Criterion was one of the first boutique physical media companies. They started making Laserdiscs as far back as 1984 and then eventually moved to DVDs, Blu-rays, and most recently 4K UHD. They specialize in arthouse, foreign, and independent movies. Basically, they are the film snobs’ religion.

But that isn’t really fair. While they do release films by non-American, art-house directors like Akira Kurosawa, Francois Truffaut, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Federico Fellini and independent film darlings like Noah Baumbach and Wes Anderson, they also have boxed sets starring Bruce Lee and Godzilla.

The Criterion Channel does an even better job at this. Sure, you can watch the entire filmography of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, but they also regularly add in all sorts of obscure, goofy, and cult films like The Atomic Submarine, Atragon (about a giant sea snake that decides humans have become technologically advanced and attacks), Baba Yaga (based on a series of S&M friendly comics), and The Canyons (starring Lindsay Lohan and porn star James Deen).

Right now they are featuring thirteen Giallos. Fans of this site know I’m a huge fan of that stylish Italian horror genre so this is like catnip to me.

Even though I’ve previously watched all of the films, own most of them on DVD, and have even reviewed quite a few of them before, I thought it would be fun to watch them on the Criterion Channel and do a little write-up on each one.

Now that the music has moved to a separate site, I keep wanting to find ways to add value to this site. Something like this seems exactly perfect.

The name of this series, by the way, comes from Dario Argento’s debut film The Bird With the Crystal Plumage. A cop in that film has put together a lineup of crooks who might be the murderers of several beautiful women. He yells this when bringing them out. I thought it was a fun title for this series.

The films are as follows:

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)
Blood and Black Lace (1964)
Death Walks at Midnight (1972)
Deep Red (1975)
Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972)
Tenebrae (1982)
In the Folds of the Flesh (1970)
Who Saw Her Die? (1972)
Torso (1973)
What Have They Done To Your Daughters (1974)
Strip Nude For Your Killer (1975)
All the Colors of the Dark (1972)
The Evil Eye (1963)

Usually, Criterion presents their collections in chronological order, but lately, they’ve used some other criteria. I presume someone has ordered them in a way that makes for interesting viewing. I’ve decided to follow their order.