Hey, Girl, Hauer You Doin'?: Dario Argento's Dracula 3D (2013)

As promised, all the most popular features of the LBL's storied five year history are coming back for this month, and I thought I'd kick it off with one that I always loved doing, the tribute to one of my favorite bad asses, Rutger Hauer. So, yes, it is once again time to ask the eternal question, Hey, Girl, Hauer You Doin'? In the light of today's film, it may be a most prescient question indeed. Once upon a time, the idea of Dario Argento making a version of Dracula with Rutger Hauer attached as Van Helsing would have made me giddy as a ballet school girl before her untimely and gruesome demise. That time was the first five minutes after I learned that such a film was in production. Directly after, internally, I began picking apart the virtual movie I had yet to see, and by the time I was done, what I came up with was worse than Giallo and The Card Player spliced together and run backwards. While that might be a slight improvement over either of those films, there's part of me that looks back at Argento's glory with a longing to see him do it again. Dracula was, after all, one of the most classic of horror stories, and Tod Browning and Bela Lugosi's version was the horror tale on which I had cut my teeth. I entered into the film willingly (and thankfully not in 3D which I loathe) and hoped for the best. By the best, I mean that I knew Rutger would show up sooner or later. 

Instant Terror Tuesday: Two Evil Eyes (1990): Seeing is Half Believing

Hello again my dear friends and welcome back to another Instant Terror Tuesday. It’s been a little while since I’ve had a chance to talk about any of the Italian directors, but seeing as I just booked my room for Horrorhound Weekend Indianapolis 2011 where the special guest will be the great Dario Argento, I thought that I would choose between the titles on Instant Watch that I hadn’t seen yet. What lead me to decide on Two Evil Eyes was the appearance of two of my favorite actors, Barbeau and Keitel, and the fact that it was a split effort between Italy’s master of horror, Argento, and America’s, George Romero. Originally the project was conceived as an Edgar Allan Poe inspired TV series with episodes set to be directed by Argento, Romero, Michele Sovai, and Richard Stanley. When that plan fell through, a new scheme was hatched to spin the project into a film with portions by Romero, Argento, John Carpenter, and Wes Craven. When that well through it was finally paired down two Dario and George, who are two of the most hit and miss horror directors out there.

Unfortunately for Two Evil Eyes, it contains one of each, a hit and a miss. The first tale out of the gate is The Strange Case of M. Valdemar directed by Romero. The tale stars Adrienne Barbeau as Jessica Valdemar, the trophy wife of a soon to be deceased millionaire. Conspiring with his doctor, the pair hypnotized the old man and coerces him to sign papers transferring his fortunes to Adrienne. When he passes away while being mesmerized, the illicit couple tries to hide his demise until the money transfers come through. Unfortunately for them, Mr. Valdemar might not be as dead as he appears.

Romero‘s portion of the film was the miss for me. Barbeau is the center of the film, but she really stumbles through, overacting and looking quite haggard. While there are a number of impressive shots in the film (no doubt because Romero was being influenced by his Italian friend), the majority imagery looks flat and dated. If I had not known that this film was made in the late ‘80’s and released in 1990, then I would have assumed it to have been a product of the Reagan era. It doesn’t help that Barbeau and co-star Ramy Zada look like they were pulled out of the pages of The Yuppie Handbook and plastered on the screen. The story itself is well delivered with sufficient chills and a wonderful respect for the source material though personally I still prefer the 1962 telling of the story from Corman’s Tales of Terror featuring Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone. As a final note, this first segment does end on a high note with Tom “Thrill Me” Atkins showing up as a police detective.

