Friday, January 18, 2008

Dario Argento to Make First English-Language Movie in 15 Years

Acclaimed Italian horror auteur Dario Argento will next be directing an English-language film, according to a story posted to The Hollywood Reporter yesterday.
Contrary to the report, however--and to oft-repeated accounts elsewhere on the 'net--it is not his first. That would be 1985's Phenomena, which helped launch the career of my beloved Jennifer Connelly. Argento also helmed the full-on Hollywood production Trauma in 1993.
The film will be appropriately entitled Giallo, a reference to the Italian thriller/slasher movie genre of the same name. The tale of a serial killer and the detective who is desperate to stop him, it will star Ray Liotta, Vincent Gallo and Dario's lovely daughter Asia, pictured here (Madonna mia!)
Argento's star has been on the rise in the U.S. lately thanks to Jenifer and Pelts, two episodes he made for the Showtime Masters of Horror TV series. He is best known for the 1977 blood-soaked classic Suspiria, featuring the hardest-to-watch death scene in horror history (two words: razor wire).