The first five and a half minutes of 1972's All the Colors of the Dark (also known as Day of the Maniac and They're Coming to Get You!) subvert what I called the "graphic beauty" of the giallo in some intriguing ways.An outdoor scene of a stream slowly darkens, replaced by an old crone with blackened teeth, dressed as a child and a dead pregnant woman are both made up to be anything but the gorgeous creatures we've come to expect from these films; even star Edwige Fenech (The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, Five Dolls for an August Moon and so many more that I could go on and on about) isn't presented in her normal role of a sex symbol. She's covered in gore, eyes open and lifeless. As the camera zooms around the room and begins to spin, we see a road superimposed and hear a car crash. Even when Edwige's character in this film, Jane Harrison, wakes up to take a shower, we're not presented with the voyeuristic spoils that one expects from giallo's potent stew of the fantastique and the deadly. She stands fully clothed, the water more a caustic break with the dream world than an attempt at seducing the viewer or cleaning herself.Again — in a genre where words possess little to no meaning — we are forced to wait five and a half minutes until the first dialogue. Richard, (George Hilton, Blade of the Ripper) her husband, bemoans that he must leave, but feels that he can't. His therapy is a glass of blue pills and lovemaking that we watch from above, his penetration of her intercut with violent imagery of a knife entering flesh. Instead of the thrill we expect from this coupling, we only sense her distance from the proceedings.As Richard leaves her behind, we get the idea of the madness that exists within their apartment: a woman makes out on the sidewalk with a young hippy man, who asks when he'll ever see her again. Mary, (Marina Malfatti, The Night Evelyn Came Out of Her Grave, The Red Queen Kills Seven Times) a mysterious blonde, glares down at him, somewhat knowingly. His wife looks lost and trapped. Without dialogue, we've already sensed that some Satanic conspiracy is afoot. Echoes of Rosemary's Baby? Sure, but you could say that about every occult themed 1970's film — the influence is too potent, a tannis root that has infected all of its progeny.Last year, a car crash took the life of Jane's unborn child. Her sister Barbara (Nieves Navarro, Death Walks at Midnight, Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals) has advised therapy, something that Richard laughs at. As Jane waits to see the doctor, she sees a man with the bluest eyes (Ivan Rassimov from Planet of the Vampires and Django in Don't Wait, Django…Shoot!) — eyes we've seen before, eyes that hint at blood and murder and madness.Even when she's surrounded by people, such as on the subway, Jane is lost in her thoughts and in another world, one of inky blackness and isolation punctuated only by the cool blue eyes of the sinister man who tracks her everywhere she goes. Even the teeming masses of the city make her feel more lost; only the light of the above ground world erase the nightmare of her stalker. That is — until he finds her in the park, where she screams for him to stop following her. The camera is detached, following her from high above, watching her run away, needing the refuge of her home. Even then, the man is still there, banging on the door, demanding to be part of her reality.Read more at bandsaboutmovies.com/2017/09/06/all-the-colors-of-the-dark-1972

A pseudo-giallo, All the Colors... once again puts Edwige behind the knife, or rather in front of it and sometimes under it, when she stumbles(or is she lead?) into a satanic cult. Say it ain't so. Now, even on a rainy day when I'm all out of meth, I don't go in for satanic cult movies since they bore me. But, I started to enjoy this film in spite of myself, though I was expecting less devil and more giallo. If you are expecting the razor wielding sex maniac in black gloves to stalk beautiful girls to kick ass music, look elsewhere.What you get here instead is Jane, a poor gal suffering from nightmares and also possibly daymares. Her beau, Richard, is often away from their flat, leaving her to her nightmares since she refuses to take her vitamins or whatnot. So, a new neighbor offers to take her to a black mass to help rid her of this weird dude named Mark who keeps stalking her and feeling her up with his cool blue eyes. However, all is not well, since after she goes to the mass, she realizes Mark belongs to the coven. D'oh! And now he starts showing up even more, which means Jane was gang raped for nothing. I hate it when that happens. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm always up for a black mass when I'm having nightmares or if some weird person shows up at a couple of places I've been recently. I'm sort of surprised more doctors don't recommend it. Anyway, except for Mark and the mass ringleader, McBride(who looks like a devilish Robert Downey Jr.), the rest of the cultists look like rejects from a Wiccan ceremony held in a local park.Director Sergio has a few good moments of nice camera-work, lighting, effective music, but overall it struck me as rather average, if watchable. Obvious inspirations from Rosemary's Baby abound.

