Themes: Amateur Sleuths, Haunted By the Past, Serial Killers
Main Cast: David Hemmings, Daria Nicolodi, Gabriele Lavia, Clara Calamai, Macha Meril
Release Year: 1975
Country: IT
Run Time: 98 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
The film that has become the master work in Italian horror maestro Dario Argento's canon, Deep Red holds up brilliantly despite the plethora of copycat slasher films it inspired in the years to follow. The film opens with a flashback murder shown from the perspective of a child while an eerie nursery rhyme plays. Cut to the present, pianist Marc Daly (David Hemmings) witnesses the murder of a psychic while chatting with his drunken pal, Carlo (Gabriele Lavia). While the police investigate, Marc joins forces with attractive reporter Gianna (Daria Nicolodi). Once Marc realizes that he is a target for the killer, he seeks help from Giordani (Glauco Mauri), a professor of the paranormal, who soon becomes one of the killer's victims. Marc's research leads him to an abandoned house where he discovers a secret room that hides a corpse. Before he can call the cops, he is knocked out and awakens to find the place in flames while Gianna holds him. Racing to the neighbors to call for help, Marc discovers an important clue that leads him to a nearby school where he finally finds the killer's identity. The madman attacks him, but the police arrive to save Marc. Though the case appears to be solved, Marc comes to the disturbing realization that one piece of the puzzle remains. ~ Patrick Legare, All Movie Guide
Review
Finally available in a fully uncut version, Dario Argento's Deep Red is a first-rate slasher film and one that would be an inspiration in style, direction, and music for such later films as Halloween and Friday the 13th. As with most of Argento's pictures, the murder sequences prove to be the highlight of Deep Red, but the script for this one is significantly stronger and the actors much better. As John Carpenter later did in Halloween, Argento keeps the body count to a minimum, but more than makes up for the low number by heaping on the style. Each of the murders is perfectly choreographed with particular praise going to Glauco Mauri's killing. In the scene, Mauri stands in his living room holding a knife, awaiting the killer he knows is there. Instead, a menacing puppet comes through a doorway at the shocked man, and that's when the killer strikes, smashing the man's face into several sharp corners before finishing him off with a knife. Another strong image is that of a victim being dispatched by drowning in scalding water (a scene that inspired a similar murder in Halloween II). The cast, led by David Hemmings and Argento regular Daria Nicolodi (who has two children with the director), is very strong, and features some exceptional background characters such as a little girl who likes spearing lizards. Technically, the film is another example of Argento's expertise with cameras, special effects, and sound effects. The director's use of widescreen lensing is exceptional and the film should never be watched unless letterboxed. The final reel wraps the film up in a thrilling manner and features two extremely graphic deaths that leave the viewer stunned as the credits roll. The newly restored version is nearly 30 minutes longer than the previous American tape, but much of the footage is playful dialogue between Hemmings and Nicolodi that only slows the picture down. ~ Patrick Legare, All Movie Guide
For those concerned about goth rock's over-exaggerated early demise in the late '90s, the emergence of such torch carrying bands as Deep Red will offer some reassurance that the genre is alive and well. Formed in Miami, FL, in 1996 by members DC Astro and Martha M. Arce, the duo was quickly signed to the record label Candyland Entertainment (run by members of German industrialists Project Pitchfork), and participated in several compilations, including The Goth Box and a tribute to one of their main influences, Siouxsie & the Banshees, on the disc Through a Looking Glass, among others. 1996 also saw the release of Deep Red's debut release, The Awakening, as they opened for friends Project Pitchfork in Europe the following year (adding member Mario Soto to the lineup). In 2000, Deep Red issued their sophomore effort, Darkwaters, and additionally, the members began producing other acts (Open Canvas), while Arce launched a solo project, Distorted Reality. Deep Red's third effort, titled Chimera, is scheduled to be released in late 2001. ~ Greg Prato, All Music Guide
Profondo Rosso (also known as Deep Red or The Hatchet Murders) is a 1975 giallothriller film directed by Dario Argento and starring David Hemmings. The soundtrack was composed by the band Goblin. It is one of Argento's more popular films, and has developed a fan base from genre fans. The film is considered by many to be Dario Argento's finest film.
This article's plot summary may be too long or overly detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (November 2008)
Profondo Rosso is about music teacher Marcus Daly (Hemmings) as he investigates the violent murder of psychic medium Helga Ulmann (Macha Meril), which he witnesses in an apartment building. Other major characters are introduced early, including Daly’s occasional friend Carlo (Gabriele Lavia), Ulmann’s associate Dr. Giordani (Glauco Mauri) and reporter Gianna Brezzi, with whom Daly begins an affair. Brezzi’s character is played by Daria Nicolodi, who would later become Argento’s partner and the mother of his daughter Asia.
After his attempt to rescue the medium fails, Daly realises he could have seen the killer’s face among a group of portraits on the wall of the victim’s apartment but is unable to find or recognize it when the police arrive. Later in the film, he also initially overlooks another clue that causes him to discover a mouldering corpse walled up in a derelict house. In typical Argento fashion, one murder leads to a series of others as Daly’s obsession with this vital clue that he fails to understand endangers his life and that of everyone with whom he comes into contact. This inability of a character to interpret or comprehend what he has seen is a common theme in Argento’s films and was used repeatedly in Tenebrae.
