Deep Red is the second half of the double feature with Silent Night, Bloody Night. It's also an Italian giallo by Dario Argento, who followed up with Susperia and Tenebre, two amazing flicks. Unlike many of his other movies though, this one has a reasonably coherent story to tell.

Oops! What's a giallo? From Wikipedia:

"Giallo" films are characterized by extended murder sequences featuring excessive bloodletting, stylish camerawork and unusual musical arrangements. The literary whodunit element is retained, but combined with modern slasher horror, while being filtered through Italy's longstanding tradition of opera and staged grand guignol drama. They also generally include liberal amounts of nudity and sex.

Gialli typically introduce strong psychological themes of madness, alienation, and paranoia.

This is a typical Dario Argento movie. It’s filled with lush colors, surreal moments, brutal murders, sudden shocks, an exceptional music score by Goblin and a storyline that is vague enough to not get in the way of the imagery that Argento is striving to project. Calling it “typical” though doesn’t make it ordinary, as if anything he did could be merely ordinary.

Marcus (David Hemmings – Blow Up) is a professional musician. Helga (Macha Meril) is a psychic who can read minds. What they have in common is that they live in the same apartment building in the city.

One evening, Helga is appearing on a panel discussing paranormal phenomenon when she detects the thoughts of a killer. Someone in the audience is radiating enough murderous hatred that Helga is quite overcome by the emotion. ItÂ’s powerful enough that she also learns who the murderer is, although she doesnÂ’t reveal that because thereÂ’s no proof beyond her psychic detection.

Later that night, the murderer goes to HelgaÂ’s apartment to permanently prevent her from revealing the truth. Marcus witnesses HelgaÂ’s brutal (understatement alert!) murder from the street below their apartments, and when he rushes upstairs he is too late to save her life. The killer has escaped, yet Marcus is certain that he saw something that positively identifies the murderer, if he can only remember what it is. Even though the police are handling the case, Marcus becomes obsessed with they mystery and starts to investigate himself, aided by pretty newspaper reporter Giana (Daria Nicolodi - Tenebre) and HelgaÂ’s fellow psychics.

The killer seems to anticipate his every move, and each time he makes progress towards solving the mystery another person who knows something important winds up dead in a savage and entertainingly gruesome way.

ItÂ’s not all murder and mystery though. Several humorous scenes involving the Gianna and Marcus are used to ease the tension, and the contrast heightens the impact of the darker moments.

YouÂ’re kept guessing right up to the end. The butler didnÂ’t do it.

The city where this all takes place is never named, other than being in Italy. The direction offers frequent moments throughout the movie where a scene is framed as a static tableau, and it lingers there until movement intrudes upon the carefully crafted still-life. At other times, the cuts are frantic and almost subliminal as multiple viewpoints flash by onscreen. The storyline is more prominent than ArgentoÂ’s next film, Susperia.

I was taken by surprise when the movie switched from English dubbing to Italian with English subtitles and back, sometimes within the same scene. What IÂ’ve since learned is that quite a bit of the movie was edited out before the English dubbing was done. This version restores much of the original film, but itÂ’s only available with subtitles because it was never dubbed in English. Apparently several versions of the source material were used because in a few scenes you can tell that the Italian is dubbed! As quirky as that was, I was able to quickly get used to it and before long I hardly noticed it.

For the most part, the acting is excellent, although the scenes where the police were involved didnÂ’t match the tone of the rest of the movie. Perhaps it was intentional, but the various cops come across as knuckle-dragging dolts. Not just ineffective police officers, but as uncouth paint-chip-eating boors. Maybe that was to give Marcus a reason to continue his personal investigation.

Damn good movie. Highly recommended.

Posted by: Ted at 05:53 AM | category: Cult Flicks
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