The Italians know how to kill people in imaginative ways. Of course, I’m referring to their rich horror film history that started with I Vampiri, Italy’s first horror film, in 1957, directed by Riccardo Freda; it was its cinematographer, Mario Bava, who actually completed the film when Freda left the production after only twelve days. Bava would go on to become Italy’s maestro of the macabre, directing many memorable gothic horror films like Black Sunday (1960) and Black Sabbath (1963), as well as directing the first Italian thriller, or giallo (“yellow” in Italian, in honor of the garish yellow paperback murder mysteries popular in Italy since the 1930s) with The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963), becoming the “Godfather of the Giallo”. The film’s success inspired hundreds of films produced from the late 1960s into the 1980s, involving outlandish murders by mysterious gloved and/or masked killers, fake-looking blood, ample nudity, amateur detecting via the film protagonists, and plenty of J&B scotch product placement. I’ve written about the giallo elsewhere, but it’s an Italian genre that has become popular all over the world, leading to many Italian co-productions with countries like Spain, Portugal, France, and Germany (itself home to the similar krimi crime films of the late 1950s and early 1960s). Just as Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) and Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960) helped usher in the slasher genre, so too did the Italian giallo, particularly Bava’s A Bay of Blood (1972), in which its graphic onscreen kills, atypical of Bava’s other films, were copied shamelessly by the makers of Friday the 13th (1980) and its first sequel, Friday the 13th Part II (1981): The demarcation line between the slasher and the giallo has always been muddled and debated frequently among genre historians, critics, and fans.
As other countries produced their own gialli, Canada, a country not renowned for filmmaking outside of documentaries and animation short films, decided to get into the giallo game by way of an ingenious—or insane—tax incentive strategy. Hoping to kickstart a moribund film industry that had been dormant since the early 1960s, the federal government under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, created a tax incentive plan that, as described by the Canadian Encyclopedia, allowed “investors to deduct 100% of their investment in Canadian feature films from their taxable income.” To be classified as a Canadian film, it had to be at least 75 minutes long, one producer and at least two-thirds of the “above the line” creative personnel had to be Canadian, and at least 75% of the overall production had to be done in Canada. This change to the tax laws took effect in 1974 and immediately we were blessed with Black Christmas (1974), a wintry, Yuletide giallo that became a financial success, grossing over $5 million worldwide on a budget of $700,000, inspiring John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), two remakes in 2006 and 2019, and opening the floodgates to other Canadian genre fare, including several horror films with giallo elements, such as Prom Night (1980), Terror Train (1981), Happy Birthday to Me (1981), and Curtains (1983). One homegrown horror entry, Evil Judgment (1984), is perhaps the best example of the Canadian giallo since Black Christmas, though, in the rush to complete films before the tax law was amended, reducing film tax write-offs to 50%, it sat on a shelf after production ended abruptly in 1981 before it was completed in 1984. It contains all the flourishes that make giallo fans swoon yet creates a distinctly Canadian flavor (should it be called a Canadian gelato?) featuring a chilly, early 1980s Montréal along with its infamous mafia, beautiful Québecois women, and an insane judge–whether it’s a horror film or a giallo, or both, it’s a notable Canadian genre film and worthy of its giallo classification.
Janet (Pamela Collyer), a young aerobics dancer, yearns to ditch her low-paying waitress job and make some real money and not rely on her mafia henchman boyfriend, Dino (Jack Langedijk). When her friend, April (Nanette Workman), a local sex worker, suggests she join her with one of her regular rich clients, Ron (Walter Massey), for a threesome at his remote mansion outside the city (she can earn $200!), she waffles but ultimately accepts the offer. Meanwhile, a mental hospital patient murders his doctor and a nurse and is on the loose in Montréal and Janet is a prime target! Can she and Dino figure out who’s stalking her in time?
Evil Judgment might not win mainstream critical plaudits, but it is an entertaining and engaging piece of genre cinema. In most cases, a film that sits on a shelf for a few years is not an ideal scenario for an undiscovered cinematic classic, but as was the case with many horror films in the early 1980s, there was a glut of horror films, thanks largely to the slasher craze initiated by Halloween, from 1980-1983. Many American and Canadian horror films were held back by distribution companies fearing an oversaturation of the theatrical market. (Once VHS defeated Beta in the VCR format war of the early 1980s, distribution companies flooded many of these held-back movies onto the burgeoning home video market.) Directed by Claudio Calvetti, an Italian-born Canadian filmmaker (adding to its giallo bonafides), Evil Judgment’s opening scene of Janet exercising and practicing her dance moves, clad in spandex and leg warmers, seems out of place for 1981, but as Calvetti had several cast members return to complete filming in late 1983, the year Flashdance and aerobics took over the world briefly, it then makes sense. (Evil Judgment would also pre-date the cult Canadian aerobics drama, Heavenly Bodies [1985] by a mere three months.) The film serves up plenty of gore (the unseen killer prefers to slice open necks with his signature giallo-issued black leather gloves), red herrings true to any good giallo (there are multiple characters vying to be the killer), and of course, lead actress Pamela Collyer shucks her clothes repeatedly throughout the film. One of the best scenes in the film is an unsettling dream sequence involving Janet being attacked and sliced open by her boyfriend Dino. The ending is wonderfully ridiculous and well worth the wait, earning a spot within the giallo community for its abandoning of logic—nobody expects a giallo to make complete sense.
