PHENOMENA

Dario Argento, 1985
Starring: Jennifer Connelly, Daria Nicolodi, Donald Pleasance, Dalila Di Lazzaro

Jennifer, the lonely, teenaged daughter of a famous director, is sent to a Swiss boarding school for girls. She learns that young women have been attacked and murdered in the nearby hills. Jennifer accidentally puts herself into danger with her unpredictable sleepwalking habits, but she has a unique ability – a psychic connection with insects that protect and help her. Her only friend in the area is a scientist, forensic entomologist John McGregor, and the two try to figure out the identity of the murderer before Jennifer is the next victim.

Somewhat of a twist on his classic Suspiria, Dario Argento’s Phenomena is an utterly bizarre giallo film, complete with sci-fi trappings, dream logic, and sequences of gross-out violence. As in Suspiria, an isolated young woman travels to the forest of northern Europe (Germany in the former, Switzerland in Phenomena) and encounters a world made up mostly of other women. Both Suspiria’s Suzy and Phenomena’s Jennifer only makes one female friend, who is killed, and they are left with unfriendly peers and hostile authority figures. Suzy’s wine is drugged, she’s confined to the ballet school she’s attending, and she’s told that she’s ill. Between her non-conformist personality and bouts of sleepwalking, Jennifer’s icy headmistress (Dalila Di Lazzaro of Flesh for Frankenstein) forces her to submit to medical testing and is ready to have her shipped off to an insane asylum.

Both Suzy and Jennifer find refuge and wisdom in the form of an elderly scientist. In Suspiria, Suzy meets with a young psychologist (the great Udo Kier) and his older mentor (Rudolf Schündler of The Exorcist), who confirm her suspicions about the evil goings on in her ballet school and explain that the founder was believed to be a powerful witch. Professor McGregor (Donald Pleasence with an implausible Scottish accent) is far more of a father figure to Jennifer. He not only tests and explains her gift to her, but is the only person to believe in her extraordinary abilities. Science has a rather murky role in Argento’s films, namely Cat O’ Nine Tails ­– set in a research institute and concerning genetic research – and Four Flies on Grey Velvet, where the final reveal hinges on an absurd idea that the human eye captures the final image it sees before death. Science, or perhaps science fiction, is less troubled in Phenomena simply because the film does not ever attempt to stay grounded in rationality.

Instead, it is Argento’s most fantastical exploration of the natural world. The school for girls is set in the Swiss mountains, a place that simply feels like a fairytale forest. This is Argento’s most lush shoot – rivalled only by the conclusion of his following film, Opera, which is set in a similar location and involves another young girl abandoning herself to nature after surviving a terrible ordeal. Here Jennifer is linked to the natural world by more than just the setting – which includes hills, fields, forests, a lake, fire, and a cesspool of sewage/rotting corpses. She is deeply connected to it by her psychic link with all insects and by her changing body – she and the other girls are all 14, 15, or 16, in the midst of puberty and on the verge of sexual awakening. And while animals play a role on screen in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, Deep Red, Suspiria, Inferno, and Tenebre, this is Argento’s first film with an actual animal star in the form of Inga the chimp.

This is also perhaps Argento’s only film to wander into the body horror territory so thoroughly explored by directors like David Cronenberg and Stuart Gordon. While Deep Red and Suspiria include some particularly graphic, effecting death scenes, many of these are stylish exercises in onscreen murder as art. In comparison, the murders of Phenomena are ugly, devoid of art deco set pieces and bold, primary-colored lighting. There is a gruesome decapitation where the victim’s head is tossed unceremoniously into the water, Jennifer vomits up pills in a lengthy sequence, and she crawls through dirt and, perhaps most memorably, falls into a brown slush of refuse and rotting flesh. Maggots squirm, flies pick a face and crowd the windows of Jennifer’s school when the girls pick on her, and a detective macerates his own thumb to get free of handcuffs.

SPOILERS. The film’s sense of the grotesque and of sexual hysteria is compounded by its complex examination of parenthood. While many of Argento’s films have troubled parent-child relationships, such as Deep Red and Four Flies on Grey Velvet, and characters with teenage/young adult trauma, like The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Tenebre, Phenomena’s violence revolves around painful family relationships. Jennifer’s mother abandoned the family and her father is absent due to his work. The killer, a young boy with a disfiguring disorder that makes him look monstrous and fear mirrors, is the product of his mother’s rape. He slaughters young women and his mother (Daria Nicolodi, the mother of Argento’s daughter Asia, whom he would split with that year) kills to protect him. She is the film’s most horrible figure, akin to the monstrous hysteria of the two witches in Suspiria and Inferno, and is the culmination of female violence present in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, and Deep Red.

