From zombie movies and westerns to cop thrillers and sex comedies, every genre that the Italian film industry has dabbled in has enjoyed a lucrative but relatively brief lifespan. The giallo was no different – it survived for longer than most but by the early ‘80s, with a few exceptions from Dario Argento, these distinctive murder mysteries were no longer popular with Italian audiences. The advent of DVD has given the genre something of a renaissance, allowing fans the opportunity to see some previously obscure classics as they were originally intended. Last year’s arthouse shocker Amer was a beautiful, unusual film that took may of the themes and visual traits from classic giallo. But it was, at heart, a homage – for a true, modern attempt at making an authentic slice of giallo, looks no further than the Eyes of Crystal…

Eyes of Crystal
Eros Puglielli, 2004, Italy

A gritty, thrilling foot chase introduces our hero – tough, no-nonsense cop Amaldi (Luigi Lo Cascio). Amaldi and his partner are on the trail of a killer, who has been picking off seemingly random victims and replacing various body parts with pieces of old, Victorian dolls. At the same time, Amaldi is helping pretty young student Lucia who believes she is being stalked, while his aging colleague Ajaccio lies in hospital, experiencing strange visions. Can all of this be connected?

Serial killer movies have remained a cinema constant, and they’re not disappearing any time soon. But Eyes of Crystal feels different – like those 30-something-year-old films that have influenced it, realism takes a back seat to telling an outlandish, intricately plotted story. Many the best giallo mixed in elements of the fantastic with the ordinary, and while this film doesn’t contain any supernatural elements as such, it maintains a tremendous sense of creeping madness, of strange things lurking round the corner. Are Ajaccio’s visions fevered memories of something more? Who is leaving sinister messages on Lucia’s dictaphone? What dark secrets lie in Amaldi’s past?

While not indulging in some of the more overt camera gymnastics that Argento brought to the genre, director Eros Puglielli invests the film with a striking, atmospheric visual style. Cinematographer Luca Coassin makes brilliant use of shadows and darkness, and the murder sequences are realised as brief, shocking bursts of violence. The protagonists may largely be stock types, but strong performances all round (including giallo veteran Simón Andreu) ensure that they never come across as clichéd and help sell the sense of danger throughout.

Eyes of Crystal was co-written by Argento-collaborator Franco Ferrini, adapted from a novel. Despite the overall ridiculousness of the plot, it feels nicely restrained – we’re not thrown too many red herrings, just enough keep us off the scent, and while the identity of the killer is certainly guessable, we’re not insulted by any stupid last-minute twists. Puglielli has too much respect for his viewers for that, and while Eyes of Crystal undoubtedly found an audience who had never seen a giallo before, he also knows that a key number will know the genre well. That’s one of the best things about the movie, and a difficult trick to pull off; to make a film that uses the form and style of a specific genre without slipping into homage – or worse, parody. At the end of the day, Eyes of Crystal is simply a terrific horror thriller that deserves to be seen by fans of all things dark and scary.