

[35:02] guts I'm gonna keep it one on top of the other I'm sorry that's incorrect

[35:05] oh the correct answer was be a black day for a good name these are in fact all

[35:11] original Italian titles for movies that are better known by their alternate

[35:15] titles one on top of the other was released in the US as perversion story

[35:22] yeah it's a better title perversion story yeah yeah and then concerto for

[35:28] solo pistol was was something called the weekend murders which I actually have

[35:31] not seen concerto for solo pistols fair name yeah agreed

[35:36] Stewart your title what have they done to your daughters was this originally

[35:41] called murder by vocation revelations of a sex maniac to the chief of the mobile

[35:48] squad or the police are asking for help I mean I would feel like a fool if I

[35:55] didn't go with my gut and say revelations of a sex maniac to the

[35:58] chief of the mobile squad that is a good one I'm sorry it is it is the police are

[36:03] asking for help okay that was a scotch round for all around so wait revelations

[36:10] of a sex maniac to the chief of the mobile squad what's the other name for

[36:13] that one that is oh where's my answer key I'm drawing a total blank that is so

[36:19] sweet so dead yeah yeah I'm just I could be remembering that wrong but I'm pretty

[36:28] sure it's so sweet so dead round four here's a nice simple round pick the

[36:33] title that isn't a real movie okay Dan the iguana with the tongue of fire

[36:40] footprints on the moon strip nude for your killer hacked apart or the New York

[36:47] Ripper obviously you can rule out the New York Ripper mm-hmm and I know that

[36:51] strip nude for your killer is also real it's in your search history I'm gonna go

[37:02] just because it sounds less jello II to me I'm gonna go footprints on the moon

[37:06] footprints on the moon is a very beautiful very beautiful movie that

[37:10] people often claim is not a jello because it's not really a murder

[37:15] mystery but it definitely is a mystery it was directed by Luigi Bozzone who

[37:22] also did a movie called the fifth chord that I like a lot no the answer here was

[37:27] hacked apart that was my other one too simple yeah Stuart pick the title that

[37:34] isn't a real movie the flower with the petals of steel the pajama girl case

[37:39] my killer dismembered me the sweet body of Deborah or the laughing woman okay

[37:45] let me go down through these so flower the petals of steel that sounds like a

[37:49] giallo right Dan that's very complicated oh yeah you're ahead the pajama girl

[37:54] case is okay my killer dismembered me I like that name that's very much I know

[38:02] who killed me right there the sweet body of Deborah also there it's very fluid

[38:07] there's a lot of uh there's a lot of descriptors I'm gonna say I think the

[38:11] laughing woman although I like the name I think the laughing woman is too simple

[38:16] for one of the promotional things I've come up with for Lake Yellowwood

[38:22] slaughter I came up with the whole backstory of who the director is and

[38:25] what other movies is made and he is a made-up he's a made-up Italian director

[38:30] called a Giacomo met so Selma and he made jello movies including one which

[38:35] was called a movie of my own invention was called la sassino me as membrano

[38:39] which means the killer dismembered me a movie which in my canon was released in

[38:46] the US as hacked apart so that's what those two titles were my killer

[38:51] dismembered me great title good one Alejandro that's an Alejandro Arbona

[38:55] invention thank you and now that's almost the end of the game

[39:00] Stewart has two points Dan has one we could we could leave it at that I did

[39:04] come up with a bonus round in case we had a tie let's do yeah okay let's do

[39:10] this is we'll call this double or nothing can you talk not no no no okay

[39:14] this is a very open-ended this is just not a multiple choice not a not not a

[39:21] pick a title or anything this is a very open-ended question that's going to be

[39:25] very very very hard I would say nigh impossible to figure out unless you know

[39:29] these movies even if you have seen these movies you might not think of it so this

[39:32] is basically an impossible point but then I do have a follow-up question

[39:39] which might be easier okay so this is potentially worth two points maybe one

[39:43] most likely zero the tiebreaker round of the non-existent tie these five jello

[39:50] movies have one plot detail in common what is it the titles are who saw her

[39:55] die autopsy don't torture a duckling

[40:00] The Bloodstained Shadow and Seven Bloodstained Orchids.

[40:04] What could those five movies have in common?

[40:08] I haven't seen any of them.

