Tenebre... WTF?

[Funk, E.]

I just saw this last night and... well... did I miss something? As a B-movie aficionado I bask in badness, I love the Plan 9 "it's so bad it's good" effect of some movies and the "Hi, were making a b-movie and we know it " as well as the "We're making a blockbuster by commitee so what were going to end up with is a real expensive b-movie" blunders of beauty, but this movie well... didn't do it for me. I know Argento and Brava are supposed to be the heavy hitters of eye-talian horror, but this thing just didn't work.

[J.R.]

Agreed. It has some cool stuff, like the long crane shot over the apartment building, but overall, like much of Argento's work, it's all style over substance. I get the feeling it was made solely for the big plot twist (which was easy to spot coming).

[StatCat]

I consider this the movie to reinvent giallo's really. This is easily his best movie in my opinion. I wouldn't classify it as b movie material so maybe thats the whole problem to begin with.

[akiratubo]

The problem with Argento - which may be cultural - is that he, like many other European directors (like John Boorman), seems more concerned with taking pretty pictures than telling a good story.

[Funk, E.]

That's just WAY too big of a generalization. I've watched LOTS of European films over time and that is nowhere close to the truth.

French: Subway, Diva, La Femme Nikita, Amile
Italian: Cemetary Man, La Strada, Il Postino, Cinema Paradiso
German: Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Metropolis, Wings of Desire
British: Excalibur (irish actually I think), anything by Kubrik
Spanish: Neville will have to fill this one in
Scandinavian: Dancer in the Dark, Pele the Conqourer, Ingmar Burgmen

I'm sorry Akira I just can't buy that statement.

[akiratubo]

All the movies in that list I've seen are what *I* would consider collections of pretty pictures with only a passing interest in the story being told.  Others may get something out of them I don't.

[StatCat]

I really can't agree with you either, especially about Argento. Some of his movies are extremely complex (deep red, the bird with the crystal plumage for examples) Sure it is true he is always interested in the shooting and atmosphere (more than the acting for example) but that isn't to say every single one of his movies has a lacking story.

[akiratubo]

I admit I haven't seen all of Argento's work.  I like to be sure I have something as uncut as possible before I'll watch it.

[JohnL]

I've only seen a few of Argento's movies, Creepers, Suspiria, Phantom of the Opera, both Demons movies and Trauma, but none of them struck me as making alot of sense. Argento seems to me to be kind of like David Lynch, he likes to put weird stuff in his movies just for the sake of being weird. It would be interesting to listen in on the creative process for one of his movies;

"Ok, so we have a guy with only one arm who's in love with a blind girl who can see through the eyes of other people when she has sex with them. Along the way, they stumble across a serial killer who uses a jack hammer to kill their victims. The killer will be the 70 year mother of both the man and woman who is killing anyone who sees the couple together so that nobody will know they're actually brother and sister. To lure her victims, she uses a trained baby kangaroo that picks their pockets and gets them to chase it. And maggots, buckets and buckets of maggots!!!"

[J.R.]

<<"Ok, so we have a guy with only one arm who's in love with a blind girl who can see through the eyes of other people when she has sex with them. Along the way, they stumble across a serial killer who uses a jack hammer to kill their victims. The killer will be the 70 year mother of both the man and woman who is killing anyone who sees the couple together so that nobody will know they're actually brother and sister. To lure her victims, she uses a trained baby kangaroo that picks their pockets and gets them to chase it. And maggots, buckets and buckets of maggots!!!">>

I think Argento's already used that one. :) Most giallo is looks and gore, no real emphasis on coherent sorytelling whatsoever, end of story. Oh, but how fans love to argue. "You just don't get it! There's lots of subtext lost in the translation!".