Bava and Argento represent two different encounters with Italian horror: an awareness of a visual signature and enthusiasm for staged violence.
Black Sabbath and the discovery of a director
Quentin Tarantino's relationship with Mario Bava has a particularly recognisable title: Black Sabbath, the horror anthology released in 1963. No Film School reported on 1 June 2021 on a SiriusXM interview in which Tarantino placed it among his formative film memories. According to that account, it was a film that made him pay attention to the person directing it and want to see more of his work.
That shift in outlook is different from simply enjoying an isolated story. A viewer may remember a monster or a climax without wondering who organised the images. Recognising a director means noticing that the colour, the length of a pause, or the way a face is shown all answer to choices. The film ceases to be only something that happens and begins to be perceived as something constructed too.
The structure of Black Sabbath, also known as The Three Faces of Fear, encourages that perception. Its stories present different threats, but the viewer can compare how unease is created within a single screening. Not every episode needs to produce the same effect for there to be a shared attention to space, objects, and the transformation of the ordinary into something strange.
The anthology format also demands economy of exposition. A short story has less time to establish a world and must choose what information it gives and what it keeps off screen. A phone call, an object, or a motionless presence can take on disproportionate importance. Tension depends on the viewer expecting a disturbance before knowing exactly what form it will take. Bava turns that waiting into a visual experience.
Deep Red and a fascination with artifice
For Dario Argento, the documented memory centres on Deep Red, from 1975, known in Spain as Deep Red. IndieWire reported on 26 October 2020 Tarantino's comments on the impression left on him in his youth by its succession of murders. His enthusiasm referred to the intensity of that cinematic spectacle. It is not the same as a moral judgement on the conduct depicted, nor a proven preference for every Argento film.
Deep Red makes watching an unsafe activity. Its protagonist witnesses a murder, but seeing something does not mean having understood it. The investigation forces a mental return to images already seen and a question over which detail was misread. That relation between memory and perception turns the viewer into part of the problem: they too may have received information without knowing how to recognise it.
The mise en scène adds a second layer. Spaces do not function as neutral backdrops, and objects can draw attention before revealing their narrative purpose. Framing organises promises and suspicions. At times the threat seems to be in a place because the film has taught us to watch it; at others, the visual interest of a detail distracts from what will later prove decisive. The investigation is also a revision of the way we look.
Sound and music intensify that uncertainty. An aural memory can act as a clue, while the energy of a sequence's music alters the relationship between anticipation and surprise. The murder appears not merely as a fact that moves the mystery forward. It becomes a sequence with its own rhythm, whose unfolding can fascinate and unsettle at the same time. That formal autonomy helps explain the kind of enthusiasm Tarantino described.
Two entries into Italian horror, without confusing their genres
Bringing Bava and Argento together does not mean that all their films belong to giallo. Black Sabbath works as a horror anthology, with stories and release versions that should be distinguished; Deep Red is structured around a criminal investigation. The connection between both filmmakers includes an intense attention to form, but their works should not be turned into interchangeable examples of a supposed single Italian formula.
For anyone wanting to approach these preferences, the two films allow for a clear comparison. In Bava, one can observe how a brief episode establishes and transforms a threat. In Argento, how a longer narrative turns the memory of an image into the engine of the mystery. That order of viewing is a proposal for reading, not a list compiled by Tarantino. His comments document the points of departure; the analysis of the films then opens its own path.
The relationship with the Italian giallo thriller deserves a specific discussion of forms and influences. Here, what matters is to keep Tarantino in the position of viewer, attentive to experiences that are not reduced to finding material for his own cinema. Interest in other Italian filmmakers, such as Lucio Fulci, adds another distinct route. Recognising those differences makes it possible to speak of admiration precisely and avoids constructing a ranking that gathers, as though they were a single statement, memories spoken at separate times.
See the selection of filmmakers and actors admired by Tarantino.