So as I said that the film contains a hit and a miss, you can probably surmise that the hit was Argento’s portion of the film. One of the most frequently adapted of Poe’s stories has to be The Black Cat. I can think of six versions of the story right off the top of my head beginning in 1934 with the version starring Bela Lugosi and (birthday boy today) Boris Karloff. Argento’s telling centers on crime scene photographer Rod Usher played by Harvey Keitel. When his girlfriend takes in a strange, menacing black cat, Usher soon finds the feline to be a devilish menace at every turn. Finally, being able to take no more, he strangles the cat to death while photographing the deed for use in a book of photography. As in Poe‘s story, this is not the end of the cat which comes to push Usher further into madness until he kills something considerably bigger than a cat.

Unlike Romero’s dated looking first entry, Argento’s segment appears to be crisp and modern looking without the flatness that impairs the Night of the Living Dead director’s story. Instead, the trademark Argento moments are there (the swirling cameras and use of a rich color palette and interesting angles), but on top of that Argento got great performances from his actors. Harvey Keitel (Reservoir Dogs, Mean Streets) delivers on all fronts here more than making up for any shaky acting in the film thus far. Even with a silly beret perched atop his head, I was still with his character all the way. Madeleine Potter turns in some solid work as Usher’s troubled girlfriend, and Sally Kirkland (Breakheart Pass, The Sting) impresses in a very short role as a bartender who brings that cat back into Usher’s life. Special effects master Tom Savini (who headed up that department for both segments) also appears very briefly as a Poe-like killer. It should also be said that both segments feature a score by Pino Donaggio that runs the spectrum from Goblin-esque prog to jazz and classical movements. Overall it doesn’t do that much for Romero’s film but perfectly matches Argento’s portion.

Two Evil Eyes is a film that was fraught with issues trying to come to life, and some of its TV roots still show though here and there. In the end, the Argento retelling of The Black Cat saves the picture. I’m sure a fair amount of viewers have shut it off during Romero’s plodding, dated tale never to see Argento’s lushly photographed psychological tale. I’m not going to say it is a must, but if you’re seeing it on instant watch, feel free to skip over George’s first hour and get to the good stuff. I know that’s something I’ll be likely to do many times in the future. Well, that wraps it up of Instant Terror Tuesday, but stay tuned the rest of the week for more goodies. Thanksgiving is in only two days, and that means it’ll be time for the main course of Thanksgiving with Jowderowky.

Bugg Rating

Inferno (1980): Argento Makes It Hot In Here (But I Sure Hope He Keeps On All His Clothes)

Seeing as yesterday was Mother’s Day, it made me want too sit down and check out the second part of Argento’s Three Mother’s trilogy, Inferno (1980). While the first part, Susperia, is regarded as a masterpiece, Inferno‘s reputation is not nearly as solid though it doesn’t get the thrashing that the final installment, 2007‘s Mother of Tears, receives. Argento has always been rather hit and miss with me so I didn’t know what to expect. I knew I wouldn’t be getting a direct sequel to Susperia, but rather one that continued the themes and hopefully the artistic drive that the first film contained. In the end I felt rather pleased though a bit like Argento tried too hard to recreate his previous film’s style and success.



The film opens on poet Rose Elliot (Irene Miracle) as she peruses an old book she recently purchased from the antique dealer next door. The book is called The Three Mothers and it details how the world is ruled by three evil sisters The Mother of Tears in Rome, The Mother of Sighs in Germany, and The Mother of Darkness right there in New York City. Rose begins to believe that the building she lives in contains the secrets of The Mother of Darkness, and while exploring the basement, she discovers a flooded basement ballroom filled with corpses and a painting labeled Mater Tenebaum. After narrowly escaping the basement, Rose writes a letter to her brother Mark (Leigh McCloskey), a musicology student in Rome, asking for his help. When murder and strange occurrences begin to happen around him, he travels to New York only to find his sister missing. As he begins to unravel the secrets of her disappearance, Mark is drawn deeper and deeper into the legendary world of The Mother of Darkness.

