Is "Dark Bar" a Giallo? It's highly debatable, or at least according to yours truly, and - trust me - there's absolutely nothing I love more than discovering new and obscure Gialli titles. Some of the trademarks are undeniably present. It's Italian, obviously, and it features a mean person dressed in black - including matching hat and gloves - who brutally kills a couple of women. But this person, he or she, shoots the victims with a gun (Giallo-blasphemy) and they are murdered for their involvement in drug trafficking and blackmail affairs rather than for simply being fashion models or scarcely dressed prostitutes. That's another big Giallo-no-go.
Writer/director Stelio Fiorenza, whoever he was, clearly wanted his biggest movie project NOT to come across as Giallo but as a film-noir and an erotic thriller, like the contemporary popular "Fatal Attraction" or "Body Double". The actress who seemingly gets introduced as the lead character, Elisabeth, is involved up to her neck in the clandestine activities that take place in the titular Dark Bar. That is, until she's mercilessly shot in the ladies' room. Her sister Anna, a promising musician, gets worried and starts digging in Elisabeth's private life with the help of boyfriend. Needless to say, it's now Anna who finds her own life in mortal danger.
The film's intentions are good, but the storyline is too thin and there are too few moments of genuine suspense or harsh action to make it interesting. "Dark Bar" is slow-paced and borderline dull, and there's nothing even remotely original about Fiorenza's script. The only noteworthy element, perhaps, is the director's obsession with answering machines. It's amazing how much of the running time is spent on people either speaking messages into, or listening to recorded messages on, answering machines. It goes as far as characters even repeatedly listening to the messages they recorded themselves, or the police leaving a message to inform Anna they found the sister's body!
Writer/director Stelio Fiorenza, whoever he was, clearly wanted his biggest movie project NOT to come across as Giallo but as a film-noir and an erotic thriller, like the contemporary popular "Fatal Attraction" or "Body Double". The actress who seemingly gets introduced as the lead character, Elisabeth, is involved up to her neck in the clandestine activities that take place in the titular Dark Bar. That is, until she's mercilessly shot in the ladies' room. Her sister Anna, a promising musician, gets worried and starts digging in Elisabeth's private life with the help of boyfriend. Needless to say, it's now Anna who finds her own life in mortal danger.
The film's intentions are good, but the storyline is too thin and there are too few moments of genuine suspense or harsh action to make it interesting. "Dark Bar" is slow-paced and borderline dull, and there's nothing even remotely original about Fiorenza's script. The only noteworthy element, perhaps, is the director's obsession with answering machines. It's amazing how much of the running time is spent on people either speaking messages into, or listening to recorded messages on, answering machines. It goes as far as characters even repeatedly listening to the messages they recorded themselves, or the police leaving a message to inform Anna they found the sister's body!