WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers
I wonder if people would consider Dario Argento as a “controversial” director as four of his films made the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) list of so-called “video-nasties” – including Tenebrae and Inferno which featured in Sections 1 and 2 respectively as well as Suspiria and Deep Red, which I will discuss further below, were entered on to Section 3 – a supplementary list entitled “Video Nasties”. I mentioned before how Rob Zombie had a keen habit of casting his wife, Sheri Moon, in his films. Well, Argento went a step further – not only casting his wife, Daria Nicolodi, but also his daughters, Asia and Fiore. Funnily enough, the only acting Fiore has done was in her father’s films.
Deep Red
Also known as The Hatchet Murders, Deep Red was banned by the British Board of Film Classification for its scenes of animal cruelty. There’s only 11 seconds worth but upon first watching they clearly felt this was enough. Through research, as this is the only way to find this information, I discovered Argento himself had also cut at least 26 minutes of screen time between Gianni (Daria Nicolodi) and Marcus (David Hemmings) from this film. Now, this is the second time I’ve watched this and noticed that he may have possibly removed a sex scene. I only think this because there is clip of what seems to be Marcus getting dressed in front of Gianna and she suddenly seems more attached to him than before. In my opinion, I feel like this is supposed to be an attempt at a slasher film but ends up being more of a murder mystery. Don’t get me wrong though, the children’s music the killer uses is definitely creepy. Interestingly, this film has also been described by Quentin Tarantino as one of his favourite horror films, even though he found it ‘rattling’ as a teenager. If that isn’t the mark of a good film, I don’t know what is but no offence Quentin – I didn’t find it that scary…
Suspiria
This is actually the first Argento film that I have seen that truly focuses on the horror of what is taking place. Like I said above, Deep Red feels more like a murder mystery whereas this film starts out pretty disturbing, especially with the death of Pat Hingle. The strange part about this is that you assume at first that maybe this is going to be a slasher film but there’s something about the attack on Daniel that screamed vampires to me. However, I guess witchcraft isn’t too much of a far cry from vampirism, both being derived from the occult. Interestingly, I have a feeling Argento made a hint towards one of his other films when Suzie is leaving the hidden room as there is a peacock sitting on a table, potentially a reference to The Bird with a Crystal Plumage. As I mentioned at the beginning, this film along with Deep Red,made the BBFC’s DPP list and was cut by 8 minutes in order to receive even an R-rating in America. What I find funny about this is that I found certain scenes in the recent remake much more violent and disturbing than in this version but maybe what I watched of this was not uncut. If it was, it’s funny how things change over the years.
Dark Glasses
I was originally supposed to be discussing the film Two Evil Eyes, however that film is a joint directorial with George A. Romero, so I have disregarded it for both of them. This is actually Argento’s most recent directorial, having been released in 2022. For all intents and purposes, this film is, in my opinion, more of a thriller than a horror film and I like the fact that Argento tried to keep to the same gritty feel of his previous thrillers like Deep Red and Tenebrae – even down to the style of instrumental music used. This film starts off quite hard hitting, with the murder of a prostitute less than 10 minutes in, but from there we seem to spend more time centred around Diana learning to cope with her blindness with the help of Rita, played by Asia Argento, and building a relationship with Chin – the young boy caught up in the accident that took her sight. Yes, she is still in the grips of the serial killer as we see he has been following her but that part of the story seems to drift into the background of the film quite a bit. Things pick up a little when the killer takes out the police but not as much as you would hope for a film of this style. Now, I don’t know if this is a sign that I watch too many of this style of film OR that it reflects badly on this film itself, but I had a suspicion from the moment we met Matteo that he was the serial killer and that he chose Diana because she rejected him.
Mother of Tears
There’s continuous discussion about what the definition of what a horror film truly is, especially as people question whether slasher films really count. I always feel that there needs to be some element of the occult involved in the plot line for me, much like Suspiria, this film is definitely a horror! I’ve said it before and I’ll say again – DON’T READ THE ANCIENT TEXT! It never ends well and it definitely doesn’t for Giselle! What I didn’t realise is that, even though not directly connected by characters or plot line, this film forms the final part of Argento’s supernatural horror trilogy The Three Mothers – starting with Suspiria andfollowed by Inferno. Having said that, it is mentioned that Sarah’s mother was a dancer and fought against a dark witch – Mater Suspiriorum, referencing the first film.It amazes me that this film was made 30 years after the first film in the trilogy and, in my opinion anyway, it is much more violent than its predecessor – especially when you look at the death of Giselle alone and that is only the beginning – but I guess that may be the point, the “mother of tears” is the mother of violence to some extent.
Dracula 3D
It is very odd to watch a 3D film without the 3D technology because you can see which parts are supposed to come out of the screen at you but it doesn’t actually work – so it just ends up looking a little bit odd. I do find it interesting however, the little bits of the story that Argento seems to have changed. For example, he has decided to make Harker a librarian instead of, I guess the best way to describe him is, an estate agent. This means that there is no need for the Count to ever leave the castle, leading to Mina coming to them instead of the other way around. It doesn’t have a massive impact on the story because everything remains the same but it just seemed like an odd thing to do in my opinion. I see what they mean by describing it as a ‘sexy’ retelling so the story. Obviously, I can only talk about this in comparison to Bram Stoker’s Dracula but there’s definitely a lot more nudity and sexual scenes in this version.