Phenomena is one of Argento’s most difficult films, but is also among his most unique. It will likely frustrated unprepared horror fans expecting a straightforward giallo, but this film is a strange blend of fantasy, science fiction, dream logic, and the grotesque. It’s available uncut on Blu-ray (avoid a censored American version titled Creepers) and comes recommended for more adventurous viewers, anyone who wants to see Argento at his strangest, and all fans of the young Jennifer Connelly. I honestly wish Argento had made the time to further explore her relationship with insects, something that is unfortunately overshadowed by the serial murder plot.

INFERNO (1980)

Dario Argento, 1980
Starring: Irene Miracle, Leigh McCloskey, Eleonora Giorgi, Daria Nicolodi

Rose Eliot, a young poet in New York, collects antique books and stumbles across a terrible secret with the recent purchase of The Three Mothers. She learns of three powerful witches — Mater Lachrymarum, Mater Suspiriorum and Mater Tenebrarum — and discovers that Tenebrarum may be located in the very apartment building Rose calls home, built by an eccentric architect named Varelli, also the author of The Three Mothers. She writes a letter detailing her findings — and her fears — to her brother Mark, a music student in Rome, and he comes to visit just as Rose goes missing.

While Suspiria, the first film of Dario Argento’s “Three Mothers” trilogy, is a dark fairytale, Inferno is a nightmare and a fever dream. In fact, Argento was seriously ill for much of filming and veteran horror director Mario Bava stepped in to handle some second unit work. Perhaps as a result of this, Inferno seems indebted to Bava’s candy-colored descents into the underworld and meditations on the supernatural, such as Hercules and the Haunted World and “The Drop of Water” segment from Black Sabbath. Bava was also responsible for some of the matte painting and optical effects, and his son, Lamberto Bava, acted as assistant director on the film – a few years later, Argento would collaborate with the younger Bava on Demons.

Despite – or perhaps because of – Bava’s involvement, Inferno was initially poorly received. This is likely due to a number of factors: its perhaps unfair comparison to Suspiria, the disorienting sense of dream logic, and the fact that the somewhat fragmented film has a number of protagonists. Like Suspiria, the cast is still female-dominated and focuses on characters like Rose (Irene Miracle), her friend Elise (Daria Nicolodi), and Mark’s friend Sara (Eleonora Giorgi), all of whom are inexplicably drawn to the mystery of the Three Mothers. Mark (Leigh McCloskey) is brought into this world almost against his wishes and is left alone to contend with the evil in Rose’s apartment building. Like Suspiria, this is a fundamentally hostile, strange world where bureaucratic, natural, and supernatural forces conspire against the protagonists.

Inferno certainly has many parallels with Suspiria: there’s a key scene with a protagonist swimming, secret passages are important to the conclusion, a beast-like killer preys on young women, and there is an animal-related death in an open park/square. But while Suspiria has a marked contrast between a sedate, fairytale-like mystery plot and over-the-top, incredibly violent and unusual death scenes, Inferno is more concerned with elaborate set pieces. In addition to the central location of a cavernous old apartment building in New York, there’s an antique shop, a beautiful Roman library, an old ballroom suspended in water, and an alchemy lab – plus, the plot is set in motion by an old book, a letter is of key importance, and one of the protagonists is a writer.

This focus on the literary and the historical is countered by a disorienting emphasis on doubles. Rose and Sara share the same sense of wonder and fascination that draws them towards The Three Mothers and its mysteries, which also leads to their deaths. – The two main protagonists are siblings and there are plenty of protagonists who turn out to have dual roles within the film, particularly the other residents of Rose’s apartment building. The importance of doubling is compounded by the appearance of several actors from Argento’s previous films – Alida Valli, who plays a domineering instructor and part of the witches’ coven in Suspiria returns here as the suspicious caretaker of Rose’s building. Daria Nicolodi was previously seen in Deep Red as a plucky reporter who teams up with the protagonist to find the killer. Her role here is a sort of Gothic twist on the crime-solving sidekick; she helps Mark uncover clues while wearing a flowing nightgown, has an illness that makes her physically weak, and wanders around the dark building like a frightened child. Gabriele Lavia, last seen in Deep Red as a troubled musician, briefly shows up as Sara’s friend and protector.

