Girl with a Straight Razor — Girl with a Straight Razor (Blu Ray)

From last year Girl with a Straight Razor is an arty, nearly dialogue-less neo-giallo. The just over-hour film features just a few actors- be they in person, or on the phone, with jarring and intense moments razor blade kills, mixed in with the largely lulling if grimly arty/fetish tipped drift- with the whole thing scored with an original giallo mocking soundtrack. Here from Rising Sun Media is a Blu-Ray release of the film- featuring two cuts of the film, director's commentary and a few other extras.

Girl with a Straight Razor was written and directed by Canadian Chris Alexander- who in total he has nine feature-length credits to his name. These go from surreal/ dream-like vampire film Blood for Irina(2012), onto is she a werewolf or mental unwell horror Female Werewolf(2015), through to Space Vampire(2020)- which is self-described as a ‘multi-media meditation on the vampire’.

Girl with a Straight Razor is really best described as an art-house horror film- created clearly on a very small budget, but with a focus on trying to create a disturbing and fetish-lined tribute to the Giallo. The film runs at (whichever version you watch)  just over the hour mark- and it features/ largely focuses on a blond-haired woman in a large motel apartment- laid out with a 60’s style pod chair, a black rubber-covered female statue, a double bed, and shapes of red carpet.

The film largely finds the woman slowly dressing in black gloves, red coat, and shades. Before going out each night to stalk a different woman- slashing them with her ‘straight razor’. In between this, we get footage of the woman lounging around in the apartment- caressing herself with the razor, making ritual poses, worshipping a black-laced woman and making one or two mouth close-up phone calls to a well-spoken man. Later on in the film a second woman appears- she’s living in a rundown motel, and clearly has had a troubled life- she gets a few more formal dialogue moments.

Throughout the film we find lots of lens flairs, red to blue-tinged inversed filming, lots of razor action- be it clean, or bloody. The killings themselves are sudden & brutal- with flesh ripped, and red spray on shades. We get some effectively troubling cuts between footage of lush lipstick lips, and deep ‘n’ gushing wounds. The soundtrack is largely good in its classic giallo mimicking, with a particularly memorable key featuring harmonically lulling flute-like tones, and there’s also( as expected) some Goblin nodding going on too.

On the whole Girl with a Straight Razor is a rewarding enough art house neo giallo- I did feel at times it did become a bit repetitive with its use of the same imagery, but of course understand why this was done. And I felt maybe it would have played better if it had been trimmed by say ten or so minutes. But I’d say if the idea of fetish lined arthouse horror with a giallo leaning- then I feel this will appeal.

Moving onto this region-free blu ray disc. And on the extras side we get a commentary track from director/ writer Chris Alexander- this is a most interesting/down-to-earth affair. He starts off by talking about the opening music in the film, which is a library music cue that was originally used on David Cronenberg’s Rabid.  He comments on things that influenced the opening scene,  and he says he sees this film as dollar shop  De Palma tribute. He talks about the use of the motel in film, and how his fascination with transit living impacts all of his films. He gives details of the film's locations, which are in Toronto. He talks about his influences in general, comments on certain scenes, and what he sees as the films story/ flow. Otherwise, on the extra side we get three music videos- these are all for a female-led theremin band, with the backing sound going between light horror punk and dark surf music. We have two surreal/ gallio trailers- one runs six, and the other just over a minute.

It's always good to see modern giallo films appearing, because as a genre there is so much that’s triply potent and darkly compelling to be found in it. For those who enjoy the more arty and abstract side of the giallo, then Girl with a Straight Razor will appeal.