13 Nights of Shocktober: The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

by A.J

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and, October becomes the month long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 4: Does that sound like a bird...? The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

Dario Argento had a career as a film critic before he began writing screenplays, and eventually directing movies. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is his first film as director and it is an amazing debut. He started his film career working within the traditional boundaries of the giallo, an Italian crime and murder-mystery genre pioneered by filmmaker Mario Bava. While it is clear that Argento is working within this established genre, it is also clear that he is imitating, in the best way possible, Alfred Hitchcock. The plot of the movie is about an American writer, Sam, in Rome who witnesses a woman being attacked. At first he is a suspect but as other attacks and murders occur he becomes wrapped up in the investigation and then becomes a target What Sam cannot seem to remember about the night of the attack is the key to solving the mystery. This may be Aregento’s first film but the stylized production design and composition that would become one of Argento’s trademarks is in full bloom and provides some memorable imagines, mostly notable the attack scene Sam witnesses in an art gallery.

But perhaps the most memorable scene a POV shot of someone falling out of a window. You see the approaching pavement straight on. This shot was achieved by, you guessed, throwing the camera out of a window with ropes attached to keep the camera from actually hitting the ground. It didn’t work.

There is nothing of the supernatural in this movie, but over the course of his next three movies Argento would make his mark on the giallo genre by gradually adding elements of the supernatural and stylized violence, before making a full-blown supernatural thriller: Suspiria. Argento can thrill by creating suspense and mystery just as well as he can with blood and the supernatural. If you’re in the mood to see a well-paced, well-crafted thriller without gore and terror, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is an excellent choice.