Dario Argento
Noah’s Barks pages relating to movie/film director Dario Argento.
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Tenebre
Tenebre is the most thoroughly competent Dario Argento film I’ve ever seen. That is to say, it’s one of the dullest. Argento usually finds success in absurdity, so he never really grasps it in this straightforward murder mystery. The killings are full of gore but generic slashings and stabbings, and the mystery isn’t very enthralling… (read more)
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Inferno
Inferno could get any Suspiria fan excited, being a semi-sequel and all, but now I wish it was never related. It feels like Suspiria with its spine ripped out. The same colors are used but the lighting is extremely dim and passive, the soundtrack is barely there (and the choral theme is awful), the murders… (read more)
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Opera
The most frustrating Dario Argento film I’ve seen yet, and that’s saying something. The premise of Opera is fantastic, but that’s almost as far as it gets. There’s the potential for a horror masterpiece here, so Argento’s usual quirks bring the everything down rather than give it more appeal. With an opera theme you’d expect… (read more)
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Phenomena
I’m writing this after seeing Phenomena for the first time and all I can think about is one of the most wild, insane final acts I’ve ever seen in a movie. I can’t go into detail and ruin it, but I have so little words anyway. I liked the pulp-horror vibe of the movie before,… (read more)
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The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
The best thing that can be said about The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is that it’s identifiably “Dario Argento” despite being his debut. The gory murders still affect, his eye for framing and following a shot is already ace, and of course, it’s a murder-thriller. Hitchcockian in the best of ways. However, I find… (read more)
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Deep Red
It’s a bizarre world when Suspiria‘s more popular than Deep Red. It may not have the intoxicating visual design of Dario Argento’s more successful thriller, but Deep Red overall comes out on top by giving more attention to the thing Suspiria neglected: its script. With an immediately psychologically interesting killer (and thus interesting mystery), great… (read more)
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Suspiria
The plot of Suspiria is pretty whatever—even Dario Argento has done better. But he’s certainly never topped Suspiria‘s astonishing, shrieking assault of color and sound. It’s some kind of unwritten law that the less your horror movie focuses on dialogue, the better off you probably are. Argento targets his thrills at the senses, not silly… (read more)