Sergio Martino has proved himself to be a brilliant Giallo director on many occasions, films like "The Strange Vice Of Mrs. Wardh" (1971), "The Scorpion's Tail" (1971) "Torso" (1973) or "Your Vice Is A Locked Room And Only I Have The Key" (1972, greatest title ever) speak for themselves. "Tutti i colori del buio" aka. "All The Colors Of The Dark" of 1972, starring genre-goddess Edwige Fenech, is yet another great entry to the man's repertoire, an immensely creepy and nightmarish, yet beautiful psychedelic Giallo that Italian Horror fans can not allow themselves to miss. While this is not a very typical Giallo (no gloved killer butchering dozens of beauty queens here), it is definitely essential for all Giallo-lovers. The film, which is very suspenseful from the very beginning, has a unique, mesmerizing atmosphere, which is not least due to the brilliant cinematography and the downright ingenious psychedelic score by maestro Bruno Nicolai.The ravishing Edwige Fenech stars as Jane, a young woman who lost her unborn baby in a car accident, and who is now tormented by terrible nightmares and the paranoia that somebody is following her. Both her husband (regular Giallo leading man George Hilton) and her sister (fellow beautiful cult-cinema actress Nieves Navarro) want to help her, but while her husband insists on medication, her sister is convinced that a psychiatrist is the right answer. Both methods are either non-effective, or have an opposite effect, as the menacing feeling is just getting worse... I don't want to give any more away, since this is a truly unpredictable film that every fellow Giallo-fan should enjoy as intensely as possible. Due to a occult subplot, this is sometimes labeled as a kind of Giallo version of "Rosemary's Baby", but these comparisons are not really adequate. There are two 'Satanic' Gialli from the early 70s, Aldo Lado's "Short Night Of The Glass Dolls" and this one, and while many a fellow Giallo-fan might disagree, I personally prefer "All The Colors Of The Dark" by far. Both films are visually stunning and greatly acted, but this one easily surpasses the other in suspense and creepiness. As mentioned above, the camera work is brilliant, and the ingenious score is both beautiful and eerie, which gives the film a menacing atmosphere and constant tension. Sexy Edwige Fenech is once again stunningly beautiful and great in the lead, a role which seems to have been written for her specifically. George Hilton also delivers a good performance in the male lead, Fenech and Hilton starred together in a number of Gialli, and they once again match very well here. Cult-siren Nieves Navarro, who is known for her roles in different genres of Italian cinema, be it Spaghetti Westerns such as "The Big Gundown" or Cannibal-Sexploitation such as "Emanuelle And The Last Cannibals" is also great in the role of the sister. The supporting cast furthermore includes Exploitation-star Ivan Rassimov in a genuinely creepy role. The violence is not quite as gory and brutal as I had expected, but still intense enough to satisfy the gore-hounds out there. All said, "Tutti I Colori Del Buio" is a mesmerizing, convoluted and unpredictable Giallo, and another proof that Sergio Martino is a great director. A must-see for my fellow Giallo-buffs, and also highly recommended to all other Horror fans!

There's isn't any black-gloved killer butchering one fashion model after the other with an exceptional weapon here, yet that certainly doesn't make "All the Colors of the Dark" any less of a genuine Italian giallo! This solid thriller, directed by the almighty Sergio Martino ("Torso", "Blade of the Ripper") , benefits most from its extremely stylish cinematography and, of course, the mesmerizing looks of lead actress and reigning giallo-queen Edwige Fenech. With this natural beauty running around hysterically all the time – often scarcely dressed – you almost feel forced to forgive the story for being overly confusing and the violence for being too tame. Jane is a young woman, still recovering from a traumatizing accident in which she lost her unborn child, and suffers from re-occurring nightmares as well as hallucinations of being stalked by a blue-eyed creep. With her lover Richard out of town a lot, others try to help Jane with her mental problems. Her sister recommends seeing a psychiatrist and a befriended girl in the apartment even advises her to join a satanic cult. This last initiative obviously isn't a very good idea, as lovely Jane becomes involved in an occult mess of rape & murder, starring all the people of her unexplained hallucinations. Sergio Martino creates and sustains a powerful atmosphere of paranoia and morbidity, yet it's truly regretful that there isn't any more gore on display. Jane's nightmares are remotely bloody, but true fans of Italian horror cinema require a bit more sadism. There are several suspenseful scenes to make up for this, notably the one where Fenech awakes in a countryside cottage and painfully realizes she STILL isn't safe. The screenplay makes several intriguing twists & turns near the end, just in time to make it a great giallo after all. I have to admit that the first hour of "All the Colors of the Dark" nearly wasn't as compelling and involving as other contemporary gialli. The music is great as usual and, apart from Edwige, this movie also contains great performances by George Hilton, Ivan Rassimov and Nieves Navarro.