Dario Argento

For the uninitiated among you Dario Argento is an Italian film director who, although he is classed as a horror film maker, mainly directs violent thrillers, usually concerning a psychopathic killer, that are part of a genre called giallo.

I had heard about his films a long time before I actually saw them. I first saw his films at the Scala Cinema (now gone) in London, where I also met the great man himself (my claim to fame - although being a runner-up in a Blue Peter competition when I was young comes a close second).

The Scala was showing four or five of his films that day and he was there to promote a book about his films (Broken Mirrors Broken Minds by Maitland McDonagh).

It was a bit of an anti-climax as he didn't speak much English and I had a broad Geordie accent so communication was not a success. But I did get him to sign the cover of my Deep Red video (which I had just bought on impulse a few minutes earlier. Forty bloody quid, but it was worth it).

If I remember rightly the films showing were Cat O'Nine Tails, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, Tenebre and Opera. The first two were good. Silly but entertaining enough. The plots were outlandish and the twists and turns in the story were sometimes quite ridiculous, but it didn't really matter.

Then came Tenebre. What can I say. It is an outstanding film. Full of sexual decadence and breath-taking violence all filmed with a visual excess I had never experienced before. The basic story concerns the author of a book called "Tenebre" who has arrived in Rome to promote his novel only to find that there is a killer at work using his novel as a basis for his crimes. The author feels obliged to help the police to catch the murderer. But this is a film where nothing is what it seems and everyone has something hidden in the shadows.

This is a film I would recommend to every adult (but only if you don't mind copious bloodletting). Unfortunately here in the UK, those gloriously popular (sarcasm) ladies and gentlemen at the BBFC won't let us see this film in it's entirety on video. So you'll have to make do with descriptions in books, as you're all law-abiding citizens aren't you?

Then came the film everyone had been waiting for: the UK premiere (I believe) of Opera, Dario Argento's then latest film. And by God, it was sadistic. And cruel. And absolutely wonderful.

The story revolves around a young opera singer who is repeatedly tied up and forced to watch a killer mutilate her friends in front of her (he tapes pins to her eyelids so she can't close her eyes).

Despite some ridiculous plot twists: the killer is unmasked by trained ravens, and he is able to fake his own death by throwing a mannequin onto a fire, Opera is an outstanding film, filled with some startlingly violent set pieces.

Unfortunately, his next two films, Trauma and The Stendahl Syndrome were very disappointing, despite having some interesting ideas.

However, his next film, an adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera, makes these two films look like classics. It is appallingly bad! So much so that's all I'm going to say about it.

Thankfully his next film, Nonhosonno, is a much welcome return to form. Very derivative of Deep Red, my favourite Argento film, it tells the story of a serial killer who starts killing after many years silence, causing the retired police officer of the first cases and the son of one of the earlier victims to work together to track him down. Although admittedly it still not as good as his earlier giallo, it is tremendously entertaining and quick-moving.

The good run didn't last long unfortunately. The Card Player, although it had a very promising premise, suffered badly from terrible acting and dialogue. The story concerned a serial killer who would challenge the police to an online poker match with his next victim as the prize. For every hand the police lost, the killer would cut something off - all shown on webcam of course! I first saw this film at the Dead By Dawn festival and the composer Claudio Simonetti was a guest. At the climax of the film, a radio playing his music is shot and he shouted out "My music!" from the back of the auditorium - best moment of the film!

And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse... Do You Like Hitchcock? is an Italian TV movie, but that doesn't excuse the god-awful dialogue, acting, editing and direction. It's depressing to wonder whether he's finally lost it or whether he just couldn't be bothered with it. The fact that there is an excellent murder sequence near the beginning of the film only gave me the false impression that things would get better. They didn't.
 

Filmography

• The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
• Cat O' Nine Tails
• Four Flies on Grey Velvet
• Five Days in Milan
• Deep Red
• Suspiria 
• Inferno
• Tenebre 
• Phenomena
• Opera
• Two Evil Eyes (with George Romero)
• Trauma
• The Stendahl Syndrome
• The Phantom of the Opera
• Nonhosonno
• The Card Player
• Do You Like Hitchcock?