“A Japanese Cousin To The Giallo Movie: Nicolas Pesce On Piercing”

It’s a rare, self-validating, pseudo-narcissistic thrill for a director to confirm that your nose for reference is spot on, and that the influences you thought you sniffed out are indeed there in the text. That’s my experience with Nicolas Pesce’s new movie, Piercing, a riff on Italian giallo films that’s also pretty heavy on the Takashi Miike by way of Audition; when I spoke with Pesce, he brought that one up as an immediate inspiration, which, hell, it’s gauche of me to say, but I felt validated. So there.

Piercing‘s a nasty, efficient piece of work, the latest notch under Mia Wasikowska‘s “dangerous women” belt, and I think it’s a pretty great interpretation of the giallo‘s tropes for 2019. More importantly, Pesce’s a pretty interesting chap, and getting to talk background and shop with him even for ten minutes was a good time. 

You can read my feature on the movie and on Pesce over at RogerEbert.com, my first byline on the site.

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