The killing of Helga Ulmann is prefaced by a child’s doggerel tune, the same music that accompanies the film’s opening sequence in which two shadowy figures struggle until one of them is stabbed to death. The music serves as the murderer’s calling card. When Daly hears it in his own apartment soon after becoming involved in the case he is able to foil his attacker. Later, he plays the tune to Giordani, a psychiatrist, who theorizes that the music is important because it probably played an integral part in a traumatic event in the killer's past. The doctor’s theory is of course correct, as the identity of the killer is finally revealed as Carlo’s insane mother Martha (Clara Calamai). When Carlo was still a child, he watched as she murdered her husband when he tried to have her committed, then entomb his body in a room of their house. Daly’s discovery of the corpse is one of the film’s most dramatic moments.
In the climax, Martha confronts Marcus and tries to kill him. Wielding a butchering knife, Martha chases him around the complex and into a room with an elevator. Marcus gets hit in the shoulder by the knife, and, in the process, he kicks Martha toward the elevator shaft. Her excessively long necklace slips in through the crossed metal bars. She tries to pull herself away and, in doing so, the large pendant on the end of the necklace becomes lodged between two small metal bars. As Martha is desperately trying free the necklace, Marcus realizes she is caught and presses the button to activate the lift. It travels downward and the necklace starts choking her tightly. Her hands are clad in leather gloves, making her fingers much too thick to slip in-between her neck and the necklace to try and save herself before it's too late. The elevator provides so much force that the necklace cuts through her neck, decapitating her.
The Italian rock music band Goblin composed most of the film's musical score. Goblin also composed music for several other films by Dario Argento.[1]
Background
In an attempt to make the movie's cityscape at once familiar and alien to the domestic public each of the external scenes were filmed in a different Italian city.
This film is known as Suspiria PART 2 (サスペリアPART2) in Japan. This film was released two years before Suspiria in Italy, and the two movies are unrelated. This was done due to the tremendous success of Suspiria in Japan. Distributers thought this film would be a success if the public thought this film was a sequel to Suspiria, hence the name change.
11 seconds of cuts made to the film by the BBFC in 1993 were waived when the film was re-submitted in 2005.
The closeup shots of the killer's hands, clad in black leather gloves, were performed by director Dario Argento himself.
In one scene David Hemmings walks past a tavern at night. The tavern is styled after the famous painting "Nighthawks", by Edward Hopper.
Director Dario Argento's shop in Rome is named 'Profondo Rosso' after this film.
Co-writer Bernardino Zapponi said the inspiration for the murder scenes came from Argento and himself thinking of painful injuries to which the audience could relate. Basically, not everyone knows the pain of being shot by a gun, but almost everyone has at some point accidentally struck furniture or been scalded by hot water.
Argento’s films are known for such elaborate scenes of violence and suspense, with meticulous build-up and a visceral study of the mechanics of killing. The murder scenes are generally quite extended: in this film, a female author is knocked on the head, then dragged into a bathroom and drowned in a bath filled with scaldingly hot water. Not long afterward, the psychiatrist has his face bashed against a wall, a mantelpiece and a desk before he is finally killed with a large knife. The doctor, alone in his office, is viewed through a window as if being watched, the jarring soundtrack reaches a crescendo and then, when the killer would be expected to burst upon him he is instead accosted by a large doll that approaches him menacingly from the shadows, apparently of its own free will. While Giordani quickly destroys it, the doll is in fact the murderess' calling card and she appears moments later from behind a curtain.
Profondo Rosso has many minor details that presage later events. The bathtub murder is foreshadowed by an earlier scene when Daly is slightly scalded by an espresso machine; similarly, Daly explains to Gianni that his psychiatrist once explained that his piano playing is symbolic of him bashing his father’s teeth in, and later in the film Giordani suffers exactly that fate. A child’s doll hanging from a noose and a brief cut to a dog fight (with one dog biting the other by the neck, the other carrying a strange, ghastly gaze) foretell Martha’s aforementioned demise at the end of the film, when the heavy neckchain she is wearing becomes entangled in the bars of an elevator that then ascends, lifting her into the air until she is decapitated. The film also marks the introduction of many of Argento's techniques: discordant soundtracks, odd angles, rolling cameras and various lighting techniques.
Alternate versions
Original Italian version is 126 minutes long. Most US versions remove 22 minutes worth of footage, including most graphic violence, all humorous scenes, almost all of the romantic scenes between David Hemmings and Daria Nicolodi and part of the subplot regarding the house of the screaming child.
A full screen Italian language version with English subtitles contains the credits scene with David Hemmings reacting to the death of the killer in a pool of blood. The last few frames pause the image finally.
The original UK Redemption video release was cut by 11 seconds to remove scenes of 2 dogs fighting and a live lizard impaled with a pin. The 2005 Platinum DVD issue is slightly re-framed (to exclude the lizard scene) and restores the dog sequence, as it seems likely that they are playing rather than fighting.
The full-length Italian version (with English subtitles and one small cut by UK censors) is available on video in the UK in pan & scan format from Redemption Films. The only known widescreen print of this version can be found in Australia completely uncut on both SBS-TV and its pay-TV channel World Movies. Note that the widescreen laserdisc release is in English language and was cut by director Argento himself by about 12 minutes.
References
^Flanagan, Jamie. "S". Italian Film blog. "The film’s menacing score is provided by Argento-favorites Goblin, an Italian prog-rock band who also scored Argento’s Suspiria and George A. Romero’s horror classic Dawn of the Dead."
