Dario Argento is known as the Italian Hitchcock, which brings to mind Brian DePalma. Both Argento and DePalma have passionate fans and loud detractors. I’d consider myself a DePalma apologist, but I’ve never unlocked Argento’s genius fully, despite having watched 16 of his features, many of them multiple times. It’s something I would say about Italian Horror in general, which has 25 films in the Top 1000 and 7 by Argento. I was mostly positive about his previous films – Suspiria, Deep Red, Opera and The Bird with the Crystal Plumage – but we’re now going a little deeper down and have arrived at what may be his most divisive film.
Playing off his familiar elements of black-gloved killers committing bloody violence to loud music while the plot grows increasingly ridiculous, this is the film where Argento focuses on his strengths and ignores his weaknesses. It creates a work that’s stylish without too much flash, his fans consider it his most mature success. It reminded me of everything I don’t like about giallo. It thinks what it’s doing with the style shots and whodunit twists is cool, but it’s ineptly handled and comes off silly. There’s a long take poorly planned, that ends up scanning across empty surfaces, the cool images don’t edit into scenes and the reveal of the murderer leaves so many questions while acting like this will mark it as a classic. On top of that, the film’s joy in threatening, murdering and sexually exploiting young women has never looked worse.
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