Night of the Skull was made during one of the most incredible periods in filmmaking history: Jess Franco's 1973. He completed TEN other films that year, among them several bona fide classics. I wouldn't normally take such peripherals into consideration when assessing a film, however, Jess Franco is an exception to pretty much every rule going. As such, I'll probably be kinder to this film than I may otherwise have been. If you have a problem with that, go and make eleven films in a year and get back to me.

The plot is fairly standard, surprisingly so for Franco. A masked killer stalks the halls of Castle Marian, killing family members and servants alike, basing the murders on the four elements (earth, air, fire and water). As people gather for the reading of the Lord Marian's will, doubt is cast as to the true identity of the murdered patriarch, and a second, entirely different, will further confuses the issue. A Scotland Yard detective teams up with the local Louisiana policeman to try and crack the case before everyone winds up dead.

As it happens, most of the cast do wind up dead (with one of them literally murdered by wind), which slightly undermines the mystery aspect of the film. The killer can really only be one of two or three people (at most), which means that it's not the hardest guess you'll ever make. However, the precise motive of the killer isn't necessarily obvious, and, as it turns out, neither is their true identity, so there's still plenty of room for a swing and a miss. This secondary aspect to the mystery, with the past events at the heart of the motive strongly hinted at in dark exchanges between any number of shifty characters (without giving too much away, let's just say that very, very few characters in the film are actually innocent), leads to Franco attempting to get away with hiding the killer very much in plain sight.

Even setting aside these past events, there are actually multiple killers at play within the film. One is masked, and thus assumes the role of central killer by default, but two other characters also account for three deaths between them. One of these, played by William Berger, is so shifty and suspicious throughout the film (his wife initially refers to him as being "capable of murder", then outright references his murderous past) that it's almost confusing. We know he's a killer, but surely he can't be the killer? (No, he can't.) Berger isn't the only shifty-eyed character, though, and this is one of those films where the 'real' killer isn't necessarily the last person you'd suspect. Indeed, on repeated viewings, the killer acts incredibly suspiciously, even getting some choice soundtrack stings to highlight their reaction to a piece of news.

The end revelations seem tolerable on first viewing, but there are certain gaps in logic which become apparent when one thinks back over proceedings. Specifically, the characters of Marian's illegitimate daughter and the notary exist in a kind of limbo, either playing an unacknowledged role in the aforementioned 'past events', or else failing to recognise the return of a key character for no discernible reason. The film begins excellently, with a terrifically atmospheric opening with Lord Marian being stalked, slashed and buried alive, and the 'two wills' twist is a good one. It doesn't quite sustain the pace right to the end (in common with its director, who often lost interest during the filming process), but it's still good fun. It's certainly far from a bottom-of-the-barrel  giallo, and when you consider just how full Franco's 1973 barrel was, it's an admirable achievement.

(One final note: the credits suggest that it's based on a Poe story called 'The Cat and the Canary, which doesn't exist. It's more in the vein of an Edgar Wallace thriller, and, indeed, a German krimi.)

This is a film which came with a Dario Argento seal of approval; more proof, if any were needed, that the maestro has lost his touch. This is a perfect example of a neo-giallo as distinct from a giallo, as it's really just a parade of people lining up to be butchered by a faceless serial killer in gore-laden set pieces. The flashbacks, which hint at the trauma in the killer's past which drives him, and the occasional references to Argento's work (including an opening, slightly mis-translated, quote from Tenebrae) provide a link to classic gialli, but it's very much  a product of its era. Unfortunately.

Luigi Pastore seems to have wanted to make something along the lines of (the later) Sonno Profondo, with the film almost exclusively following the protagonist/killer, and almost exclusively aligned to his point-of-view. The killer films much of his activities-for no discernible reason, as he isn't seeking fame or posterity-and many scenes alternate between the killer's video footage, and reasonably conventionally-filmed, if poorly lit, shots of victims-to-be. There's minimal style on show, and Pastore lacks Luciano Onnetti's confidence to throw his lot in fully with the subjective angle.

Sonno Profondo also positions the audience as detective, offering a central mystery element which can be solved by paying attention to details within the film. Symphony contains no such mystery, instead relying on the quasi-mystery of which formative events have created the killer. These can be boiled down to a break-up, molestation from a priest and parental abandonment. Several of the victims do share a similar dark-haired (ie Italian) look, which evokes both the ex-girlfriend and mother characters, and the only character who escapes his clutches, an Italian girl with whom he's fallen in love, also matches this template, so Pastore's clearly been reading his Freud. 

