5 Films By Dario Argento: Part 1

A disproportionate percentage of my DVD collection has been released by Anchor Bay. Primarily, this is due to their catalogue featuring many of the greatest cult, horror, and genre films in the history of geek cinema. Which the company appears to be convinced are hip-hop singles, because they repeatedly release the same titles like Jay-Z remixes. I’m not complaining, but I could build a ziggurat out of their various Evil Dead box sets.

The films of famously extravagant Italian horror director Dario Argento have definitely received the same treatment. I’ve got at least three different version of his masterwork, Suspiria, and the five films contained in this collection have all been previously released, some in decidedly fancier editions. This is not necessarily a criticism; Phenomena should definitely by re-visited by fans, and there are high points to both Tenebre and Trauma. However, there’s no excuse for putting out another edition of The Card Player, or the abysmal Do You Like Hitchcock? Still, the Anchor Bay Dario Argento collection does present an accurate overview of the Italian horror filmmaker’s career, in that it contains both highlights and miserable lowlights. Here’s part 1 of our review:

Tenebre

Tenebre stops making sense almost immediately, when a dramatic shot of black-gloved hands holding an Italian book cuts to a close-up of English words printed on different coloured paper. But that’s par for the course for an Argento movie, as the director has always been more interested in creating elaborate set pieces than telling a coherent story. In his supernatural films, like Suspiria, this tends to work, as a little nonsense can carry a movie about a witch academy a long way. But his films in the giallo genre, best described as pulpy Italian murder mysteries, suffer a bit more from shoddy scripting.

Here, Anthony Franciosa plays Peter Neal, an American horror author who finds himself stalked by a murderer inspired by his books while on a publicity tour in Rome. For the most part, the film lacks Argento’s trademark gore, which forces attention to be drawn to the weak storyline. However, Franciosa’s strong, believable performance carries the film, helped by a turn from cult hero John Saxon (Nightmare On Elm Street, Enter the Dragon) as a literary agent. And the ending, though proudly ridiculous, does feature a gout of blood that seems all the more dramatic in comparison to the drought that preceded it.

Rating: 7 on 10

Do You Like Hitchcock?

The most recent Argento film contained in the box set, Do You Like Hitchcock? is a TV movie, and it shows. There’s very little gore, and the pacing is better suited to commercial breaks than building tension. It’s about a film student (of course) who witnesses Rear Window. I mean, a murder. I probably don’t need to continue much further with the plot description since it pretty much runs on autopilot. The visual style is subdued, likely due to budgetary constraints and the nature of the television movie. The performers do their best, with Chiara Conti standing out amongst the cast, but there’s little to be done here.

Rating: 3 on 10

Stay tuned to the Bin for the remaining reviews of the Dario Argento Collection.