Somewhere I read this described as a blend of The Wizard of Oz and Dante’s Inferno, which isn’t far off the mark. If Suspiria was influenced by Snow White, where a young princess takes on a wicked witch in a foreboding forest, Inferno is more of an ensemble piece set in an alternate dimension. The blue, yellow, and red lighting is certainly otherworldly and the central building seems to be an underworld universe all its own, with secret passageways, hidden floors, and an incongruous sense of style suggesting that all time periods exist there at once. Even the score is a blend of contemporary electronic music – from Emerson, Lake, and Palmer’s Keith Emerson – spliced together with Verdi’s opera Nabucco, a biblical-themed work about the titular Babylonian king who conquers and exiles the Jews.

Inferno comes highly recommended and is one of Argento’s most underrated works, if not one of the most underrated horror films of the ‘70s and ‘80s. This dreamy, disorienting film is not for everyone, but offers rich rewards for those willing to lose themselves in Argento’s hellish, yet colorful world of magic, mystery, and murder that does end with the promised inferno. Fortunately, the film is available in a wonderful Blu-ray edition and should be part of every film lover’s collection. It’s a shame that Argento followed up the brilliant of Suspiria and Inferno with something as flawed and problematic as Mother of Tears.

SUSPIRIA

Dario Argento, 1977
Starring: Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, Joan Bennett, Udo Kier, Flavio Bucci, Miguel Bosè, Alida Valli

Suzy Bannion, an American ballet dancer, travels to Germany to enroll in a renowned school in Freiburg, but her arrival is marked by a menacing storm, an unfriendly reception, and the mysterious, anxious departure of another student who is later found dead. After taking an apartment out of the building, she falls ill and is moved into the school against her wishes, where someone seems to be drugging her food. She befriends another girl, Sarah, who believes that the school is secretly run by malevolent witches. After Sarah goes missing, Suzy takes it upon herself to unravel the mystery before she becomes the next victim.

Argento’s fairytale-like masterpiece was inspired by Thomas De Quincy’s collection Suspiria de Profundis, in particular the chapter “Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow,” which introduces "Mater Lacrymarum, Our Lady of Tears," "Mater Suspiriorum, Our Lady of Sighs," and "Mater Tenebrarum, Our Lady of Darkness" (the latter two characters would receive a mention in his follow up film, Inferno). This first supernatural work by Argento was co-written by then partner Dario Nicolodi, who claimed for years that it was based on her grandmother’s stories of real witches operating in Italy. Regardless of the source, this tremendous film is a blend of many previous filmic and literary influences: Grimm’s fairytales, German expressionism, the French fantastique, Snow White, film noir, Jean Cocteau and European Surrealism, and Gothic literature.

The plot follows a basic fairytale structure, where a young hero embarks on a journey of self-discovery and defeats evil. There is a core journey in Suzy’s travel to Germany, an eerie trip through a forest, and magical flowers that are central to her quest. Things often occur in threes: there are three girls trying to fight the witches in the form of Pat, Sarah, and Suzy, and three witches In the form of Tanner, Madame Blanc, and the head mistress. Like Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, which was being written during Suspiria’s production and was published in 1979, Argento has reimagined the character often known as the “Persecuted Heroine.” Suzy, a beautiful, young ballet dancer, is initially similar to fairytale heroines, but fortunately has a different end goal than romantic fulfillment with a handsome price (though I’d give her a break with Udo Kier in the picture).

The script is perfectly complimented by a vivid, almost violent sense of color – Suspiria was one of the last films processed in Technicolor – that transitions from dark blues and blacks to screaming red and pink. The film is full of characters passing through doorways – often toward spectacularly realized deaths – and Argento somehow adds elements of the surreal and disorienting to mundane acts like a cab ride, a swim in a pool, and eating dinner. The world Suzy has entered is undeniably hostile and strange and – like the Germany of many of Fassbinder’s films – this is a realm existing in and out of time, a place of the subconscious rather than the waking world. Though many try, there are not a lot of horror films or dark fantasies able to achieve this dreamlike quality and in that sense, Suspiria has something in common with Night of the Hunter (1955), Valerie and Her Weeks of Wonders (1970), Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural (1973), Messiah of Evil (1973), A Company of Wolves (1984), and even The Red Shoes (1948).