One of the murdered characters is the host of a TV show who announces to the world (/Italian cable viewers) that he wants to help the police catch the killer. We see him talking to his producers/assistants/researchers, demanding that they interview relatives and neighbours of the slain victims, emphasising the commercial possibilities presented by the serial killer's acts. He's then abducted and killed, filmed all the while by the killer's ubiquitous handicam. This presents Pastore with an opportunity to further develop the theme of the media exploitation of violence, but once the reporter is dispatched the whole strand is dropped. 

One truly unusual aspect of the film is the two puppets who appear occasionally to comment on the action. It's not especially innovative (unless you haven't seen any Muppets), but it's pretty far out there in terms of what you'd expect from a (neo-)giallo. The scenes also provide welcome doses of humour in an otherwise turgid and self-important slog.

Strange Shadows in an Empty Room (great title) was also known as Blazing Magnums (great title), when it was marketed as a poliziotteschi. It begins with a rip-roaring action sequence, settles into a classic giallo investigation, before the plot grinds to a halt as two chases, one on foot, one in cars, dominate the film for twenty minutes or so. Eventually the giallo edge reappears and the mystery angle is resolved, with one final action sequence for the road (before the laziest end credits you'll ever see, where ditto marks [''] abound).

The film follows policeman Tony Saitta (Stuart Whitman)'s attempts to unravel the mystery surrounding his (way, way) younger sister's poisoning at a party, with various other guests who bore witness to her death also turning up dead.  He unravels the mystery by tracking the movements of a black pearl necklace, in between indulging in fist-fights with transsexuals, loooong car chases with fences (humans who move stolen goods, rather than wooden railings) and eventually discovers that his sibling mightn't have been the angelic angel he believed her to be.

The film initially settles into pretty familiar giallo territory, albeit with the first murder being the subtle poisoning of a character at a party, rather than a black-gloved killer stalking and slashing. There's a rare(ish)-for-the-genre funeral scene, with a neatly-executed identity parade of all the potential suspects as they introduce themselves to Saitta and offer condolences. As Saitta begins to delve deeper into his sister's death (after insisting on exhuming her remains for an autopsy, which, amazingly, wasn't initially performed), all signs point to Martin Landau's doctor character as being the guilty party. He had begun an affair with the deceased, and was being blackmailed into continuing to see her against his will, (one suspects Woody Allen may have seen this film at some stage) and had attended her at the party as she died. Of course, given that Landau is the obvious suspect to viewers and police alike, he can't be the guilty party.

The investigation does progress initially with neat precision, and, unlike other gialli with police protagonists, it's very much driven by Saitta's raw emotions. His sister had attempted to contact him before her death, only for him to refuse the call in favour of continuing with an in-progress job (to be fair, I'd refuse a call from my sister if I was chasing a gang of bank robbers with tommy guns).  This creates a brilliantly-conceived scenario whereby the only way for him to exorcise his guilt over his role in her death is by immersing himself in the very act, namely intense police work, which was the root cause and source of that same guilt. The script doesn't develop this concept very far, though, and Whitman's performance is  the very definition of 'one-note'. It's as if he read the script, decided that the role called for an air of melancholy, then decided to eschew any attempts at nuance, or adapting that melancholia to the specific scene. Still, at least he's emoting at all, which is more than a lot of actors can manage.

The investigation, driven by guilt and love and delivered through the medium of melancholy, is again well conceived, but shakily executed. The deeper Saitta delves, the more he discovers about his sister Louise (and those around her, particularly her current and former paramours). It's pretty much universally negative discoveries, but, even so, she's not defined by one action or characteristic alone, as similar plot-catalysing characters usually are in gialli. As she's slowly fleshed out, and the subjective flashbacks take form, in front of our eyes, Louise emerges as a three-dimensional character (albeit three bad dimensions). As we strip away the plot layers, the characterisation layers build accordingly.

The investigative aspect is nonetheless shakily executed because Alberto de Martino hedges his bets, and incorporates sequences inspired by the then-burgeoning poliziotteschi genre, presumably to make the film more marketable (see the different titles, and posters, above). Unfortunately, unlike Sergio Martino's Suspicious Death of a Minor, there's no real attempt to gel the disparate elements, and the lengthy fight and chase sequences sit slightly at odds with the rest of the film. This is a particular shame because the stuntwork is very good, bordering on exceptional in the car chase. If the car chase involved two of the principals, or was better integrated into the plot, it would have worked even better. As it is, even though it involves Saitta chasing a newly-introduced character (just so he can ask him a question) who we know will play no real part in the film, it's still mightily impressive. It's just a shame that the investigative thrust is completely obliterated by the chase sequences, and never really recovers.