[40:10] I've only seen Don't Torture Duckling.

[40:13] I've listened to the band Autopsy, so maybe I have an advantage there.

[40:21] My guess is that there's a ghost in the movie.

[40:30] Of a person who's been killed.

[40:32] One of the victims.

[40:33] I'm going to say that a red herring, a mistaken killer,

[40:40] someone who they think is going to be the killer, is killed.

[40:44] Okay.

[40:44] I would say that's a thing that applies to maybe 100% of jellies.

[40:50] So, technically correct, Dan.

[40:53] Yeah, I guess so.

[40:54] Well, I meant that people are like, oh, this person's the killer we're going to kill.

[40:57] These five movies in particular, one thing they have in common is that

[41:02] a Roman Catholic priest is a character in each of these movies.

[41:06] Now, follow-up question.

[41:09] In which movie is that plot detail unlike the others?

[41:14] Which movie stands out for that plot detail actually being different in one way?

[41:18] So, Dan, you've seen Don't Torture Duckling.

[41:21] I'm going to say it is Don't Torture Duckling,

[41:23] and the difference is that the priest is the killer.

[41:28] The correct answer is Autopsy.

[41:30] The priest is not the killer.

[41:32] Oh, the only time it didn't happen.

[41:36] Okay.

[41:36] So, it looks like I walked away with this one.

[41:39] Yeah, you walked away with one.

[41:41] If the listener did not want a spoiler there, go back and then go ahead.

[41:46] Just get, you know, dial into the eternal sunshine machine and erase it.

[41:51] You know, I accept my victory, you know.

[41:54] I'm going to chalk it up to my skills.

[41:58] But I think this highlights the thing where I, you know,

[42:03] I kind of have a complicated relationship with giallo movies.

[42:07] I wasn't a big fan of Dario Argento,

[42:11] and I kind of like stayed away from a lot of Fulci stuff.

[42:15] But then, you know, I found that like De Palma's movies

[42:19] and other like clearly influenced by giallo movies are definitely more my speed.

[42:25] But if I wanted to like dip my toes in,

[42:30] what are a couple of like good intro points?

[42:33] I'm sure there's some of the things you've already mentioned.

[42:35] It's funny that Dario Argento is such a ready association

[42:38] for people looking to get into giallo.

[42:40] I love Dario Argento, but as we discussed before,

[42:44] maybe half his movies or half of his better known movies

[42:47] are not necessarily giallo because they're supernatural.

[42:50] And then of the ones that are giallo,

[42:52] some of them are so, so, you know,

[42:54] like I'm not a big fan of Cat o' Nine Tails and whatever.

[43:00] In Argento in particular, I love The Bird with the Crystal Plumage,

[43:04] and I love Tenebrae, which is an early 80s one.

[43:08] Those two I love a lot.

[43:09] And of course, with Mario Bava, Mario and Dario,

[43:12] Mario Bava and Dario Argento are basically the big two of giallo.

[43:16] They're the more readily accessible.

[43:18] Mario and Dario are a couple of plumbers, right?

[43:21] Who fight turtle monsters.

[43:26] Hey, it's a fine.

[43:29] And then there's Wadario.

[43:33] But yes, people are quick to recommend Argento and Bava,

[43:37] and they're good.

[43:38] There are a lot of good movies there.

[43:40] I think if you go a little further afield,

[43:42] some of the directors that are big in giallo fandom,

[43:45] but less well known to people outside

[43:47] have made some movies that are really, really interesting.

[43:50] Um, three favorite directors of mine

[43:52] are a guy called Umberto Lenzi, Sergio Martino and Luciano Ercole.

[43:58] Now, here's the secret.

[43:59] The thing that those three directors have in common

[44:01] is that their best movies are all written

[44:03] by a screenwriter called Ernesto Gastaldi.

[44:06] And Ernesto Gastaldi is like the secret weapon of a good giallo.

[44:10] If you look him up on IMDb or Letterboxd

[44:12] and start going through those movies,

[44:14] those are some of the best and most interesting ones.

[44:16] Okay.

[44:17] Umberto Lenzi made four movies

[44:19] with this American actress, Carol Clover.

[44:21] One of them we had in here in the quiz was A Quiet Place to Kill.

[44:25] That is my favorite movie with A Quiet Place in the title.

