Deep Red

Profondo Rosso (1975)

Directed by: Dario Argento
Written by: Dario Argento and Bernardino Zapponi
Starring: David Hemmings, Daria Nicolodi, Gabriele Lavia, Macha Méril, Clara Calamai, Giuliana Calandra

Dario Argento thriller with pretty much the same plot as Bird With the Crystal Plumage (I guess that's the form. It's supposed to be that way). A musician living in Rome witnesses the bloody murder of a famous psychic. He begins to investigate the killing on his own, and becomes a target for the murderer.

As with the other two Argento movies I've seen, there seems to be a lot of emphasis on the visuals, the beautiful colours (the frigging movie is called Deep Red), the composition, the weird art. More emphasis on the visuals than anything else, actually.

Not that there's any problem with that. Everything in the movie looks amazing, in a sort of disgusting/disturbing way. And (unlike Suspiria), there is actually some semblance of structure.

I'm sorry, I'm still hooked on being mean and aggressive. It's just so fun when it gets in your system. I enjoyed the film. It was oh so suspenseful. And really nice to look at. Jeez.

And the music by Goblin was awesome (not quite as bizarre as the sounds in Suspiria, but still pretty funky). I spent a couple of afternoons working out the riffs on my guitar. Coz, you know, I have nothing better to do.

Moving on, the dub job was kind of alarming though. I dunno, it just seemed really odd. And a couple of times, it lapses into subtitled Italian (it says on the box that they lost the English language track for some of the scenes), which is fine, actually, it's kind of interesting, adds a whole other level of something (can't quite put my finger on it).

Although it did maybe think that the whole movie should just be in Italian. Really, why not? It seems to me that only weirdos such as myself are going to watch it anyway (probably a gross assumption on my part, but I'm prone to those).

Well, whatever. It didn't really bother me all that much. So yeah, pretty good. I dunno if it's better than Bird with the Crystal Plumage - I think I liked it more coz I watched it more recently. But sort of the same idea. I liked it alright.

END