Profondo Rosso (1975) aka Deep Red * Favourite Review *

Genre: Mystery Horror (Italy)

Starring: David Hemmings (Gladiator • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), Daria Nicolodi (Demons 4 • Inferno)

Directed By: Dario Argento (Trauma • Suspiria)

Overview: A psychic uncontrollably shares her vision of a grisly murder in public. When she is murdered, the witness delves into her killer's identity.

That overview has got to be one of the least original plot outlines ever written, but somehow Profondo Rosso has remained one of the Argento classics, and with good reason.

First, let me say that overall, the story arc is so forced that it is difficult to accept. A pianist who teaches at the conservatory in Rome goes to a lecture on telepathy where a beautiful German woman demonstrates her skill about as classily as a side-show spoon-bender. "You've got keys in your pocket." "Why yes I do! THAT'S AMAZING!" Suddenly, the psychic shrieks, freaks out, poetically describes an old murder, recovers, goes home, and is shortly thereafter stalked and meat cleavered. Enter pianist at street level. He hears a crash, looks up and sees a psychic getting gored on a window pane. Very nasty and delicious. He promptly rushes upstairs, molests the crime scene and calls the suspiciously inept / ineptly suspicious cops. Enter sassy female journalist / love interest / suspect / dirty slut / valued ally / red herring / whatever.  Clearly our pianist has nothing better to do than investigate a murder all on his own using piano forensics and a library card. I suppose there is another reason for his searching, namely the journalist plastering his face on the front page with the headline "TO MURDERER, KILL THIS GUY, HE SAW YOU DO IT".

Admittedly Argento's plots are not the Profondo-est but what he lacks in dialogue and story arc he more than makes up for with suspense and imagery. The cinematography and colour palate is absolutely gorgeous. Looking up other works of cinematographer Luigi Kuveiller does not ring any bells to this critic, though he did work on Andy Warhol's Dracula (aka Blood For Dracula) and Andy Warhol's Frankenstein (aka Flesh For Frankenstein), which makes me far more likely to subject myself to those films.

Performance: 7 Cinematography: 9 Script: 7 Plot: 4 Mood: 8

Overall Rating: 70% (Profound If A Little Misread)

Aftertaste:

For as much as the pianists' involvement is the weakest link to the film, I found that the cast of suspects made for a relatively involving mystery. As for the gore factor it was more plentiful than Suspiria, and has one of the best bathroom murders I've ever seen.