There are two main things that really stopped me from loving Inferno as much as I wanted to, the acting and the design. First off let me talk about the acting. None of it was really bad, but Leigh McCloskey, who would later go on to fame as Mitch Cooper on Dallas, just doesn’t have the same emotional draw as Jessica Harper did in Susperia. He gives off a tough guy vibe, and for a film like this that really didn’t help draw me into the film. All the supporting cast performs admirably, but again, no one is developed enough to either love or hate them. They seem to be actors on a creepy stage awaiting whatever fate that Argento’s color drenched film has in store for them. The only characters who really make an impression other than McCloskey’s were Veronica Lazar’s bizarre nurse, Daria Nicolodi as Mark’s sister’s friend Elise, and the cripple, grumpy cat hating antiques dealer Kazanian played by Sacha Pitoeff.

Now I said my second problem was with the design of the film, and earlier I mentioned that I thought that Argento tried to hard to recreate Susperia. In a way these are the same complaint. I enjoyed watching Argento play once again with a rich color palette awash with blues and reds, but it felt way too much like he drew directly from his previous film. Some of the scenes even looked like direct recreations of scenes from Susperia. I know that Argento was undergoing an illness during the production of the film and lots of the second unit production was handled by Mario Bava (and assistant director Lamburto Bava), but it seemed like Argento just decided that if he used enough colored gels it would create the same spooky atmosphere that made his previous film such a masterwork. For me, it didn’t work. One other thing that didn't work was the score by Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer fame. While his score hit some of the right notes, more often than not it detracted from the scenes rather than enhanced them. Overall, Argento would have been better served by hitting up his buddies in Goblin for another film rather than give the prog rocker a go.

Now that’s not to say that I wasn’t entertained. I was. The cat attack scene and the scene where a fellow meets his demise at the hands of an evil hot dog vendor both stand out. I do love looking at how Argento constructs a scene and how he used the colors as they ran around the screen, but the film feels too derivative of Susperia and lacks the imagination in the script. I was never caught up in the mystery of The Mother of Darkness, and by the time the end reveal came to endlessly gelled light, I was extremely under whelmed by the whole experience. It was no means the travesty that was The Mother of Tears, but it just feels so much lesser than that I can’t recommend it to anyone beyond Argento completists. Dario has been accused on coasting on his own reputation for the last twenty years, but the impulse to do so might have started much longer before that.

Bugg Rating

Dario Argento's Deep Red (1975): Surprisingly Not About Undercover Communists

With Thanksgiving over and Christmas barreling down upon us, its time to start moving out of the oranges, yellows, and browns of fall and move on into more Christmassy colors. You know like a lovely dark green coupled with a deep red. Speaking of deep red and strange ways to intro a review, I finally got a chance this weekend to get around to watching Dario Argento’s Profondo Rosso a.k.a. Deep Red. Of all the Italian genre directors I’ve tried, I’ve found Argento the hardest to wrap my mind around. This may be because the first of his films I saw, Opera, is considered by many to be the last good one that he made. It left me a little cold, and when I went back to his first film, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, I felt much the same. Finally the pair of Susperia and Tenebre convinced me that there was something to this Argento fellow after all. So I’ve been waiting with great expectation for a time when I could get a chance to see Argento’s other widely hailed film.

Deep Red followed in the giallo tradition which Argento had already mined in three of his four first pictures (Bird, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, and Cat O’ Nine Tails). This time out the focus lands on Marcus Daly (David Hemmings), a jazz pianist who teaches at a nearby conservatory. One night, walking home with his drunken pal Carlo (Gabriele Lavia) he witnesses the murder of a renowned psychic. As Marcus begins to unravel the mystery of the killer, murders continue to happen all around him. With the help of journalist Gianna Brezzi, Marcus must remember the clue he saw at the scene of the first crime if he’s going to stop the sadistic killer.

