Abstract
<p> This is the first edited collection engaging with close readings of the popular film cycle known as “giallo,” including both, classic films and directors and contemporary reimagining. The <italic>giallo</italic> (“yellow”) film cycle, characterized by its bloody murders and blending of high art and cinematic sleaze, rose to prominence in Italy in the 1960s and 1970s. Beginning with Mario Bava’s <italic>The Girl Who Knew Too Much</italic> (1963) and Dario Argento’s <italic>The Bird with the Crystal Plumage</italic> (1970), <italic>giallo</italic> films influenced the American slasher films of the 1980s and attracted an increasingly large fandom. Despite <italic>gialli</italic> ’s worldwide popularity, serious examination of the cycle has only recently begun. In <italic>Bloodstained Narratives: The Giallo Film in National Context and Abroad</italic> , contributors explore understudied aspects of <italic>gialli</italic> . The chapters introduce readers to a wide range of films, including masterpieces from Argento and overlooked gems, all of them examined in close detail. Rather than understanding <italic>giallo</italic> as focalized exclusively in Italy in the 1970s, this collection explores the extension of <italic>gialli</italic> narratives abroad through different geographies and times. This book examines Italian <italic>gialli</italic> of the 1970s but also American neo- <italic>gialli</italic> , French productions, Canadian horror films of the 1980s, and Asian rewritings of this “yellow” cycle of crime/horror films. <italic>Bloodstained Narratives</italic> also features interviews with two <italic>giallo</italic> film directors, including cult favorite Antonio Bido. Rather than fading from the cinematic stage, <italic>gialli</italic> serves as a precursor and steady accomplice to horror-thriller films through the twenty-first-century. </p>