Eye-popping visuals match the eye-gouging violence in this incredibly respected giallo from Italian horror trendsetter Dario Argento.
Not many horror directors receive more reverence from genre buffs than Italian filmmaker
Dario Argento. He and his Italian contemporaries - especially
Mario Bava and
Lucio Fulci - helped to establish the tropes and themes that would come to define the American “
slasher” genre with their
giallo films (an Italian genre that mainly consists of elements from horror, thriller, crime, psychological mystery, and exploitation movies).
Giallo films specialize in hallucinogenic imagery, and with their flamboyant camerawork and vivid colors, the filmmakers seem to revel in putting style before substance. Most notably though, Argento and his contemporaries brilliantly used giallos to blur the line between high and low art, blending sophistication with carnality.
The movies often star upper-class characters - typically artists of one form or another - enabling the filmmakers to forefront chic fashion, elegant production design, and eye-popping art direction. On the other end of the spectrum, regardless of character status, the films emphasize unabashed eroticism, explicit nudity (usually shot invasively or voyeuristically), and above all, graphic violence that can become so excessive it’s almost offensive - as if the filmmakers are making a mockery of the human body. Stabbings, stranglings, and all sorts of horrific mutilations are shot in uncomfortable close-ups that fetishize the violence: a trope that would become a mainstay in exploitation and slasher films around the world.
While
Suspiria (1977) - the basis of
Luca Guadagnino’s fascinating
remake in 2018 - may be Argento’s most famous film,
Deep Red is his masterpiece. This esteemed giallo flows with Argento’s grand, yet effortless style, and he slightly tones down the more graphic parts of the genre in favor of a more palatable and substantive story: a labyrinthine murder mystery in which an American Jazz musician witnesses the brutal murder of a prominent psychic in Italy and teams up with a journalist to track down the crazed killer.
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