The films

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The Cat o' Nine Tails

The middle of Argento's Animal Trilogy, and the one he liked least. A blind man and a reporter chase a killer.

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Blood and Black Lace

The giallo template, and still the best-looking film in the category.

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Inferno

The Suspiria sequel. Less coherent, more beautiful, and has the best underwater sequence Argento shot.

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A Bay of Blood

The hinge between giallo and slasher. Friday the 13th Part 2 lifts two murders almost shot for shot.

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Black Sunday

Bava could not afford colour and made the best-looking gothic ever shot. Barbara Steele's face did the rest.

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Phenomena

Jennifer Connelly communicates with insects at a Swiss boarding school, and there is a chimpanzee with a razor.

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Tenebrae

Argento's last great giallo, and the one with the three-minute crane shot up the side of a house.

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The Beyond

Almost no coherent plot and that is the argument for it. One of the bleakest endings in the genre.

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Zombie Flesh Eaters

A zombie fights a shark. There is also an eye and a splinter. Fulci's most purely entertaining film.

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The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

Argento's debut, and the film that turned the giallo into an export industry.

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Deep Red

Argento's best. Goblin's score does half the work and is fully aware of it.

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Immaculate

Nunsploitation with a real budget. The last shot is a single unbroken take and it is the reason to watch.

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Eyes Without a Face

A surgeon steals faces for his disfigured daughter. Filmed with a tenderness that makes it far worse.

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Suspiria

Not a remake so much as an argument with the original. Colder, longer, and about postwar German guilt.

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Dawn of the Dead

The best zombie film ever made, set in a shopping mall, and much funnier than people remember.

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Suspiria

Barely a plot and possibly the most beautiful horror film ever shot.

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Don't Look Now

Grief, Venice, and an edit that keeps showing you the ending before you can read it.

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Cannibal Holocaust

Found footage nineteen years before Blair Witch, and six animals actually died to make its point.