There are several different cuts of Deep Red floating around out there, and the runtime varies anywhere from the American 98 minute cut to the full 126 minute Italian version. For better or worse, the version I watched was the latter. Generally I feel that an hour and half is the perfect running time for most films, and I wonder what I would have thought of a shorter cut. I say this because no matter how much I laud the acting and cinematic brilliance of this film it felt a bit overlong at over two hours. Generally a film with as much flair as this one can keep my attention pretty well rapt, but I found myself with my mind wandering or distracted by the nearest shiny object. Several times when the film switched from dubbing to subtitles I had to run it back to catch up with what was up. Losing track in a gialli is anathema to the enjoyment of the film, and for whatever reason, it was quite hard for me to keep this one on the rails.

Now that I’ve griped about the long running time, let me get into a few of the things I really liked about Deep Red. First off the film is stunningly shot. While the dynamic color palette that Argento shows off in many of his other films feels conspicuously absent, the fluidity of the camera movements more than made up for the subdued tones. Argento chose to work with cinematographer Luigi Kuveiller who he had previously paired with for his Italian Revolution film Five Days in Milan. The pair created some masterful brushstrokes with the camera, but the lack of a deep color field definitely felt like a limitation. Kuveiller would continue to work until 2004, and he even paired with another of the Italian horror masters in 1982 when he shot Lucio Fulci’s New York Ripper.

Another of the great things about Deep Red was the casting. Let’s start with David Hemmings. I love this guy. From Blow Up (1966) to Camelot (1967) to Castellari’s The Heroin Busters (1977) and even his small part in 2001’s Mean Machine, I consistently find him a very engaging and entertaining actor. Deep Red is no exception. Hemmings’ jazz pianist is another in a long string of unlikely gialli detectives, but he manages to pull off the amateur detective role with an air of believability. The only thing about his character that bothered me is that even though the film spans several days either Hemmings’ Marcus only has one outfit or he wears it day in and day out. The black shirt and white pants combo were very stylish and perhaps a subtle nod to his chosen profession, but it bothered me that this dashing young pianist would have come to Italy without a change of clothes.

Hemmings’ co-stars were all equally as well cast and entertaining. Daria Nicolodi, Mr. Argento’s longtime paramour, acquits herself well as the brash reporter Gianna Brezzi. She made a good investigation partner for Hemmings’ character, but I never felt a spark in the romantic angle of the story. Also there were many superfluous scenes filled with humorous banter between the pair, and these were the times I found myself most apt to let my mind wander. Deep Red also features a fine performance from Gabriele Lavia as Marcus’ drunken pal Carlo. Some may recognize Lavia from his roles in Zeder (1983) or Beyond the Door (1974), but he also was an influential Italian stage actor. Some of his performance, especially scenes framed wide with the characters performing in the distance, seemed to draw from his stage experience to great effect.

While the actors and cinematography both have their strong points, the best and most memorable part of Deep Red has to be the music. As with many Argento films, the score is provided by the prog rock gods known as Goblin. Every scene where their music appears meshes perfectly with what is happening on the screen. I picked up the soundtrack after seeing the film, and there is no doubt that hearing those pieces brings back memories of what was going on in each scene. I always find this a hallmark of a great score, and Goblin definitely knocks the ball out of the park with this one.

Now before I sign off I want to talk about my other gripes with Deep Red. My favorite part of gialli is normally the guessing. The endless red herrings keep me riveted to the screen in an attempt to outsmart the film before the denouement reveals the mystery. Deep Red left me at a loss here. I never suspected anyone. I had no idea who the killer was and when the ending rolled around even in reflection I could not see the clues. Perhaps on a repeated viewing I might find the ending more satisfying, and there is always the chance that when my mind wandered they marched the clues across the screen. The other problem I had with the film was a lack of sex and style. There was little in this film that struck me as having the same kind of flair exhibited by film makers like Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci in his giallo days, or even other Argento films. There are certain things I expect a gialli to deliver, and on both of these counts it fell a bit short.

In the end, I have to still recommend Deep Red as required viewing for fans of the Italian film world. While I had quite a few reservations about the film, in the end it still feels like it hints at the work that lay ahead of Mr. Argento. Only two years later Argento would hit an artistic peak with the film Susperia, and with that film he would move beyond the giallo into a color drenched world of abject horror. So if you haven’t checked out Deep Red, then you definitely should, and if you have let me know what you think. I know I’m not the only one who runs hot and cold with Argento, and I’m interested to see what you folks out there have to say.

