Meeting Dario Argento!..........

Soooooooo: I met one of my heroes on Friday. Can you really call a man you routinely enacts the barbaric slaughter of innocent victims A HERO? Well, if it's on screen then YES YOU CAN! Just don't talk to your mum about it...

Dario was in London with soundtrack supremo Claudio Simonetti to receive Lifetime Achievement Awards from The Cine-Excess Festival, run by Brunel University. Naturally I was in attendance, and the lectures and films were all fascinating.

But for me, the opportunity to hand over a specially-prepared DVD of my own Giallo Films to the Maestro of the Genre, was almost overwhelmingly over-exciting, to the point of almost passing out afterwards!?

[For the uninitiated (actually, I don't think anyone reads this blog anyway!) the Giallo is a uniquely Italian subgenre of the Thriller, which fetishises brutal, psychosexual violence and magnificent cinematic style and excess; the genre emerged from Italy's fascination with Pulp novels in the '50s and '60s (and a healthy dose of Catholic repression I'll wager), which was eventually brought to the screen by Mario Bava in such early Gialli as THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH and BLOOD AND BLACK LACE. Although there were many eminent Giallo Directors (such as Umberto Lenzi, Sergio Martino and Aldo Lado) Dario Argento was the true inheritor of Mario Bava's bloody crown, and elevated the Genre to it's highest peaks with films such as DEEP RED and SUSPIRIA.]

Anyway, I digress! After his fascinating Q+A session, I hovered with intent inthe lobby. Dario mingled freely with the adoring crowds (Goths, Geeks and Academics), but I waited for my moment. With me, also hovered one of my most trusted collaborators Giles Edwards, who directed the awesome Giallo Short THE INCURSION (which I shot for him, and you can now see it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhU7AvZDk7k

I pulled aside one of Dario's Italian friends, and asked him to put a good word in for me. He did, and SECONDS LATER: Dario was examining the specially-made DVD that I had made for him. He was totally friendly, grinning and enthusiastic. He slapped me on the back and said "OK Neon Killer! Good! I watch!!".....

Needless to say I was over-excited, as I tend to be pretty over-excited a lot of hte time anyway.........