Suspiria is also a marked departure from classic supernatural horror like Cat People (1942) and Night of the Demon (1957), where the horror is implied gradually and unfolds subtlety. Suspiria – whose tagline proclaims “The only thing more terrifying than the last 12 minutes of this film are the first 92!” – kicks off with an elaborate, highly stylized double homicide where Pat, hiding out from the horrors at school, is tracked to an art deco apartment building by a strange beastly figure, resulting in an operatic sequence of shattering glass, sliced flesh, and a brutal hanging. There are Fulci-like scenes of squirming maggots pouring from the ceiling on hapless students, a corpse coming back to life with murderous intentions, and a girl stumbling into a room inexplicably full of barbed wire.

And, of course, there are the witches. The school headmistresses represent a far more bureaucratic source of terror for much of the film, dealing in control, manipulation, and disorientation, chiding Suzy about room fees, her medical health, run of the mill inconveniences, and rules. Tanner (Alida Valli of The Third Man and Eyes Without a Face, the latter of which must have been an influence on Argento) wears conservative suits and her heels clack on the floor abrasively while she shouts out instructions. Madame Blanc (former noir star Joan Bennett, playing a role not similar to her appearance as the ambiguous family matriarch in Dark Shadows) is full of grace, refinement, and manners, and it’s easy to see her as a politician’s wife or retired debutant. Tanner and Blanc pale in comparison to the swollen, growling, and draconic form of Helena Markos (aka Mother Suspiriorum, played by the uncredited Lela Svasta), who sets all manner of obstacles in Suzy’s path and is ultimately the monster she must defeat.

Much has already been said about Suspiria and it holds a deserved reputation as one of finest horror films ever made. Pick it up on region 2 Blu-ray, or 2-disc special edition DVD. Either way, this is a must-see film and it’s something you need in your collection. While giallo films are not for everyone – and they make up the bulk of Argento’s work – this is a near-perfect blend of mystery, horror, and fantasy. The score from Goblin is also one of their best and is the perfect music to listen to while driving through a thunderstorm.

DEEP RED aka PROFONDO ROSSO

Dario Argento, 1975

Starring: David Hemmings, Daria Nicolodi, Gabriele Lavia, Macha Méril, Clara Calamai

A psychic, Helga Ulmann, senses that someone in the audience of her lecture is mentally disturbed, has murdered long ago, and will kill again. Soon after, she is killed in her apartment and her neighbor, jazz musician Marcus Daly, witnesses her murder and is convinced he has seen an important clue. Reporter Gianna Brezzi decides to help him against his wishes when he realizes that he's the killer’s next target. Their only viable clue is a child’s lullaby and the tale of an old haunted house…

Profondo rosso (1975) aka Deep Red aka The Hatchet Murders is notable for, among other things, being Italian horror maestro Dario Argento’s first collaboration with the band Goblin, who would go on to score several of his later films. Deep Red also marks a turning point Argento’s career. After establishing himself with the “Animal Trilogy” – The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Cat O’Nine Tails, and Four Flies on Grey Velvet – Argento kicked off a series of popular masterpieces, including Deep Red, Suspiria, Inferno, and Tenebre. Deep Red marked a new level of directorial confidence that allowed Argento to explore a more extravagant visual style and more poetic, dreamlike narrative structures. 

Despite its graphic death scenes and hints of the uncanny and the supernatural, Deep Red is one of Argento’s most accessible films and is a great introduction to giallo films in general. There are elements lifted directly from Mario Bava’s seminal giallo films The Girl Who Knew Too Much and Blood and Black Lace, such as the protagonist being a foreigner in Italy, the killer wearing a raincoat and black gloves, a vibrantly colored set, and so on. Deep Red also includes many of Argento’s trademarks, including POV shots, close ups of objects, and a number of characters with creative careers (two musicians, a journalist, an author, and an actress). Argento cleverly borrowed from mystery and romantic comedies with the presence of a plucky reporter responsible for comic relief in the form of Giada. She is played by the actress Daria Nicolodi, who would go on to become one of Argento’s major collaborators and the mother of his daughter Asia.

In addition to fine performances from Nicolodi, English star David Hemmings is enjoyable as the pleasant but anxious Marcus Daly. He played a similar role in Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966) and was in a number of horror and suspense films, such as the similarly themed Fragment of Fear (1970) and British pagan horror Eye of the Devil (1966). Gabriele Lavia (Inferno, Beyond the Door) gives what is probably the best performance of Deep Red as the sympathetic and interesting Carlo. Macha Méril (Night Train Murders) and classical Italian actress Clara Calamai (Visconti’s Ossessione) round out the female-centric cast. Despite suggestions that Argento was misogynistic, he often gave his most interesting roles to women and Deep Red is a fine example of that.