Bugg Rating

How Low Can You Giallo?- Tenebre (1982)

Dario Argento and I don’t always get along. In fact, for a while, I thought the best gift he had given to the world of film was his smoking hot daughter, Asia. Not to diminish that contribution, I have finally started to get into Argento’s film. While Opera and The Card Player (so dreadful I could not bring myself to review it) have certainly let me down, watching films such as Susperia, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, or tonight’s feature, Tenebre, has finally allowed me to see what all the fuss is about. Argento will probably never become one of the indispensable directors to me, but when it comes to making quality gialli, his name must be on the shortlist of revered masters.

Argento began his directing career in 1970 with the aforementioned film The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. This first film, a giallo of great skill, popularized the style that Mario Bava had begun in the 1970’s with films such as Blood and Black Lace and The Girl Who Knew Too Much. As I reviewed that film back in March, I won’t say much more about it other than it was an excellent debut. Argento went on to make several more gialli before reaching a peak with 1975’s Deep Red. He went on to make several films with a similar feeling, but beginning with Susperia many of his films took on more supernatural overtones. Then in 1982, some years after the giallo craze had ended, Argento chose to revisit the form with his film Tenebre.

Inspired by his own experience with a crazed fan, Argento’s film focuses on writer Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa) who specializes in macabre thrillers often labeled as misogynist and sexually abhorrent. He travels to Italy to promote his newest book, Tenebrae, but as soon as he arrives, murders begin to plague Rome, murders that have taken their inspiration from Neal’s work. As the bodies begin to stack up, Detective Germani’s (Giuliano Gemma) investigation draws the writer deeper into the mystery, but Neal does not know if he is merely the inspiration or the final target of the straight razor wielding killer.

Before I get any further into discussing this film, I want to say that I am going to try to avoid spoilers, but it would almost be impossible to discuss this film deeply without spoiling parts of the plot. So, if the synopsis or my continued discussion of the film seems elusive at points, it’s because I feel very strongly that Argento crafted a script for this film that relied on the suspense and surprise of the mystery. Unlike many of his other films, Argento wrote the script on his own, and it shows, as the character of Peter Neal is essentially a stand in for the criticisms that had been leveled at Argento in the past. The pacing of the sequences as well as the twists and turns of the mystery make this film one of the best examples of the genre.

Tenebre was made with the American market in mind, and primarily the cast spoke English while filming. Although in the traditional Italian style, the sound was put on after the filming was completed. While Argento made the film hoping for success in the U.S., the film was heavily edited when it was finally released in 1984 under the title Unsane. This cut version excised some of the gore, but it also took out chunks of that narrative. Reviews of this version were not favorable, but at least it was released. In Germany, the censorship board has never approved the film, and it was one of the films slapped onto the U.K’s Video Nasties list.

Unlike many other films that made that list, Tenebre deserves the distinction. If you want a film that is full of the old red stuff, then this is the film for you. Throats get cut, arms get lopped off, and there is more than one instance of axes to the head. I loved every minute of that, and especially the arm being lopped off. The victim flails around with blood spraying up and down a white wall, and I could not help but wonder if Tarantino took some inspiration for this scene for his arm severing in Kill Bill Pt. 1.

Of the Argento films I have seen, this is the bloodiest, and it stands in stark contrast to the well-lit locales where the violence takes place. Gone is the colored lighting of Susperia, and in its place Argento wanted "...a modern style of photography, deliberately breaking with the legacy of German Expressionism. Today's light is the light of neon, headlights, and omnipresent flashes...Caring about shadows seemed ridiculous to me and, more than that, reassuring.” Argento was interested in portraying the events that occur in the film with a hand in realism. I wonder if his own brush with a real life maniac out for his blood made the experience seem more real to him.

