After seeing Luigi Bazzoni’s debut film The Possessed earlier for this marathon, I was even more eager to check out The Fifth Cord, his second foray into giallo, particularly as that film straddled the line between dreamlike noir and paranoid Lynchian nightmare more than what we would come to define the genre as. But in the wake of Argento’s Bird With the Crystal Plumage Bazzoni adopts some of the same visual cues and geometric framing that would become trademarks of the movement. He also – just as Argento did in his follow-up The Cat o’ Nine Tails – emphasize the mystery and thriller aspects more than the visceral blood and horror, in the process creating a great star vehicle for his lead and capturing an often overlooked essence of the form: the spiraling madness of a situation intent on sucking you into its design.

Reviews

Hooptober 12.0 – The Possessed (1965)

Being Film #4 for Hooptober 2025

Films like The Possessed, or La Donna del Lago in its original Italian, are the reason I constantly try to seek out new films whenever Hooptober comes around. A proto-giallo that also functions as an Italian noir evoking the dream-like narratives David Lynch would forge just over a decade later, it’s a gorgeously shot film that takes the plot mechanics of what the genre would come to be known for, but drapes it under a blanket of striking black and white photography and ambiguous sequences that play as both dream, premonition and clues to the mystery surrounding its characters.

ChrisSeptember 17, 2025September 20, 20251 Comment

Cinema Dual (TEST SITE)

Examining a life through the media we consume. In other words, I’m reviewing all of my physical music media in alphabetical order, one day at at a time. Except when I don’t, as has been the case for the past few years. Still, we march onwards…Coffee essential, but not mandatory

Tag: luigi bazzoni

Hooptober 12.0 – The Fifth Cord (1971)

Hooptober 12.0 – The Possessed (1965)