The film also benefits from some excellent cinematography by Luigi Kuveiller (New York Ripper). The anxiously roving camera captures bold colors and eye-catching sets, as well as a more heightened level of graphic violence (compared to Argento’s earlier work). The incredibly creative death scenes rely on every day, household objects as instruments of death – the corner of a mantel, hot water, a window – bolstered by some great special effects from Academy Award-winning Carlo Rambaldi (E.T.). These seemingly mundane moments of violence are countered by strange, surreal elements, including an unexpected attack by marionette, disturbing children’s drawings of murder, a dying lizard squirming on a pin, and close ups of children’s toys.

Though he hinted on it with his earlier films, sound is of key importance in Deep Red – where The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is a synthesis of art and violence, Deep Red combines the latter with music. Always a fan of using diegetic (occurring within the narrative of the film) and non-diegetic (the soundtrack) music, both are used artfully here and there is a tense relationship between the score and sound effects that relates directly to the violence unfolding – such as the killer’s insistence on playing a tape recording of a disturbing child’s song before committing murder.

This was Italian band Goblin’s first score for Argento and signaled the beginning of a successful collaborative relationship that would last throughout some of his most beloved films. Composer Giorgio Gaslini was originally hired to compose for Deep Red, but Argento was allegedly unhappy with his work. Some of these jazzy themes remain, but Goblin wrote most of the proggy, harpsichord-heavy score that Argento fans know and love. Originally known as the Cherry Five, Goblin’s early lineup included Claudio Simonetti, Fabio Pignatelli, Massimo Morante, and Walter Martino. Their score for Deep Red is mostly a prog rock affair, no doubt inspired by bands like King Crimson, but includes both pop and jazz elements and is as menacing as it is catchy. In addition to keyboards and the harpsichord, Goblin uses acoustic guitar, electric guitar, piano, and has some very bass heavy songs on tracks like “Death Dies,” “Profondo Rosso,” and “Mad Puppet.” This is certainly one of their finest scores for Argento and the complete score can fortunately be found on CD. 

Deep Red comes highly recommended, as does the Goblin score, though I am somewhat biased because it was my first favorite Argento film and the first I had the pleasure to see. Over the years there have been a number of Deep Red releases, including a restored DVD from Anchor Bay, a Blue Underground Blu-ray, and a two-disc special edition Arrow Blu-ray. It remains one of Argento’s most loved films for a good reason and is a fine example of post-Hitchcockian cinema that straddled the line between horror film and psychosexual thriller.

THE CAT O’NINE TAILS aka IL GATTO A NOVE CODE

Dario Argento, 1971

Starring: James Franciscus, Karl Malden, Catherine Spaak, Horst Frank

A blind man, Franco, and his young charge Lori, accidentally stumble into a blackmail plot one night walking home past the Terzi Institute, a renowned science center responsible for some groundbreaking research. A break in and murder soon follows at the Institute, and journalist Carlo begins following the story. Despite his impairment, Franco has a brilliant mind and sets about unraveling the mystery. He and Carlo team up and discover that a doctor who claimed to know the identity of the thief was murdered, though the police have ruled his death accidental. The bodies begin to pile up as Franco and Carlo close in on the killer, who seems to be connected to the Institute’s research on the YY chromosome, indicating latent violent tendencies.

Argento has referred to this Italian-French-West German coproduction as his least favorite film and I’m inclined to agree. Among his classic works (1970’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage to 1987’s Opera), the second and third entries — The Cat O’Nine Tails and Four Flies on Grey Velvet — are by far his weakest. The Cat O’Nine Tails was certainly something I neglected over the years, despite seeing many of his other films repeatedly. But unlike Four Flies on Grey Velvet it has a certain charm and warmth, thanks largely to star Karl Malden’s appearance as the improbable blind detective.

I think The Cat O’Nine Tails biggest issue is that it takes a notable step backwards into safer and more conventional territory after Argento’s debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. While that first film was certainly influenced by traditional mystery literature and the German krimi films, Argento added his own innovative blend of style, art, and violence to the mix. The Cat O’Nine Tails, however, takes an uneasy foray into science and focuses on a more traditional relationship between a crime journalist and a brilliant amateur detective.