The film is full of some really good performances, but almost as if Argento was taunting his critics, the females in the film are objects of desire, sadistic nightmares, or fodder for the killer’s blade. Instead, the film keeps its focus on two men, Anthony Franciosa as writer Peter Neal, John Saxon as his agent Bullmer. Franciosa does a magnificent job as the terrorized writer, and the layers of his character would surely be even more impressive on a repeated viewing. Saxon also puts in a great performance as the slimy agent. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Saxon play such a likeable sleaze before, and I relished every moment he had on screen. The only other notable performance was Eva Robin’s turn as “Girl on Beach” in the mysterious flashbacks that pepper the film. I have to admit I found her quite attractive, so when I dissevered that she was a transgendered actress; I was more than a bit shocked. I feel certain that Argento put her in that role for just that reason. He lures you into being titillated, and then in a sly turn of events, it’s not what you expect.

That may well sum up Tenebre quite well. It is not exactly what you expect. Sure, the giallo conventions are on display. There are boobs a plenty, there are black gloves, and the blood, no worries there. Tenebre surprised me at every turn from the violence on display to the ending that brimmed with surprise. Every time I thought I knew how the next scene would unfold, I quickly found out how wrong I was. This film is going to get a score on par with Susperia, which many consider Argento’s masterpiece, and I think it deserves to be held up there right with that film. While it does not revel in the style of Susperia, Tenebre finds its strength by being a classic example of the giallo form and updating it for the age.

Bugg Rating

I feel remiss at not mentioning the incredible prog rock score by Goblin for Tenebre. While I often have problems with the music Argento picks for his films, I had no such issue here. Check out this video that plays several of the tracks from the film.

Terrifying Tuesday: Susperia (1977)

It’s well known, to readers of The Lair that is, that I have yet to fall into the throws of passionate love with Dario Argento which seems to dominate the minds of many horror fans. Today however that day may well have finally arrived. I will admit my experience with Dario is kind of limited, and I have seen only a handful of his films, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Opera, and The Card Player. Of those, only one reached the above average point for me, and for that reason alone, I have spent far more time with the works of other Italian directors. Tonight’s film has changed my mind considerably, and I have had to reassess my priorities when it comes to Mr. Argento after seeing his film….

Susperia (1977) starring Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, Ailida Valli, and Joan Bennett. Directed by Dario Argento. 

Suzy Banyon (Harper) travels to Germany to attend a ballet school. She arrives on a dark and story night and is turned away from the school when she arrives. As she is leaving, she sees a girl running through the woods, the girl, Pat Hingle will die before the night is over, the victim of an unnamed killer. The next day Suzy begins her time at the school in earnest, and she soon is beset by many strange occurrences that lead her to question if the school is more than it seems. 

The Bugg Picture

So this is the review where I make up for being under whelmed by Argento’s other films because, with Susperia, I was plenty whelmed. This was Dario’s sixth film, and perhaps his most well known and with good reason. It is an astounding effort not only of suspense and terror, but of cinematography, art direction, and acting. This is a film with precious few flaws, but there are some and I will surely get around to them so this review is not all peaches and cream. 

First off I have to talk about the thing that will stay with me longest about this film. It is intensely beautiful. Making use of an incredible color palette, the likes of which I have never seen, Argento makes each scene a feast for the eyes. There were several scenes I ran back over a few times just to take in the subtle colored lights, the artistry of the set design, and the richness of the textures that permeate the shots. While I am sure much of it was created under Argento’s own careful eye, I have to give props to Giuseppe Bassan, the production designer who also worked with Argento on Deep Red (1985) and Tenebre (1982). As the look of the film’s setting is so integral to the stylish, atmospheric tone, his contribution to Susperia should not be overlooked. 