Technically, the film's a mixed bag. There's a huge amount of on-location shooting, and even some on-location sound, but de Martino wasn't a director who ever dazzled with his visuals, and he doesn't always take advantage of the Canadian cityscapes and countryside vistas. Similarly, the sound department, who seem to have been Canadian, must have been extremely inexperienced, in that they are far better at recording room tones than actors' voices (and they generate a lovely boom reflection on Saitta's car at one point).

 Tenebrae is, and I'm sure you don't need me to tell you this, a brilliant film. It was Dario Argento's return to the giallo after the departure of Suspiria and Inferno (or just Inferno??), and here he marries the visual and aural excesses which characterised those films with a clever central hook to create a near-masterpiece.

The film follows Peter Neal, an American crime novelist, as he travels to Italy on a book tour. Shortly before he arrives, a young shoplifter is murdered, and pages of his latest novel, Tenebrae, are stuffed into her mouth. The killer, who seems to be literally and figuratively taking a leaf from Neal's book, begins sending threatening letters to the author, as people close to Neal are dispatched one-by-one.

I say Tenebrae is a near-masterpiece, because it's not perfect. The central idea-maniac seeks to eliminate all traces of perversion from Rome-is fine, but the mechanics of the plot are fairly weak. Argento references many great crime writers in his dialogue-Christie, Spillane, Conan Doyle-which only goes to show how shallow the investigative aspect of his own plot is.

There's no investigative progression, in the same way there is in his earlier gialli (even though the investigations in those films often amounted to little more than wild goose chases to [enjoyably] pad out the films), and the plot basically goes all-in on its central twist; the elimination of the original killer, with a second killer assuming the role. The first killer is identified through a form of word association by Neal and his assistants, and the second killer is tracked down by the film's two police characters, who, separately, uncover relevant evidence off-screen. So, in effect, the  detective aspects-despite the film's containing three characters who are actively investigating the murders-are sorely lacking, and play second fiddle to the elaborately conceived, and staged, set pieces. 

The interplay between Neal and the police is worth examining. Any giallo which contains both amateur and professional sleuths has to make a decision on how much co-operation to allow between the two factions. Notionally, the police are far better resourced to follow up clues and incriminating evidence, but the films wouldn't be as interesting if the amateur sleuths turned their evidence straight over. Most films, taking the lead from Argento's own Bird with the Crystal Plumage, position the amateur protagonist in opposition to the police, who suspect them of being involved in the murders. Thus, they have to conduct their own investigation to clear their name. (The fact that they can usually carry out these investigations free from police observation casts some doubt on my earlier assertion that the long arm of the law is better equipped to close out these cases.)

In Tenebrae, the police initially view Neal with some suspicion, but quickly come around to asking him for help. Even though there's some residual antagonism between Neal and Giuliano Gemma's Inspector Germani, is it really enough to justify Neal and his young assistant taking it upon themselves to investigate their lead suspect, crazy conservative literary critic Christiano Berti? Neal does stare into the middle distance as he considers the acclaim which will be his if he cracks the case on his own (with other thoughts also brewing), and this moment is crucial. It shows Neal's megalomaniacal side, which soon loses its megalo aspect, and his desire to be the author of his own narrative. Ultimately, this matters to him far more than actually catching the killer (and his own narrative soon branches off in a completely different direction). Similarly, Argento, who many believe created Neal in his own image, is less concerned with the logical investigative process than his big twist, and, especially, the elaborate murder scenes which bear his fingerprints in every frame.

