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THE MOVIE |
THE DVD |
REVIEWER |
REVIEW DATE |
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WesCraven |
7th October, 2004 |
Review Quote
"After seeing "Suspiria" not too long ago, I decided to watch
another flick from director Dario Argento. What I found was a pretty fascinating horror film with a lot more
story than I'm used to. Not to say this is bad by any means, becuase it's not.
However, there are times within the film where it just doesn't work."
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The Plot
An english Jazz pianist witnesses a brutal murder, and becomes
obsessed with discovering the identity of the killer. Teamed up with a tenatious
journalist, the truth they discover just may kill them as well.
The Movie
After seeing "Suspiria" not too long ago, I decided to watch
another flick from director Dario Argento. With "Deep Red"'s praise about equal
with "Suspiria"'s (if not greater), I decided this would be the perfect film to
watch next. What I found was a pretty fascinating horror film with a lot more
story than I'm used to. Not to say this is bad by any means, becuase it's not.
However, there are times within the film where it just doesn't work.
Running at 126 minutes "Deep Red" is significantly longer than your average
horror film. Dario Argento (along with co-writer Bernardino Zapponi) wrote
basically a murder mystery thriller, that actually works pretty well. The story
is pretty realistic, and because of that, it really grabs you in. Though I must
admit there were times when there are things that are put into the movie that
(at least to me) seem to make no connection with the rest of the film.
***SPOILERS***
Specifically for me the situation with the (dvd) front cover. I
don't want to give anything away, but I just didn't see how this fit into the story.
Perhaps I missed it, I'm not sure. Was I supposed to assume it was Marco's
father? In the end I'm not quite sure.
***END SPOILERS***
Overall though the story
provides us with enough twists and surprises to keep us on our toes. I'd also
like to mention that they have me fooled; I thought I had figured out who the
killer was half way through the film, only to be proven wrong within the last 30
minutes. For that fact alone the story gets a little respect from me. Overall
there were times when the film was a little slow, but I nonetheless enjoyed
it.
One thing that was really annoying though was the diologue. As the DVD case
states "Portions of the English soundtrack were either never recorded or lost.
Therefore, these scenes are presented in Italian with English subtitles".
After reading this I thought I could handle it, and I could but it was
distracting at time. For instance not only does the laguage switch from English to
Italian (and WAY more frequently than expected), but sometimes it happens
mid-sentence. It's pretty distracting. So I decided I would try watching it all
with English subtitles. This didn't work either as some of the English subtitles do
not match what they're actually saying in English. This is, I must say, a fairly
minor complaint. However, I just wanted to mention it so that others could go
into this film prepared.
The special effects from Argento are nothing that I personally found to be
stellar, but they're adequate. This film is not a gorehounds dream, but it will
suffice. Plus like in "Suspiria" the death scenes are focused much more on the
fear of the victim than that of that of the blood and guts of the actual
kill. Though I saw a kill in this film that I thought was a very original one
that was used in "Halloween II", but appearently "Deep Red" was the first (of the
two) to use it.
Again the music is done by the group Goblin. Let me mention agaain that the
score they did for "Suspiria" was, and still is the bestand most creepy that I
have ever heard; so my expectations for this film were admittedly pretty high.
So while, the score in "Deep Red" is not quite as good, we must remember that
we're talking some pretty tough company. The score is an interesting one.
It's a lot of somewhat upbeat jazz pieces, and yet there's something really kind
of eeries about them. Goblin gets another good grade from me.
All in all "Deep Red" wasn't as good as "Suspiria", but it was still pretty
good. Gorehounds might be turned off, but may still find something of pleasure.
Your more hardcore and even your more average horror fans will probably enjoy
this film, especially if they enjoyed "Suspiria" (and probably some of
Argento's other work). I still don't understand the title, but I understand why
people like this movie.
The DVD
The DVD was a little dissapointing. The visual transfers were quite
good, no complaints here. The visual transfers were not as good. I'm mostly
siting the dubbing/subtitled problem from above, but otherwise it was still not
overly impressive, being mrerely more average. The extras are also pretty
bland. We get a 25th Anniversery featurette like we did in "Suspiria", however
dissapointedly this one only clocks in at a little over 10 minutes. We also get
three trailers and some cast and crew talent bios.
Overall I thought the extras left me wanting more.
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Director
Dario Argento
Cast
David Hemmings
Dario Nicolodi
Gabrielle Lavia
Clara Calamai
Glauco Mauri
Screenplay
Dario Argento
Bernardino Zapponi
Tagline
"You will NEVER forget it!"
Country
Italy
Classification
Not Rated
Year
1975
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Format
NTSC
Region Coding
1
Aspect Ratio
2.35:1
16x9 Enhanced
Yes
Running Time
126 minutes
Year Released
2000
Packaging
Keep Case
Extra Features
25th Anniversary Featurette
Talent Profiles
Theatrical Trailers
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