Luciano Tovoli, who would also pair with Argento again for Tenebre, served as cinematographer for the film, and perhaps the only thing more important to the feeling of the film than its style is its look. The camera moves freely through the scenes in a style that feels improvisational while clearly being entirely thought out. The crisp camera work drinks in all the colors of the setting and the splashes of colored lighting, and it reminded me very much of Mario Bava’s work turned up to 11. As with Bava, the use of colored lighting never feels forced, but instead we readily accept it as part of this very creepy world. 

Now you could have all the lighting and camerawork in the world, and if the acting did not mesh with it, you’d be left with a picture that was stunning to look at but without substance. This is no problem with Susperia though. Jessica Harper starred in the 1974 De Palma cult classic Phantom of the Paradise and would later go on to be the replacement Janet Majors in the Rocky Horror “sequel” Shock Treatment, star opposite Peter O’Toole in My Favorite Year, and cut a rug with Chris Walken and Steve Martin in Pennies From Heaven, but to fans of Susperia, she is surely the film’s grounding force. Her performance as the terrorized Suzy gives the film the guts it needs to fill the skeleton of feeling provided by the style and skill behind the camera. Harper is extremely believable, and it’s unfortunate that while she appeared in several other cult films, she never strayed back into pure horror. 

Apart from Harper you also get some other gangbuster performances. Joan Bennett, veteran actress of the screen and over 380 episodes of the vampire soap opera Dark Shadows, chews the scenery as the rather strange headmistress. Aliada Valli comes across every bit as cold and strong as she did as the countess in Bava’s Lisa and the Devil. There is also a good, but brief performance by Uko Kier, and Stephanie Casini brings the requisite foolishness needed for her performance as Suzy’s friend Sara. I could go on at length about every performance because there were none on display that were not pitch perfect. 

I will be brief about my one complaint about the film, and that is the special effects. Even giving it some slack for the time in which it was made, they looked terrible. The blood in the film was reminiscent of that lovely shade of orange which was used in the Hammer films, and while it was quite the burst of color, it struck me as off that Argento would go though all this perfect set design only to include blood no human being could ever expel. I have a feeling it may have been an intentional stylistic choice, but it was one I think he should not have taken. There is also a scene where a character is killed by a dog, and while the aftermath with the dog biting off bits of flesh to snack on is suitably disgusting, the actual attack itself left much to be desired as the dog puppet looked very little like the actual dog in the scene. These are nitpicky little criticisms I am well aware, but it was during the moments of violence I found myself most taken out of the film. For a film of the horror genre, I think this is important to point out. 

The real hero of the whole project has to be the script by Argento and frequent collaborator/ muse Daria Nicolodi. It is a well written taut supernatural thriller that will leave the audience guessing. I for one hung on every word for some kind of clue as to what was going to happen next, but generally, I found myself surprised with what lay around the films ever tricky corners. Then you pair a great script and glorious photography with Gobin’s ethereal score, and Susperia becomes the most beautiful nightmare ever put to film. So yes, perhaps my love affair with the works or Argento has only really started in earnest, but now I can see what the fuss was all about. 

Bugg Rating

Terrifying Tuesday: The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)

Welcome back to the second Terrifying Tuesday that was chosen by you, the readers of the LBL. Last week I took on the number one choice, Unberto Lenzi’s Hell of the Living Dead, and this week we get to look at the runner up. 

Dario Argento is a name synonymous with the horror genre to many people, but in the late ‘60’s when Argento was getting his start, he took jobs writing screenplays. Argento put his pen to such films as the Leone western Once Upon a Time in the West and Lenzi’s war flick Legion of the Damned. Then in 1970, Argento finally got a chance to make a film on his own, and its success lead to Dario becoming such a name in the genre. So for this Terrifying Tuesday, I give you the Argento’s first film in a review picked by Ryan and The Bonebreaker. Gents, this is….

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage [Italian: L’Uccello dalle piume di cristallo] (1970) starring Tony Musante, Suzy Kendall, and Enrico Maria Salemo. Directed by Dario Argento. 

Sam (Musante) is an American writer who has come to live Italy to look for inspiration, but all Sam has managed to do is take a job writing a book about the preservations of rare birds. Feeling dejected and suffering from writers block, Sam collects his paycheck for the book and intends to return home, but on the way back to his loft, he witnesses a murder in progress in an art gallery. He tries to get to the victim to save her, but he only manages to scare the murderer off. Thankfully the police arrive and whisk the woman to the hospital as she clings to life. Sam feels like he’s done his civic duty, but Inspector Morosini has a few questions for him.

Morosini takes Sam to the station where he makes the writer go over the details of the crime time and time again. They finally release Sam, but keep his passport so he can’t leave the country. The events of that night begin to haunt Sam’s thoughts, and soon he is tracking down leads on his own. He scours the city for any clues and questions everyone from art dealers to get to the bottom of the case. As Sam draws nearer to uncovering the killer, he might have to give his own life to find out the truth. 

The Bugg Picture

I’ll be the first to admit that Argento is not my favorite among the Italian directors. While I respect both his body of work and achievements, Argento’s films often leave me wanting. I do have to say that The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is one of my favorite films which I have seen from the director. Especially considering this was Dario’s first foray into directing, it was quite an achievement. I could definitely see the young director stating his purpose and beginning to define his style. There are shades of what Argento would do in films such as Susperia and Tenebre and the stylistic flourishes that he would become known for. 

One of the best things about The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is the script which was also written by Argento. The pacing of the film is done incredibly well, and although there is only one action sequence to speak of, it still moves along at a breakneck pace. It is easy to become involved in Sam’s story, and while it is ludicrous that the Italian police would allow a writer to continue his own rogue investigation, other than that, the film maintains a realistic tone throughout which makes the tension palpable. My only gripe about Argento’s scripting comes in the form of the red herrings. While they are a must in a giallo, here they feel contrived and are easily to discount. That being said, I did not see the final reveal coming, and that was immensely satisfying. 

The acting was also quite strong throughout. Tony Muscante, who looked so young and was barely recognizable from his roles in Oz and 2008’s We Own the Night, carried the movie incredibly well. When I praised the script earlier for making Sam and engaging character, I was perhaps doing Muscante a disservice. Without his energetic portrayal of the frustrated writer, the character could have easily been nothing more than a cardboard cutout. The other great performance in the film comes by way of genre cinema regular Enrico Maria Salerno. With credits such as …Calling all Police Cars, Night Train Murders, Candy and Gambling City on his resume, he will be a familiar face to many avid film watchers. Here as Inspector Morosini, Salerno brings a great deal of humor to what amounts to a grim situation. There is one scene in particular where he wants Sam to look at a line up and calls for them to “Bring in the perverts.” which will stick in my mind for quite some time. The rest of the cast acquit themselves quite well, but their performances are nothing more than incidental to the continuation of the narrative. 

Argento worked with Vittorio Storaro on this film, and with only three previous credits before The Bird with the Crystal Plumage,  Storaro was also just beginning  his career. He would go on to lens Apocalypse Now, Reds, and the childhood favorite Ladyhawk. While the film did have a very beautiful look to it, I felt that it had a much more muted color palette than would be on display in much or Argento’s later work. Perhaps the collaboration was not a fruitful as either would have liked as they never paired up for a project again. However, this film would signal the start of a professional relationship between Argento and composer Ennio Morricone. They would go on to work on four more films together, and with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Morricone provided an excellent soundscape as usual. 

While I have much good to say about Argento’s freshman effort, I still do find the film a bit lacking. While the end has a good twist which is never really hinted at, the red herrings we are given along the way are such throwaways the viewer never really suspects anyone, much less the actual killer. So while it is technically well made, scripted and acted, it does not rank up there with the best of the gialli I have seen. I would much rather put in Blood and Black Lace or What Have You Done to Solonge?, but at the same time for the importance of this horror icon’s first film, this is one that should not be missed. While it probably will not call to you for repeated viewings, one if definitely required. 

The Bugg Rating