[44:29] I love that movie.

[44:32] Sergio Martino, of course.

[44:34] Again, it's hard to recommend giallo movies

[44:36] because you have to know the level of violence

[44:37] and in some cases, sexual violence that you're getting into.

[44:41] But Torso is a movie that I like a lot.

[44:42] Torso is like a late giallo proto-slasher.

[44:46] It has more in common with slasher movies, maybe, arguably.

[44:50] But that's good for me because I speak slasher movies.

[44:55] And then, yeah, Sergio Martino also did

[44:56] Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key

[44:58] and The Strange Vice of Mrs. Ward

[45:01] and All the Colors of the Dark are very good movies.

[45:04] There's a director also called Luciano Ercoli

[45:07] who worked a few times with his wife, Nieves Navarro, from Spain.

[45:11] And they made a movie that I love

[45:13] called Death Walks at Midnight.

[45:15] That was the third of their collaborations,

[45:17] but it's my favorite.

[45:19] Some people prefer the second one,

[45:20] which is Death Walks on High Heels.

[45:22] Death Walks at Midnight is a really cool movie

[45:25] where unlike a lot of, you know, like slashers,

[45:29] giallo movies come in for a lot of,

[45:32] people accuse them of being misogynist

[45:34] because of violence against women and that kind of thing.

[45:37] But similar to slashers, in a lot of cases,

[45:39] these are movies about women who are in danger,

[45:42] who try to seek help and no one believes them.

[45:44] And in that way, it's weirdly kind of feminist.

[45:47] You know, it's hard to describe a movie as feminist

[45:50] when it has that much violence against women.

[45:53] But these movies are about like, you know, believe women

[45:57] and these women go to the police and they go to friends

[46:00] and they go to men and men of authority.

[46:02] And it's clearly like a killer exploiting the system.

[46:06] A lot of times, yeah.

[46:06] And this particular one, Death Walks at Midnight,

[46:10] is about a woman who's on again, off again boyfriend,

[46:14] basically like tricks her into doing,

[46:17] you know, it's a very kind of,

[46:20] he fucks with consent in a way.

[46:23] He doses her with a fictional hallucinogen

[46:26] during a photo shoot.

[46:27] She thinks she witnessed a murder,

[46:29] but they're not sure if it was a hallucination.

[46:31] Photo shoots are pretty giallo, right?

[46:34] But then she's such a great character.

[46:35] Having had this done to her,

[46:37] she then proceeds to like go to the guy's office

[46:39] and throw a rock through his window.

[46:40] She's a really cool character.

[46:41] And then she becomes like a detective,

[46:43] proactively trying to solve this murder.

[46:46] That movie is also really interesting

[46:48] because at the end of the movie,

[46:49] there's a hit man who wears a shirt and a tie

[46:53] and then like a yellow plaid vest and black leather gloves.

[46:58] And during the movie, he gets his face caked in cement

[47:02] and suddenly his face is all like powdery.

[47:05] And it looks so much like the Christopher Nolan,

[47:09] Heath Ledger Joker that I'm like,

[47:11] this must have been,

[47:13] Christopher Nolan must have seen this.

[47:15] It looks uncanny.

[47:17] And which one was this?

[47:18] This is Death Walks at Midnight,

[47:20] directed by Luciano Ercoli.

[47:21] Okay, I'm gonna have to re-listen this episode

[47:25] and get all these notes.

[47:28] Yeah, what else?

[47:29] I mentioned Umberto Lenzi, Ercoli, Sergio Martino.

[47:35] I feel like for me, that's a pretty good start.

[47:39] And how really available are some of these?

[47:44] When it comes to streaming, a lot of things are on Tubi.

[47:46] That's great if you don't mind watching them with ads.

[47:50] When it comes to JALO,

[47:51] they almost benefit from that kind of thing.

[47:52] And Tubi, it is the people's streaming platform.

[47:56] A lot of them are on Shudder.

[47:57] Things on Shudder come and go, so keep an eye out there.

[48:00] Generally pretty well curated.

[48:02] I know that Criterion puts the JALO thing out

[48:04] every once in a while.

[48:05] Yes, and if you're into buying physical media,

[48:08] there are certain, you know,

[48:09] Vinegar Syndrome and Arrow put out a lot of cool box sets.

