Delirium: Photo of Gioia
Delirium: Photo of Gioia
Bava's giallo love-note to buxom babes and big shoulder pads.
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While Delirium was made long after the Golden Age of the giallo genre, it qualifies for a few reasons: mainly the milieu, and the pedigree of the filmmaker (director Lamberto Bava is the son of giallo godfather Mario Bava). It's got several of the clichés one associates with the classic Italian thriller, but it's not quite as much fun, nor as stylish, as some of the 70s standards.
Opening with a softcore porn photo shoot, Delirium quickly introduces us to its leading lady, the massively buxom Gioia (Serena Grandi, a horror movie vet who's pretty to look at but not much of an actress). Gioia, once a hot property in the modeling biz, has parleyed her wealth into the publishing industry and now she not only owns Pussycat magazine, but a lavish mansion ala Hugh Hefner, complete with decorative ladies lounging in her pool and padding around barefoot and half-naked. It's the perfect view for the creepy, wheelchair-bound peeping tom living next door.
As skeevy young Mark (Karl Zinny) watches the women one night, he witnesses a murder. He tries to tell Gioia, who goes to the cynical cops, but the story is not believed until the violated body is discovered elsewhere, killed exactly in the bizarre manner described. More models die, rinse, repeat.
Who could it be? The temperamental teenaged voyeur? Gioia's impotent, incest-obsessed brother? The swishy gay photographer… simply because he's homosexual? ("I'm afraid they'll suspect Roberto because he's gay!" gasps Gioia at one point… even though it's not the 70s anymore, this giallo is right in line with the genre's expected "-isms"). It's quite a silly movie.
However, there is a lot to like about Delirium. It is way over the top with its unenlightened characters, gratuitous nudity, spackled on 80s eye-shadow and criminally insane outfits, plus the nightmarish dream sequences straight out of a sleep-deprived surrealists' fantasy. (Ever seen a giant, bloodshot eyeball-head smoking a cigarette? Watch Delirium, and you can say yes to that question.) The regal Capucine makes an appearance as a rapacious, salacious lesbian, and giallo stalwarts Daria Nicolodi and George Eastman are also in the film as possible suspects.
While Delirium never quite gels as much as the hair product on its beleaguered cast, it's still one for the library if you like these sorts of movies. The DVD has some nice extras to sweeten the pot, including an intro to the movie from Bava, as well as a photo gallery spotlighting the titillating modeling sessions, plus a handful of interviews with Bava, Eastman and David Brandon, who played Roberto.
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson