Deep Red (1975)

Deep Red is not, I am sorry to say, a perfect film, no matter what some people may try to say. This rests entirely on about half an hour or so of footage, mostly cut in the initial American release, that simply should never have been in the movie; most falls entirely in the category of failed comic relief (although some of it, the arm wrestling scene for example, is very important, and the "director's cut" is certainly the version to watch).

The rest of the movie, on the other hand, is a masterpiece. Vaguely similar to (but far superior than) some of the more Hitchcock-esque work of Brian De Palma, "Deep Red" makes the intelligent choice to forget careful narrative believability (it makes much more sense than most "thrillers", though) and immerse the viewer completely in a bizarre, disjointed nightmare, edged on by the audacious Goblin soundtrack and some of the most brutally dazzling murder scenes ever filmed (although not the goriest, exactly; I'd still advise those with weak stomachs to stay far away), which explode from the plot-line (which itself is really made up of an unfolding series of jagged vignettes that finally coalesce in a jaw-dropping finale, a precursor in many ways to David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive") every so often to amaze us with acts of cinematic virtuosity, sort of like the songs of an old MGM musical.

Even better than the brilliant "Suspiria","Deep Red" is the giallo film to watch, and the ideal place to start for absolutely anyone interested in this weirdly fascinating sub-genre. It certainly makes the last 25 years of American "thrillers" look tamely pathetic, to say the least.

Fmovies: One of Argento's very best. He always struck me as a perfectionist from the way he framed his shots. One could almost call him the Kubrick of slasher flicks. He makes the environments just as much characters as the humans in the film; he captures everything, especially the deaths, like a portrait. His artistry in the genre is only matched by a few others. And this winds up becoming a great, gripping murder mystery that keeps you guessing to the very end. Argento toys with conventions, specifically in a scene where Marcus gets knocked out while looking around a building towards the end of the film, and the next shot shows him waking up outside of the house while it's burning, and the camera slowly pans up to reveal his female reporter friend standing over him. In another, more predictable film, she would've been revealed to have knocked him out and possibly the killer of the picture, but instead she is merely revealed to have rescued him from the house and remains a protagonist to her untimely end. Of course, there's a terrific soundtrack from Goblin that perfectly suits every scene it's used in, but at the same time, Argento makes great use of silence when he wants to.

At over two hours long, your horror film better have either some interesting or developed characters. In Deep Red, Argento has both. David Hemmings gives an engaging performance as the protagonist. His reactions to what goes on around him are natural, and the viewer is sympathetic to his cause to get down to the truth. He understands that some secrets should be uncovered at any cost. As death slowly sucks up people in his world, he finds himself increasingly sucked into this impending nightmare behind him, like quicksand. We're in his shoes because he reacts like us. Argento employs charming humor throughout the picture. Like Hitchcock, he understands the essence of entertaining his audience. Horror films don't have to be all-dread all the time. The relationship between Hemmings' protagonist and his female reporter friend are dealt with sensitively. She is portrayed as his equal. He relies on her to get places. She saves his life. She gets him to come out of his shell and admit his attraction to her. She's spunky and has plenty of personality to make us believe she could be a reporter in reality. When the big revelation reveals itself at the end of the film, suddenly the entire mystery comes full-circle to the opening shot, and we're left with one hell of a bang. The final shot represents the sort of feeling one gets when they come face-to-face with a point in their lives that shakes them to their very core. What's next, and where do I go from here? How do I cope with what I just experienced? Argento offers no easy answers, he just sits back like a madman amused by what he just put his viewers through. At least, that's the sense I get from watching his expertly crafted work.

Thrilling giallo masterpiece is considered by many to be one of the finest, if not the finest, films made by horror master Dario Argento.

When musician witnesses brutal murder, he joins a quirky journalist in the hunt for a mysterious killer.

It's not hard to see why many believe this film to be Argento's greatest and a landmark in the giallo horror genre. The film is an engrossing murder mystery, possessing many of the elements of Argento's great debut film The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970). Argento throws in lots of his unique trademark style with plenty of inventive set pieces, clever cinematography, and terrific atmosphere and imagery. Deep Red also has some of the most horrific murder sequences of the genre and there's plenty of gruesomeness to be had! Adding all the more to the proceedings is the energetic music score of Goblin.

The cast is also good. David Hemmings makes for a great leading man. Daria Nicolodi, who would later be long-time girlfriend to director Argento, shines as the journalist. Hemmings and Nicolodi have some nicely comical scenes together that add even more color to the film. Also worthy of mention is Gabriele Lavia in his role as Hemmings alcoholic friend and Macha Meril as an ill-fated psychic.

While this Argento fan still favors Suspiria (1977) as Argento's finest film, it's easy to see why Deep Red is considered his greatest by some. It's a terrific landmark thriller that firmly ranks as one of Argento's best!

**** out of ****

Deep Red fmovies. In the early 70s, Italian director Dario Argento took the world by surprise with the release of his first three movies, three excellent entries in the "Giallo" genre that had been growing in popularity across the 60s. In only two years, the success of "L' Uccello Dalle Piume Di Cristallo" ("The Bird with the Crystal Plumage"), "Il Gatto a Nove Code" ("The Cat o' Nine Tails") and "4 Mosche Di Velluto Grigio" ("Four Flies on Grey Velvet) turned Argento into the new rising star of horror, and his "animal trilogy" into classics of the Italian thriller. However, after this huge success he decided to move away from the Giallo for a while, and in order to explore something different, he made two TV dramas and a comedy named "Le Cinque Giornate" ("Five Days in Milan"). While this offered him the chance to try something new, it also allowed him to prepare his return to horror with what would be known as one of the best Giallo thrillers ever made: "Profondo Rosso", known in English as "Deep Red".

The film is the story of Marcus Daly (David Hemmings), a British piano player who is spending some time in Italy as a music teacher. One night after work, as he walks towards his apartment, he watches through the building's window and notices his neighbor Helga (Macha Méril) struggling with an unknown man. Helga, a psychic, gets brutally killed in front of Daly's eyes, who runs towards the apartment in a futile attempt to save her. After being interrogated by the police, Daly notices that he could have seen the killer's face among a group of portraits on the wall, but he can't truly figure out what's missing. This thought becomes an obsession and Daly decides to investigate the murder of the psychic with the help of reporter Gianna Brezzi (Daria Nicolodi), however, his obsession becomes dangerous as he becomes the killer's next target.

Written by Bernardino Zapponi and Dario Argento himself, the film's plot revolves around the solving of the mystery while putting special attention to Marcus' obsession with the missing clue he may have caught the night of the murder. While Argento is famous for preferring surrealism to logic when writing his screenplays, the story in "Profondo Rosso" is carefully constructed and takes advantage of every element of the Giallo genre to tell it's mystery. And mystery is the key of the film, as the secret of the killer's identity is exploited to the max in order to create wonderful set pieces of suspense and horror. The care taken to develop the characters is another of the things that make "Profondo Rosso" to stand out among similar films, a not only Daly's obsessions are explored, but his relation with Gianna becomes an interesting source of romance, some comedy, and lots of suspense.

By the time he directed "Profondo Rosso", Dario Argento was already a master of his craft with a defined style, and the whole look of the film demonstrates it. With his excellent visual composition and inventive use of the camera (with cinematographer Luigi Kuveiller), Argento shows that he knows how to build up suspense and tension in the audience; and together with the excellent make-up by Giuliano Laurenti and Giovanni Morosi, Argento creates some of the most amazing murder scenes ever put to film. Giallo films are famous for making an art of their murder scenes, and in "Profondo Rosso" Argento takes that id

With this film, Argento raised the bar for Giallo's. With it's spanning plot, complete with highly inventive ideas and intriguing theme; Profondo Rosso is an absolute highlight in the sub-genre. The film follows a female medium who, while giving a lecture, senses the presence of a murderer in the room that is transmitting murderous thoughts to her. Pretty soon after, she is brutally murdered by an unknown assassin, under the watchful eye of Mark (David Hemmings); a professional piano player. As you would expect from Giallo, Mark then takes it upon himself to get to the bottom of the murder and, along with a nosey female journalist (Daria Nicolodi), he conducts his own investigation. However, things are never that simple and aside from trying to solve the murder, he also finds himself being pursued by the maniac...will he be able to discover the truth before it's too late?

Profondo Rosso is, in the collective eyes of the horror fanatics, Argento's number two (Suspiria being number one). I don't actually agree with that; as I think that Tenebre, Opera and Bird With the Crystal Plumage belong in front of this one, but Profondo Rosso is definitely up there, so who am I to complain? This film features a lot more bloodshed than anything Argento had made previously, and that is definitely a good thing. However, the plot does slow down at times, and it's not paced as well as Bird with the Crystal Plumage is. It's also somewhat wayward, with it spending lots of time on certain things, such as the investigation in the haunted house, and not a lot of time on other things that are just as important to the mystery. Despite there being quite a few death scenes, I do feel that Argento would have been better served either adding another one to increase the excitement, or maybe cutting the film down a little to make it run more smoothly. The murders that Dario does give us, however, are brutal to say the least! We've got a woman burned to death in a bath of scolding water, another woman smashed through a glass window, a man having his teeth smashed against a table (not too dissimilar to the 'curb' scene in American History X) and, of course, the final death, which has to be seen to be believed - an amazingly over the top scenario to say the least!

David Hemmings take the lead role in Profondo Rosso, and does a very good job of it. Hemmings is, of course, most famous for his role in Blow-Up, and his role here isn't too different from that one. Starring alongside Hemmings is Daria Nicolodi, the actress that has starred in a number of Argento's films (Opera, Inferno and Tenebre to name three) and also collaborated with Argento on another fine creation. I'm sure you know who I'm talking about. Also getting in on the fun is Gabriele Lavia, whom Argento fans will remember from Inferno (also, curiously, called Carlo). Dario Argento's direction here is nothing short of sublime. His use of the camera is more than assured and some of the camera angles and images that are presented on screen are amazing. Dario Argento deserves every piece of praise that he gets and anyone that sees this film will not find it hard to see why.

Overall, Profondo Rosso ranks as an absolute must see. It's one of the finest Giallo's ever made and is a career highlight for everyone involved. Highly recommended viewing for all.

Italian cult director Dario Argento, master of arty gore, brings this eerie and stylish story plagued by depraved gore murders, it concerns about a composer(David Hemmings) who observes a chilling assassination of his neighbor, an Occultist-medium (Macha Meril). When he gets clues , the musician visits a woman and discovers that she has been cruelly killed , as well. The composer along with a reporter(Daria Nicolidi, wife to Argento and mother of Asia) start following the tracks on a strange mansion.Other key roles are his friend Carlo(Gabriele Lavia) and the psychic's assistant Doctor Giordini.

One of the best ¨Giallo¨with oneiric,effective esthetics packs lots of gore, guts and twists plots. This is a trademark terror work for the Horrormeister Argento with high tension quotient and equally high suspense by means of an ever-fluid camera that achieves colorful shots similarly to Giorgio De Chirico paintings. Noteworthy for intelligent edition work that tightens the mystery, glimmer use of color and distinctive utilization of shock images. Sometimes weak screenplay is added by nice but gory special effects by Carlo Rambaldi(ET).Screeching musical score by Goblin with stereophonic whispers combining to fortissimo soundtrack which help achieve incredible creepy moments.The terror pieces are well staged with eye-opening flair-play and contain obscure tracks to the denouement of the script.As trivia, Argento appears as murderer's hand. The motion picture is originally directed by Dario Argento, one of those film-makers(other examples are Mario Bava and Riccardo Freda ) who set off simple for frightening us to death. His period of biggest hits were the 70s when he directed the animals trilogy: ¨Four flies over gray velvet,The cat of nine tails, Bird with the crystal plumage¨, after he directed ¨Suspiria, Inferno, Tenebre¨ and of course ¨Deep red¨. This bloody fun plenty of graphic gore and weirdness may not be for all tastes but to be liked for Argento connoisseurs especially.