There are moments of clunky humour-witness the news reporter cracking jokes at the site of a teenager's murder-and Argento isn't above the old 'every character acts suspiciously' device to misdirect us. Some of the dialogue isn't great, and the acting occasionally jars. However, none of this matters; in fact, the film almost seems better, more unnerving and unsane (its original American title) for containing these imperfections of tone and execution. The Louma crame shot, in which the camera slowly, and slightly clunkily, moves over and around the apartment in which two lesbians are about to be murdered, is the perfect example of this. The camera doesn't quite glide as smoothly as Argento would have wanted, but it gets the job done, and the shakes and stutters only remind us of the human hand guiding it. Normally this would be a bad thing, and would remind us of the artifice of the film we're watching, but because that hand is Argento's, we can glean no comfort from this knowledge. As the score (which similarly is a sometimes-odd fit for the images in this scene) amps up and the camera comes to rest outside one of the windows,  gloved hands appear in frame to cut through the blinds. In this moment, the hand behind the camera and the hand of the killer become one and the same.*  And there was no hand more more wayward, no hand more brilliant, and no hand better placed to guide us through the darkness of this ultra-bright film, than Argento's.  Not even Peter Neal himself comes close.

Body Count isn't really a giallo; it's an attempt at an Italian slasher movie. However, the faint whodunnit aspect,  and the presence of Ruggero Deodato behind the camera as well as an assortment of known and unknown Italian stars in front of it, have led to it being included in the giallo canon. 

Fifteen (or twelve, depending on whether you believe an onscreen title or a leading character) years after four teens were brutally murdered at a mountain camp site, a fresh batch of young blood arrive to spend a weekend drinking and dancing any dying and dancing and drinking. To say that the remaining characters seem unpreturbed by their ever-dwindling number would be putting it mildly. As such, there's zero investigative element to proceedings; characters couple off, shower and die. The camp site's owners, David Hess and Mimsy Farmer, have a loveless marriage which was somehow survived fifteen years of her cheating with the local sheriff and his obsession with catching the Indian shaman who allegedly haunts their land.

Slasher movies tend to fall into one of two camps*; those with killers of a vaguely supernatural bent, whose identity is never in question (Halloween, The Burning, most of the Friday the 13th sequels), and those with human killers who are unmasked at the climax (My Bloody Valentine, Graduation Day, one of the Friday the 13th sequels). Many of these latter killers take advantage of local legends, channelling mythical figures as a cover for their actions, and to spread fear through the community. Body Count, if we set aside the final scene for now, falls into this category, with the killer dressing up as the aforementioned shamanic figure.

The characters are of a college-going vintage, which places them at the high end of the slasher age spectrum. They're much younger than the average giallo protagonists, though. Early slasher films tended to have likeable characters, which made their on-screen demises all the more harrowing. (There were a fair share of assholes, of course, but they were recognisably flawed and human characters). Gradually, a slightly-unnerving shift occurred, with disposable characters offered up to be sliced and diced for our viewing pleasure. These characters became so obnoxious and annoying that the audience seemed to be encouraged to cheer their deaths. Body Terror's young characters largely, whether by accident or design, fall into this category, with the inane dialogue, bad dubbing and extreme dickheaded behaviour making them a singularly unlikeable bunch. 

Gialli often feature unlikeable protagonists as well, but the best examples of the genre offer up enough other delights to more than compensate for this. There are investigations, set-pieces, fashions, locations etc to massage the senses, and it's simply unimportant whether or not we like the characters. The youth of Body Count's characters probably counts against them too-without wanting to come across like an old man waving his fist at the weather, teens are generally louder and more vapid, with the calming effect of age usually making their behaviour more palatable. David Hess, who effectively plays a thuggish madman for the entire running time, is far more pleasurable to watch than any of the kids. So, evil or insanity is fine; constant shit jokes about dicks are not.

The killer's motivation, a past trauma straight out of the Freud-via-Argento school, is typical of both gialli and slashers. This is one of the several ways in which certain slashers took their lead from gialli. Each of the three above examples of slashers with masked human killers has a similar past incident as a root cause. Gialli didn't invent such a motive, of course (Psycho would probably be the most famous, and influential, such film), but it's interesting to follow the move from Italy to America, and back to Italy (with the supernatural disguise adopted by the killer here being as American as you can get).  

That four writers are credited (including the great Dardano Sacchetti, under a pseudonym) boggles the mind-the plot is paper thin, the murder-mystery aspect woefully undercooked, and the dialogue is painful. It's not completely without redeeming features, however: the aforementioned Hess and Farmer are always watchable, as is Charles Napier as a grizzled sheriff who seems to spend most of his time standing and staring at things. John Steiner and Ivan Rassimov also pop up, each trying to outdo the other for the coveted title of Least Important Role  Ever (although they are potential suspects for the murders). The score (by Claudio Simonetti) is cheesy and fun, and there's an excellent dream sequence. This sequence isn't shot with any great flair, in common with the rest of the film, but its design and editing are terrific. 

