'Dark Bar' (1988) - Stelio Fiorenza.

Writer/director, Fiorenza's obscure, Neo-Norish, sleaze-singed thriller 'Dark Bar' remains a delightfully odd duck. Too light on lurid grue to be classed as a bona fide Giallo, but there is a terrifically twisted melodramatic bent to these seamy, off-beat shenanigans. The hedonistic, jazzy midnight milieu of estranged siblings, ill-fated drug deals, and nefarious blackmailing is rarely dull. Dark Bar's amusingly incongruous fedora-hatted gangster motifs provide an additionally skewed, hyperreal Lynchian quality. While absurd, these tantalizing eccentricities make, Stelio Fiorenza's crepuscular, heroin-soaked, cartoonishly sinister pseudo-Giallo stand out from the stab-happy crowd!

The ecclectic cast includes Battlestar Galactica's, Richard Hatch as the part-time projectionist, full-time Lothario Marco. Imperious Italian scream queen, Barbara 'Stage Fright' Cupisti portrays the pretty vacant, dope-dealing misfit, Elisabetta, the sin-seeking sister to sinuous, sax playing sex-pot, Anna (Marina Suma). Our lissome, crimson-wig rocking amateur sleuth disturbingly discovers that her wayward, Dark Bar haunting sister is an inordinately self-destructive twist! Elizabetta's sordid misadventures very soon drags Anna into the increasingly torrid waters of her sister's hit man-raddled wake!

To be overly critical about the lack of hyperbolic gore is, perhaps, a trifle unfair, since Dark Bar has a singular charisma all of its own. Composer, Carlo Siliotto's deliciously downbeat jazzoid score being a highlight. The brooding, nightclubbing ambiance of Siliotto's funereal title track 'Dark Haven' being an ear-wormingly delicious treat! Fiorenza's enjoyably eccentric film's whimsical use of answer machines as a persistent plot-prodder is a uniquely delightful peccadillo. The unconventional, multifarious weirdness of Dark Bar's scuzzy, dope-scoring, curiously adorned, seedily colourful characters prove memorable. Barbara Cupisti's eye-bogglingly fabulous, deliriously eye-ball adorned dress remains the most Giallo-centric garment I have ever seen!