And that relationship — between Karl Malden and James Franciscus — is the best part of the film. It’s a rare healthy example of male bonding and machismo (as portrayed by the macho Franciscus and the fatherly Malden) in an Argento film. Though the two begin by exchanging information, but become quite close by the film’s end, with nice moments of Carlo joining Franco and his niece for dinner. The domestic elements of this film and its examination of complicated family relationships that would emerge throughout Argento’s body of work. In addition to the unusual threesome — Franco’s niece is adopted and is not a blood relative — one of the chief scientists has a strange, almost incestuous relationship with his adult daughter (Catherine Spaak), who is also adopted. Her subsequent affair with Carlo is one of the film’s most awkward relationships.

The easy partnership between Carlo and Franco gives this a sort of Dragnet air, where the buddy investigators use crime fighting and mystery solving to give their lives purpose and definition. But there is also something of Agatha Christie here with the Miss Marple-like plot device of Franco and his niece overhearing the genesis of the crime on a street corner — whispers about blackmail from a nearby car. Throughout the film, Franco makes some ridiculous leaps of faith that nearly always turn out to be true, and the blind detective — a crossword puzzle writer by trade — would be completely ludicrous if it weren’t for the blithe Malden.

The film has a few main flaws that make it understandable why Argento ranks this as his least favorite. Unlike The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, it struggles to find its own identity and rests somewhere between giallo and standard mystery film. The lack of style is disappointing, particularly after the bravado of Bird, and Argento wouldn’t really set this right until his fourth horror film, Deep Red (1975). There are also several moments of unintentional humor, which are often found in giallo films thanks to bad dubbing, but here results from some awkward and/or improbably situations. 

Speaking of the latter, I think Argento’s biggest mistake is his ill advised foray into science. While most of his other films concern artistic protagonists (most often musicians and writers) and plots hinging on the psychosexual, Cat O’Nine Tails dabbles in corporate espionage and scientific research with mixed results. While some directors can effortlessly blend themes of horror and science fiction, this lacks the emotional depth of the explanation for the killer’s actions in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Deep Red, Tenebre, and others.

Available on Blu-ray, Cat O’Nine Tails only comes recommended to Argento fans or anyone who enjoys more traditional murder mysteries. There are some solid kills — a man is pushed in front of a train, a woman is strangled because of evidence she has hidden, and a photographer is killed in a dark room in one of the most Argento-like scenes — and it is one of his warmest, if least imaginative works. And I don’t know about you, but I love Karl Malden. You could have quite an afternoon with a triple feature of this film, Ken Russell’s Billion Dollar Brain and Baby Doll.

THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE aka L’UCCELLO DALLE PIUME DI CRISTALLO

Dario Argento, 1970

Starring: Tony Musante, Suzy Kendall, Enrico Maria Salerno, Eva Renzi

Sam, an American writer in Rome, witnesses the attempted murder of a woman in an art gallery. A black-gloved attacker nearly kills Monica Ranieri, the beautiful wife of the gallery’s owner, Alberto. The police, suspicious of Sam and in need of his help, confiscate his passport and prevent his return flight to American while the investigation is still underway — they believe that the same person murdering women around the city is responsible for the attack on Monica. Sam has the sense that he’s seen something he can’t quite put his finger on that’s a critical clue, and soon the murderer begins targeting Sam, trying to kill him before he solves the mystery.

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage was Dario Argento’s very impressive debut as a director. He had been working as a film critic and a screenwriter up until then and, thanks to some family connections, was able to make this highly influential first film. Though it is obviously inspired by Bava’s Blood and Black Lace and borrows much of its plot from Frederic Brown’s uncredited novel The Screaming Mimi, Argento brought a blend of sadomasochism, violence, and exaggerated style to the screen that is obviously all his own. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage effectively synthesized the German krimi films based on Edgar Wallace’s mystery novels, Bava’s candy-colored horror films, and Hitchcock's psychosexual thrillers to create something new and unusual.

The film not only strengthens the tropes introduced by Bava — which would carry on throughout the genre — but it also introduces a number of themes that would obsess Argento throughout his career. For starters, the protagonist is a foreigner who is not a detective or police officer, but who is forced to solve the case because a) he is targeted by the killer, b) the police are ineffectual, and c) he has some perverse passion, an innate curiosity, that propels him onwards. The victims are primarily beautiful women, and the killer wears leather gloves and a raincoat. The killer is murdering because of an unresolved past trauma not revealed until the film’s conclusion, and characters surrounding the protagonist are depicted as in someway morally compromised, perverse. These are all standard giallo fixtures.

