Profondo rosso (1975) / Old review

 

After watching Phenomena (1985) Friday night, I thought it would be cool to have a Saturday evening of Italian horror, starting with Deep Red (1975). One of my most "judged" user comments on IMDb is for Deep Red, written September 2008:

A vicious stabbing silhouetted on a wall, the bloody butcher knife thrown to the floor, an unsettling children's tune chanting away on a record player, and a pair of children's legs walking onto the scene of the crime..Argento masterly introduces us to the central event where all the other events that come after contribute to. A psychic announces at a parapsychology session in a theater that she senses the volatile thoughts and feelings of deeply disturbed person. This person leaves the theater, with Argento shooting from POV as he rushes to get away. We know exactly what she "sees" because we were witnesses, slightly, ourselves to the grisly murder of someone not yet determined. Later this psychic is brutally murdered by a psycho in a raincoat with a hatchet. From the street below her apartment, a pianist/professor, Marcus Daly(David Hemmings)sees her face slammed through her window thanks to the harsh blow of the hatchet to the back of her head. Briskly moving to her apartment, he finds her hanging over a broken piece of window glass dead. Something irks him, an image he believes was a painting, that he feels is a vital clue in discovering the killer. Morbidly curious as to why this psychic was killed, Marcus decides to pursue the psycho's identity not only putting his own life in danger but other innocents as well..his pursuit will undoubtedly lead to the murders of those who might find out who the killer is. A house with a hidden room holding a secret, a drawing of a bloody stabbing, a book containing the photo of the specific house, a writing on a bathtub as steam provides a nearly-dead victim a chance to identify a certain fact important to finding the killer all assist Marcus in his pursuit. But, his pursuit gets others inadvertently killed because someone is truly motivated to keep a secret that has remained buried for quite a long time. A woman is stabbed with her face immersed in boiling bathtub water. Another victim gets a knife plunged into his neck. And, an important victim, whose forced into perhaps killing Marcus so that the killer's identity would remain unknown, is dragged by a truck, his head hammering into a concrete sidewalk, before being crushed under another car's tire. A supporting character, Carlo(Gabriele Lavia), Marcus' boozing, depressed, troubled, homosexual pal, has a major role in the film, as does his unflappable mother.

Argento builds the mystery by uncovering each layer, one step at a time, with consequences for those who find out too much. A variety of camera techniques, a throbbing, groovy rock score from Goblin, good chemistry between Hemmings(..much more likable and endearing than his rather soulless artist in Antonioni's Blow-up)and Daria Nicolodi(..as sassy, sexy, and tough-talking liberal reporter Gianni), and some spellbinding set-pieces(..especially when Marcus is inside the infamous, deteriorating mansion which is a shadow of it's once palatial state, just teeming with spooky atmosphere) really make this a winning giallo thriller. Some fantastic sequences include the discovery of a corpse, Hemmings face reflected from a pool of blood, and an eyeball isolated in the darkness of a closet. I watched a rather inferior, lower quality transfer in pan'n'scan format, and highly recommend seeking out the wide-screen version instead. Deep Red should be seen in the proper way, where Argento's work can most appreciated. Probably Argento's most intricately plotted, delicately structured film to date.