Like any good giallo, Evil Judgment has an extremely likable cast of characters: Pamela Collyer is pleasant as the wholesome Janet who hesitates to engage in temporary sex work to gain financial independence. It’s unfair to compare Collyer to giallo queens like Edwige Fenech, Barbara Bouchet, or Anita Strindberg, but she portrays Janet as a dauntless woman trying to solve the mystery she’s entangled without relying too much on her boyfriend Dino and his local mafia clout. (Collyer would appear in several other Canadian horror films in the 1980s like Cross Country [1983] and The Kiss [1988] before disappearing from film and TV acting by 1989.) Veteran Canadian character actor Walter Massey (cousin to Hollywood legend Raymond Massey, proving that along with Mary Pickford, Fay Wray, Walter Pidgeon, and Glenn Ford, Canada has supplied Hollywood with acting talent since the silent film era) is memorable in his brief role as Ron, the merry john who never gets his threesome, thanks to the killer’s razor blade. Nanette Workman as April is the best actor in the film, channeling Chrissy Hynde as the fashionable, punkish sex worker. Workman, who was born and raised in Mississippi, but moved to Québec in the 1960s and became a popular francophone singer (she also sang backing vocals on several Rolling Stones songs), steals every scene she shares with lead actress Pamela Collyer, including a funny scene in which April and Janet decide to impromptu dance in the coffee shop window to lure in drooling Montréal men so Janet can earn more tips! Jack Langedijk is serviceable as the male lead Dino, but he wins the award for Worst Boyfriend Ever, throwing out a naked Janet from his apartment after an innocuous argument. He has the quintessential 1980s mustache though, so even though he treats women terribly (like many an Italian boyfriend/husband in gialli) and he’s a member of the Montréal mob, he earns just enough cool points, as he seems to change his attitude halfway through the film, helping Janet investigate why a killer is stalking her and why the police are acting strangely about her case.
If a giallo works best in unraveling the mystery and identifying the shadowy killer, Evil Judgment works for its inclusion in the genre. Unlike the majority of Canadian films made during the tax shelter era, Catravelli doesn’t pretend that his film takes place in the USA. It’s clear that the setting is Montréal, not just from the occasional French-Canadian accent heard, but the locales used—it’s difficult (and ridiculous) to pass Québec off as Anyplace, USA, as it’s one of the most unique cultural areas in North America. I cannot think of another Canadian genre film that references the infamous Italian-Canadian mafia as Evil Judgment does, and it gives added nuance and irony to the proceedings. Dino frequents a local Italian-Canadian lounge that is clearly a front for the local mob, getting an assignment of running goods illegally across the Canada-USA border by his boss, Zio (Septimiu Sever), before he focuses on helping Janet. (Montréal, like New York, is famous for multiple crime families, like the Rizzutos, and for bagels. And for the record, les bagels de Montréal sont magnifiques!) What’s fascinating is that it’s through Zio that Dino gains the most knowledge about why there’s a madman slitting throats across the city and this information saves Janet’s life, no thanks to the police—who says crime doesn’t pay?
Evil Judgment is an obscure Canadian genre film that deserves to be called a giallo. It’s an engaging and violent exercise in style and excess, offering viewers all the essential ingredients of a giallo with a Canadian kiss. Not content to be an American clone, the film celebrates its Montréal origins, utilizing many highly-regarded Québec actors, and it deserves to be plucked from obscurity. Caelum Vatnsdal’s indispensable book on the history of Canadian horror films, They Came from Within, describes the film with a single line: “A murderous ex-judge targets prostitutes”; writer/critic Paul Corupe’s fantastic online repository of national genre cinematic fare, Canuxploitation!, acknowledges it doesn’t have a review of the film, so it’s heartening that Blu-ray boutique label Vinegar Syndrome’s 2023 physical disc release might attract newfound attention from genre fans on both sides of the border. It’s by no means a perfect film, but Evil Judgment is a lot of fun and a good selection for Halloween, a testament to the tenacity of a Canadian film cast and crew in crafting a love letter to a beloved Italian genre. Call it a giallo, or call it Canadian gelato, but expect a good time. ★