One key theme that would carry on throughout Argento’s work is the problem of vision, the concept of the seen but wrongly interpreted or not yet understood clue. Sam witnesses the attempted murder, but realizes that he has seen something important that he can’t quite put his finger on. This same scenario occurs in later films like Deep Red, Suspiria, and Tenebre, and it is this device that sets Argento so far apart from the Agatha Christie-style mysteries that came before him and the slasher films that would come after. Works of classic detective fiction often revolve around a clever amateur detective, such as Holmes or Poirot, and a Everyman partner like Watson or Hastings. Mysteries are solved when the detective reveals the missing links between a series of elaborate clues — links that he has figured out often due to some information not available to the sidekick or the audience. But in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage the genius detective is cast aside for a far more suspenseful tale where a modern Everyman — and the cinema goers following him — must try to solve the crime through primarily visual evidence.

Another theme with a strong presence in Argento’s work that was introduced in this film is the use of animal imagery. His first three films were dubbed the “Animal Trilogy’ thanks to their titles — The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Cat O’ Nine Tails, and Four Flies on Grey Velvet — despite the tenuous connection to animals. Many of his films include at least one scene with an animal (a lizard, dogs, insects, birds, and even a chimpanzee), and here a key clue is figured out by the call of the titular rare bird, a guest at the local zoo. This is entwined with the film’s larger motifs of hunting, collecting, and imprisonment. When Sam witnesses Monica’s attack, he’s trapped between two glass doors like a fish in an aquarium (which was allegedly Argento’s inspiration), which looks into a gallery filled with terrifying metallic art, including a bird claw. The film’s living spaces are prison-like — Sam’s one room dwelling, Monica’s high rise apartment, and the artist’s loft, which can only be accessed by a ladder — and key sets include the zoo and a hall filled with taxidermy.

Art is another important theme. In addition to the fact that the initial crime scene is set at an art gallery, an antique store, a deranged painter, and an eerie painting provide an important clue, and art actually becomes a weapon. Many of Argento’s early protagonists were artists: Sam is a writer and his girlfriend is a model, while later examples include musicians, photographers, journalists, dancers, novelists, and opera singers. This theme can be found throughout the genre, as the characters are often expected to be hip or fashionable, or artists with unstable dispositions.

SPOILERS AHEAD (for many of Argento’s movies): Finally, this is also the first of many films where the killer is given an unusual identity. There is something Hitchcockian about this and I can’t help but be reminded of Psycho, where the killer becomes quietly insane after years of repressing a past trauma. While we believe the killer is Mrs. Bates, it is really Norman in disguise. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is an inversion of this in the sense that we believe the killer to be male (it is even presented that Monica’s husband is guilty), until we discover that Monica has been in disguise in androgynous garb. Many of Argento’s subsequent films follow this pattern: Four Flies on Grey Velvet and Deep Red also have female killers, while Tenebre and Phenomena each have two murderers.

It is difficult to examine The Bird with the Crystal Plumage on its own, as I’ve seen most of Argento’s classic films (from this first entry through Opera in 1987) many times throughout the years. It is an incredibly strong directorial debut and has very, very few flaws. Thanks to his aforementioned connections, Argento was able to get some exceptional talent working on the film, such as composer Ennio Morricone and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (Bertolucci’s regular collaborator). There is likely much more I could say about the film, but little that hasn’t already been said. It comes with the highest recommendation and is one of my favorite of Argento’s works. For obvious reasons, it’s also a great introduction to giallo films — certainly more accessible than Blood on Black Lace — and if you don’t own it already, pick up the special edition DVD or Blu-ray.

THE STENDHAL SYNDROME

Dario Argento, 1996
Starring: Asia Argento, Thomas Kretschmann, Marco Leonardi, Luigi Diberti, Paolo Bonacelli

It sounds cheesy and ridiculous, but LA SINDROME DI STENDHAL is a film that changed my film-viewing experience. It was the first horror film I had ever seen go through the eyes of a victim in a respectful, realistic way and still remain a horror film. The first time I watched STENDHAL I expected a dud, because of its bad critical reception. I was actually floored. If you are expecting something beautiful, violent, sometimes funny and with a ripping good mystery like most of Argento's other films, that is not what you are going to get from STENDHAL. It is a realistic descent into one woman’s madness, self-loathing, identity loss and paranoid delusion. It is jarring and difficult to watch and not the type of horror film to see with your buddies and a case of beer. For maybe the only time in his career, Argento manages to capture female victimization from a feminine perspective. Maybe it’s because the role was played by his daughter?