A group of American tourists are on a bus tour around Barcelona. As they wander around Las Ramblas, a local girl is slashed to death, with her left eye being carved out. The group press on with their tour, and one of its younger members meets a similar end on a ghost train.

The group press on with their tour, and a local servant at a pig farm is killed in the exact same way. The police confiscate the  group's passports, so they decide to press on with their tour.

The group are all from an American town called Burlington, where a young girl had been knifed (and de-eyed) a year previously (a fact that seems to have escaped most of their memories). One of their number, Mark Burton, found his wife in an apparently incriminating position-passed out on their lawn, clutching a bloody knife and with a carved-out eye beside her-after that crime, but covered for her. She's now apparently followed him to Barcelona, having passed up an invitation to check herself into a New York mental hospital. Mark's worried that she's the killer, and that she also may have discovered his affair with his secretary Paulette (another tourist).

Apparently fearing that an incriminating picture has been snapped of them, the killer strikes again, dispatching Lisa, a photographer with the group. Before they can thoroughly search her apartment, her lover, Naiba, returns home, forcing the killer to flee. The group press on with their tour. The killer seems rattled by their inability to recover this hypothetical picture, failing to dispatch the next two intended victims-Naiba (again) in hospital, and the group's youngest member, a girl who has a penchant for running off on her own (as do many of the group).

Things come to a head (with its left eye removed) when a reel of film is developed, and an (incredibly clear) incriminating photo is to revealed to have indeed been taken. Naiba sets off to find her friend, a priest, who has pressed on with his touristing, to show him the photo, which shows Paulette creeping along Las Ramblas holding a dagger. Simultaneously, Mark remembers something-Paulette keeps a stash of glass left eyes in a drawer. It turns out that she lost an eye as a child while playing doctor with a friend. Any time she sees someone with the same eye colour-blue-as the friend, she goes a bit mental. She has been trying to frame Mark's wife for the crimes (and the dead girl in Burlington had also been having an affair with him). 

It all ends well, and Mark presses on for home, having reconnected with his wife. The grizzled Spanish detective who was racing against time to crack the case before his retirement, watches him go and looks forward to some cracking trout fishing.

Eyeball is usually described as one of the trashiest and cheesiest gialli. There are far more egregious examples of both, but it's definitely a fun and breezy bus ride. The scenery is great, and Lenzi throws suspect after suspect on to the screen. It's far from top tier giallo-or even top tier Lenzi,-but it's impossible to dislike.

A lot of Italian directors stole shots on location, filming without permits. Lenzi and Sergio Martino were probably the leading exponents of this, working quickly with reduced crews to try to attract minimal attention. There are several brilliantly-conceived shots in Eyeball which give the Barcelona locations maximum exposure, before zooming, panning and racking to follow a character (with much looking-down-the-lens action from unwitting bystanders) as they walk through the landscape, before switching to pick out a different character, all within a single take. This is the epitome of efficient filmmaking, showcasing the exotic locations and incorporating character development all at once, allowing the crew to quickly move on with minimal disruption caused. Sergio Martino tended to take a slightly different approach, using handheld cameras to get in close to the action and actors, though the shoot-and-move intention was the same.

Martino and Lenzi were both exceedingly fond of that most 70s of visual tropes-the quick cut to an extreme close of of an object-often flashing or glinting-followed by a swift zoom out. It's a method of scene transition that has gone the way of the zoom lens in general-which is to say, it barely exists-having been supplanted by wipe-style transitions, with an object passing in front of the camera in one scene masking a cut to a similar object passing in a different scene. (Although early Paul Thomas Anderson did often begin with similar close ups, although he used cuts rather than zooms to pull out.) The zoom lens was much beloved of Lenzi, and, combined with his use of racks of focus, and a scope frame, gave his films a distinct look. They had a kind of rough but stylish aesthetic, picking out faces against landscapes in a slightly sub-Leone manner. And Eyeball, with its litany of suspects who are lining up to act is suspicious ways, is a perfect showcase for this approach, with frequent crash zooms into tight close ups.

Another link to Martino comes during the film's climax, when Naiba is trying to escape from a locked castle. She dangles her necklace out a window, hoping to snag  it on the key to the front door. A gloved hand appears on the outside and  hooks the chain around the key, ensuring that  Naiba will fall unwittingly into Paulette's clutches. This is a retread of the moment in Torso where the hand puts the key on Suzy Kendall's newspaper-under-the-door, although Lenzi, perhaps mindful of the moment's coming in the middle of the film's climax (and I'm being generous by reaching for this explanation), rushes through it in a distinctly throwaway manner. Still, the pacing is in keeping with the rest of the film-the second half of Torso would probably occupy no more than five or six minutes of Eyeball's running time.

