Formally an almost entirely unreconstructed modern giallo, perfectly delivering every scuzzy beat and baffling narrative twist, but so suffused with lust and longing that it achieves this constant hypnodrone eroticism. Stay for the credits.

“was i a good fag?”

was skeptical going in but this is the real deal - despite general dicklessness theres a charged sweetness to all the cum'n'tanlines hookups & our homo-artcore directrix vanessa paradis has a real tragic sense of humor & cynical intelligence i didnt expect from someone i last saw in YOGA HOSERS. introducing her bottom-out drunk & dumped by her gf over a payphone had me locked in right out the gate! love how they offset the horny sex murders & prerequisite red/blue neon synth with some of the supernatural fairy tale/mystery elements from so many messy 70s euro-horrors everybody seems to forget about now. Watch This Gay Giallo Now!!

AFI 2018: film #5

“yesterday we came, tomorrow we die”

part gritty realism, part dreamy fantasy, but all together really really gay. the mystery is more interesting than i thought it would be, and there are some beautifully nasty moments that stand out. overall an interesting way to spend an afternoon

HOMO
CIDAL

"I want you all stiffer than President Giscard."

16mm as a death knell and a release. all my favorite elements of giallos penchant for kinetic visual filmmaking are melted into a singular volcanic scream of gay rage. even the dead-air talking points of giallo carry a considerably heavier and sharper weight here against the constantly present backdrop of identity and self expression (and repression) through eroticism. the gay giallo that ive always dreamed of seeing yet knowing it was entirely out of reach until now. an absolute fucking dream come true.

Surprisingly tender, not just because of its central love story, but for how Gonzalez uses France's gay porn boom as a means to explore cinema's ability to allow marginalized people to see and recreate idealized versions of their own lives on screen.

As much as I like all of the more overt genre elements -- especially the heavily eroticized death sequences and the mid-film detour into the fantastique -- it's the way that Gonzalez is able to work them into an evocation of the era that never feels beholden to the past that makes this resonate so well with me.

(I always hate focusing on references, but I kind of really loved seeing explicit nods to Diabolical Dr. Z, New York Ripper, NYC Inferno, and real-life figures like Anne-Marie Tensi and François About throughout this)

70

Flies into the beaming, transcendent light of a modern mid-range 'giallo', one that, if released in the mid-70s, would find its way to Synapse or Arrow after being starved on a shitty Anchor Bay DVD for fifteen years. A delicate dance of the inescapable similarities between orgasm and death, yet rooted in a silly, loaded viscera that is far removed from the academic dissections of Strickland or Cattet/Forzani. Its steely blue monotony of passion in pornography finds a sharp contrast in the lucid red hues of the blood of victims, like a pre-AIDS tremor. A free-wheeling interplay between incident and droning, murderous intent is evoked by the natural state of the world and its inhabitants and creatures, the wind rising up to warn of the passage of the end.

gay giallo is all ive ever wanted

Some interesting moments, great production design, and lovely colors ... but it's hard to escape a feeling of "That's it?" by the end. Not terrible entertainment by any means, and it does a nice job of capturing a particular milieu, but it could have been a lot more.

Esse filme era tudo o que eu queria: algo no estilo giallo, só que bem gay.

A stylish and unapologetically queer giallo that sees a masked killer stalking a gay porn director and her collaborators, killing his victims with a dildo knife. With that premise you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a comedy, but despite the occasional camp moment, this manages to take itself fairly seriously and comes out (pun intended) stronger as a result of it. Vanessa Paradis's Anne is neither hero nor villain, and her tumultuous relationship with her editor is maybe one of the most real things I have seen in any slasher.

I'm basically an honorary lesbian at this point

What's funny is that of all the bargain bin Argentos of the world (and all of the Freudian baggage such mimicry entails), the one that deliberately inverted the template of its own gaze to glory in the joys of trans+MSM is the one who did it best. Bravo.

There's a lot of films that reach for diversity but seem hollow, cash grabby, and kind of lazy, but when you find a movie that promotes diverse stories and characters correctly then there's a magic that can be done. Knife+Heart is that very magic. In the same way Funeral Parade of Roses uses arthouse to pull at our heart strings, K+H uses giallo to revive a new wave of emotional, thoughtful genre filmmaking. If this is the future of horror, I want in.

i watched this with no english subtitles, went back and had to read the script. 

when she says “am i a good fag” though? transcends languages

kinda weird but so fucking good?!!?!? cinematography = chefs kiss.

A masked murderer is killing stars of third-rate gay porn, while the film producer sees her life falling apart. Set in a very stylized 1970s Paris, this movie is a beautiful homage to Giallo, with crazy colorful lighting, amazing costume design, and over-the-top set scenes, not to mention the spot-on score. Tense and sometimes surreal, Knife + Heart is an insane yet exquisite film experience.

m83 <3

🤟🥰

I've reviewed it before and will link here.
Today it iz a treat.