Roman detective Anna Manni (Asia Argento, whose character is bizarrly named after her real-life dead sister) goes to Florence in search of a serial rapist turned killer (played by the beautiful Thomas Kretschmann). During her search, she is led to the famous Uffizi Gallery by the killer, but then is struck by the Stendhal syndrome. This syndrome is an actual psychological ailment that is caused by a work of art and gives the victim amnesia, dizziness, fainting spells and usually pertains to a larger question of identity loss and dissociation. While Anna is afflicted with this, she is in a foreign city and has no way of defending herself from the serial killer now stalking her. Grossi, the killer, rapes and kidnaps her. She escapes and undergoes some serious personality changes. She cuts her hair, dresses like a man, breaks up with her boyfriend and cuts herself. The police department punish her, in a way, for her ordeal, first by giving her a desk job and then by sending her on leave to her family home. Here Anna descends further into depression and begins painting. In a truly creepy scene, Grossi kidnaps her again and takes her to his secret hideout in the countryside where no one will ever be able to find her.

This film is full of beautiful, poetic and dream-like imagery. There are plenty of distorted reflections, splatterings of blood, breaking glass, a fixation on lips and the constant appearance of artwork. Anna’s immersions into these painting is just another element that sets STENDHAL apart from other cat and mouse serial killer films. The use of language is also important. She barely speaks in the film and usually limits herself to one sentence phrases. Language is also constantly manipulated. Things her therapist says are repeated by Grossi and things Grossi says to Anna during her ordeal become part of her internal vocabulary.

There aren’t many bad things I can say about this film. The acting is very good. Asia pulls off an incredibly grueling performance with only a little beginner’s stiffness. Thomas Krestchmann is wonderful; he is insanely creepy, intense and sexual. How can you forget the razor in the mouth? The settings are all beautiful and overwhelming and in this film Argento finds a way to unite his characters with the setting. Ennio Morricone’s score is one of my favorite. Apparently the style of writing he used is based on a type of Spanish music that can be played backwards as well as forwards. The unsettling, Diamanda Galas-style voices especially freak me out.

The question everyone seems to ask in connection to this film is whether or not it is weird that the director’s daughter plays a repeatedly exploited rape victim? To be honest, I’m not sure. I think he treats both his daughter and the character respectfully. Though it is clear what is happening to Anna, the most nudity in the film is a partially exposed breast. Most of the rape scenes are implied rather than shown, with the camera focusing only on one actor at a time. This is definitely not IRREVERSIBLE. My biggest qualm has nothing to do with the rape scenes, it actually has to do with Stendhal’s syndrome. While this adds layers to the film in theory, it is visually very difficult to pull off. When you first see STENDHAL it is a little confusing and the digital effects used to make the paintings come alive feel very dated. And thankfully the Italian language track is included, because the dubbing is terrible.

I'm reviewing the two disc version, which is well worth it for all the special features. The second disc is chock-full of interviews. It begins with Argento, who discusses how he heard about psychologist Graziella Magherini’s book The Stendhal Syndrome and how it inspired him to write a script. He briefly addresses working with his daughter. The second interview is with Magherini. She started a study of the Stendhal sydrome after treating multiple patients for the then unknown ailment at a hospital in Florence. Most victims were tourists who developed the symptoms while viewing art. After several years of documenting and researching this new malady, she chose the name Stendhal’s syndrome from Stendhal’s book From Milan to Reggio Calabria, where he discusses his experience with the symptoms. Next, Sergio Stivaletti is interviewed about his special effects. He talks about his long relationship with Argento, Bava the Younger and Soavi. Mostly he discusses the difficult effects and how they were acchieved.

STENDHAL's assistant director and long-time Argento collaborator Luigi Cozzi tells a lot of interesting stories about the early days with Argento, particularly working on FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET and FIVE DAYS. He also did a lot of work on PHENOMENA and TWO EVIL EYES and runs Argento’s shop in Rome. The final, extremely candid interview is with production designer Massimo Antonello Geleng. When asked to talk about films such as CONTAMINATION and MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD, he laughs and says that they are “bullshit.” I’m a little disappointed that there are no interviews with Asia or Kretschmann.