Returning to the litany of suspects-this is one area where Lenzi does deviate from the norm in some respects. Simply put, everyone is a suspect. Every single character acts, at some point, in an unusual manner, which attracts the suspicion of the other tourists (and us viewers). The possibility of accomplices is also raised, meaning that even those characters who are seemingly alibied due to their being elsewhere when murders occur can thus be considered suspects. There are about 6 potential suspects alive as we reach the climax, giving the audience a flat 16.666666666% chance of guessing correctly. The eventual killer, Paulette, is one of the first characters to have the finger properly pointed at them, after she's spotted cleaning mud from her shoes after the murder of the farmhand girl in a pig pen. All the characters have their moment in the suspect sun, though, with the group displaying an unerring penchant for wandering off on their own, despite knowing that there's a killer in their midst. Their American provenance may have been a neat bit of social commentary on Lenzi's part, for surely no Europeans would behave in such a cavalier, and stupid, fashion (unless they were appearing in another giallo).

The Editor is another of those films which is usually lumbered with the neo-giallo tag. It's not a neo-giallo, though, it's a comedy giallo. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, neo-gialli are post-modern films which prioritise imagery over plot. The Editor is post-modern, in that it contains elements of pastiche and occasional moments of fourth wall-breaking, but it still ticks all the classic giallo boxes. It's far from the first comedy giallo, either-The Weekend Murders from 1970 is an early example, and Mario Bava's later gialliwere borderline parodic at times.

The Editor tracks a film editor, Rey Ciso, and a police detective, Peter Porfiry, as they try to catch a murderer who's slicing his way through the cast of a giallo film on which Ciso is working. The killer seems to be trying to frame Ciso, as each victim has been shorn of the fingers of their right hand, echoing an injury suffered by Ciso himself several years before as he attempted to cut the longest film of all time. There are nods aplenty to classic Italian films (both within and without the giallo genre), and Udo Kier pops up as a creepy (naturally) doctor who runs an insane asylum. After the killer is unmasked (and melted alive) and order is restored, we're treated to one of those twist endings beloved of Italian directors of the past.

The film is a product of the Astron-6 collective, a group of Canadian filmmakers who have also produced Manborg and Fathers' Day, showing a flair for over-achieving on minimal budgets. Interestingly, even though The Editor had by far their biggest budget, it's not much more ambitious in scope than Fathers' Day, which cost less than a tenth as much. Visually, the film's a mixed bag, with as many fantastically-lit sequences  as there are shots which are awkwardly composed, with frequent recourse to overly-tight framing, and characters speaking from off-camera, or with only part of their body visible in the frame. Fathers' Day also contains similarly variable visuals, and it's possible that Adam Brooks and Matthew Kennedy, the co-directors, are too idiosyncratic and inconsistent of style to ever make a big commercial breakthrough. That said, The Editor does contain much visual delights for the discerning giallo fan, with the 70s production design, and hair and make-up, brilliantly realised.

 As usual with Astron-6, there's very much a tongue-wedged-firmly-in-cheek  aspect to proceedings, with visual gags (Ciso getting distracted by the cigarette burn reel change mark appearing), brilliantly-phrased one liners ("a good man holds a beer") and plenty of homages. I've always been suspicious of homages in films, as there's a fine line between paying your respects to a film or filmmaker which has inspired you, and showing off your  incredible in-depth knowledge of niche films. 

For the most part, the homages in The Editor go beyond merely quoting from other films. Instead, the homage is adapted and reworked, usually for comic effect, occasionally even commenting on the original moment which is being referenced. The best example, for me anyway, comes when Inspector Porfiry is researching a potential occult link to the murders (one of the lesser-realised homages, which amounts to nothing more than an excuse to show a tattered copy of The Three Mothers book). As he sits alone in a dark library, a series of tarantulas begin to slowly approach him. Instead of falling into a Beyond-esque trance as the spiders get ready to attack, Porfiry merely stamps most of them to death, and flicks the remaining one from the desk. This perfectly satirises the static nature of the much-discussed tarantula attack in The Beyond, where a character lies still, apparently paralysed, as tarantulas slooowly approach him, before gradually eating his face off.