[48:13] They do sales and things.

[48:15] You can get some cool movies, cheap sometimes.

[48:19] I'm a big fan of,

[48:20] I buy always the JALO Essentials from Arrow

[48:23] and the Forgotten JALI from Vinegar Syndrome.

[48:26] I have all of those volumes.

[48:27] Oh, awesome.

[48:28] Yeah.

[48:30] Have you watched all the movies in those collections?

[48:32] Yes, the Forgotten JALI ones in particular are tough

[48:35] because I buy every volume

[48:37] and then I watch all the movies

[48:39] and I'm like, ah, why did I buy this?

[48:40] Love your level of dedication.

[48:43] But there are gems in there.

[48:44] It is worth it.

[48:46] And the JALO Essentials from Arrow

[48:48] are some really good box sets.

[48:49] There's a lot of really great stuff in those.

[48:51] This has been great.

[48:53] Can you, just one more time, Alejandro,

[48:55] can you give us a pitch on your new Kickstarter

[48:58] and where people can find it?

[49:00] There is already a pre-launch signup page

[49:03] for the Kickstarter.

[49:04] When you're listening to this,

[49:05] I think the Kickstarter will kick off

[49:07] maybe like two weeks after this episode airs,

[49:10] something like that, more or less.

[49:11] But there is a pre-launch signup page.

[49:13] I can give you guys the link

[49:14] if you want to put it in the show notes.

[49:15] Yeah, please.

[49:17] It's called Lake Yellowwood Slaughter.

[49:19] It's written by me, drawn by Gavin Guidry.

[49:22] The cover is painted by an artist from Spain

[49:25] called Suspiria Vilchez,

[49:27] the aptly named Suspiria.

[49:28] That's so funny.

[49:29] This is a gorgeous cover.

[49:31] It looks like it's straight off a VHS box,

[49:34] which is exactly what I want.

[49:35] Either like a VHS box or like, I mean,

[49:38] I guess like an Italian comic that I'm like,

[49:40] I need to find out what's going on.

[49:43] Yeah, and I mean, Suspiria Vilchez is in fact

[49:46] an artist who does covers for Vinegar Syndrome

[49:48] for original releases.

[49:49] So she is officially a JALO,

[49:51] a professional JALO artist in a way.

[49:55] Yes, so it's a slasher movie

[49:57] made by a JALO director adapted to comic.

[50:00] I'll give you guys this sneak preview.

[50:03] The first two pages are a little tongue-in-cheek gag where they're reminiscent of, if it's

[50:11] 1983 and you just turned on TV to watch a movie and you feel like you're soaring above

[50:16] a city, flying into the woods to a glorious starburst in the sky, that's what the first

[50:22] two pages of the comic are.

[50:25] If you're hearing that, if that music starts playing in your head automatically, I feel

[50:30] you should know that that music, there's actually a song that goes with it and it has lyrics.

[50:34] Oh, no kidding.

[50:35] Yes.

[50:36] I can't find it streaming anywhere.

[50:38] It's on YouTube, but I can't find it.

[50:39] It's not on Apple Music or anything, but yeah, it is a song.

[50:43] It's kind of a bluesy, it's got bass, it's got a blues guitar.

[50:48] That's so funny.

[50:49] The lyrics go, anyone who has a fantasy, come with me.

[50:56] So yeah, look it up on YouTube.

[50:59] Oh, that's awesome.

[51:01] That's great.

[51:02] So thanks so much, Alejandro.

[51:03] This has been a mini episode of the Flophouse podcast.

[51:07] We are produced by Mr. Alex Smith, who is in the room.

[51:11] Say hi, Alex.

[51:12] Hi.

[51:13] This podcast is on Maximum Fun.

[51:16] It's a podcast network.

[51:17] There's plenty of great podcasts, check them out.

[51:20] For the Flophouse, I've been Stuart Wellington.

[51:22] I've been Jan McCoy.

[51:24] Joining us is...

[51:25] Alejandro Arbona.

[51:26] Thank you guys for having me.

[51:27] Stuart, enjoy your J&B.

[51:28] Yeah, I will.

[51:29] I'm going to get faded, baby, and watch some movies.

[51:39] Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows, supported directly by you.

FH Mini 127 - Always Room for Giallo, with Alejandro Arbona

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