One night, Sam Dalmas is walking home, when he sees an attempted murder in an art museum. He scares off the attacker, only for him to track Sam down. Sam gets curious about the murderer, which has killed innocent women before this incident, and tries to hunt him down. As he gets closer, more and more attempts at his life occur. Working with the police, they attempt to find this crazed serial killer, before there are more victims.
If you have never seen an Argento film before, you would like this more. He has certain tropes and ideas which carry through the majority of his work, and frankly, get boring after the third film. What makes this horror-mystery, unique is that it was one of the first. It introduced the world to a genre he created. During the 70s, lots of his, and other Italian horror directors's films contain a murderer, a guy looking for the murderer, and many women being stabbed. If you do not approve of women being stabbed, this film is not for you. There are 3-5 women being violently stabbed or murdered, but only one man, who gets thrown out of a window. Argento is a firm believer in the monstrous feminine.
Y'know how Fellini's later films were gross and weird, Pasolini's later films were camp and creepy and Antonioni has a thing for divorce? Well, Argento likes as many stabbed women as possible in his movies (see Suspiria, Deep Red).
This is an OK place to start with Italian Horror. Not horribly disturbing or wildly inventive. The final twist redeemed the film partially, but other than that, this is pretty missable.
TO CONCLUDE
I know this is remarkable for Argento's first film, the problem is, it's not scary, clever or entertaining. Only for horror die-hards. Watch Suspiria or Deep Red instead.
SCORE
67
No comments:
Post a Comment