“Piercing” is probably one of the coolest movies you’ll ever see. I know it is one of the coolest movies I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a bunch of cool movies.

I saw it first at Fantastic Fest, Austin’s premiere genre-based film festival, last fall, and fell in love. It’s the tale of a young psychopath (Mia Wasikowska). It’s funny, dark and sometimes strangely uplifting. Oh and did I mention that it is also super cool?

One of the more fascinating aspects of the movie is its use of music, mostly stuff from old Italian thrillers. It works perfectly. And so I asked the director of “Piercing,” the brilliant Nicolas Pesce (you should also watch his first film, “The Eyes of My Mother,” just don’t plan on sleeping right afterwards), if he could talk us through the music and how he made the selections that he did. It’s a wonderfully inside look at how he put these great tracks together into an utterly intoxicating whole. And , “Piercing” is in theaters and on VOD now. However you watch it, just pray the sound is cranked all the way UP.

SHUT UP AND PLAY THE GIALLO

From Italo-Disco, to Prog-Rock, and Jazz, The Giallo Music of ‘Piercing’

By Nicolas Pesce 

"Piercing" is very much my love letter to Giallo movies. I imagine some readers are asking themselves right now, “What’s a Giallo movie?” In the 1970s, Italian filmmakers, many who’d come from the world of Spaghetti Westerns, turned their sights on to a new genre, a sort of Hitchcock inspired psycho-sexual thriller. One of the more notable aspects of these movies, was the music. There’s nothing that makes a movie feel more Giallo than the music. Within the genre, there were variation in visual aesthetic, and some variation in stories, but the one major constant, the thing that tied all the movies of the genre together, was this very specific sort of blend of Italo-disco, Jazz, Prog-rock, and big orchestral score.

There’s a quality to these scores that is magical. And it’s impossible to reproduce. That might sound lazy but listen to the tracks and you’ll know what I mean. Technically, from a recording engineering standpoint, but also creatively. They are so specifically part of a very specific and short-lived moment. These tracks are so big, and tense and mysterious. But they’re also playful and romantic. They manage to bridge all the seemingly disparate tones we play with in "Piercing."

There’s something about these scores that makes the audience under the tone and mood of the movie immediately. The music helps you understand how to watch the movie.

And not to mention, the music is just so damn good.