Tenebrae / Shudder / Notes

 

This was on Shudder and after watching Shock (1977) yesterday afternoon on Sunday, I wanted to see Nicolodi again. I don't know what it is, but her death struck me. I admit that she never was that standout when I was devouring Giallo in the early 2000s during the Netflix DVD boon. Tenebrae (1982) is to me the real gem of the 80s in terms of just Dario unleashing the violence, unloading that beast from its cage. That shiny blade stabs a whole bunch of fucking people and those ax murders are brutal. The savagery is on an epic scale. I wrote an Stephen King IT sized user comments for Tenebrae in 2010. I didn't remember writing that much, but I covered that movie passionately. It struck a nerve back then. Tonight, I was just taking all that brutality in. Yes, it is a murder mystery where the initial killer is inspired by a novelist's (Franciosa) book (called Tenebrae). And there is a flashback regarding a young woman with teenage boys where a future killer in the film is held down by them as the aforementioned woman kicks him and stuffs her heel in his mouth. Later that victim returns to stab her to death. The "first" killer responsible for all the knife stabbings looked at his victims as "deviant perverts". When he gets the ax to the head, another takes over. There is this additional melodrama with Saxon (Franciosa's agent) and Lario (Franciosa's ex) as lovers that extends the film after the first killer goes down and the next killer really grabs that ax hidden in the tree, showing no mercy to those he deems deserved of the violence. Some backs get the ax, a head gets it, but poor Lario loses an arm with that geyser splashing a wall in quite a gusher. Saxon next to Lario gets off easier with just some knives in the belly. D'Angelo, the victim under the white shirt when the knife slices it open showing her face, I thought was absolutely beautiful...she was a critic of Franciosa's books as misogynistic, which was to me Argento's purposed addition because he also endured those criticisms. Nicolodi's screaming at the end...I loved that, for whatever reason. All of that brutality would garner such a reaction. The backstory I read about her drama with Dario and her subsequent screaming as "cathartic" cracked me up. I just love me some Tenebrae. Over on IMDb, the user comments are all over the place. But to rate this a 1 - 3 out of 10 is fucking ridiculous. Argento directed his ass off with this film. Perhaps he put so much into it, that might be why he never quite reached this again, though Phenomena and Opera have serious fandom. I'm glad Shudder had this. Curious young horror fans might find Argento an acquired taste. ****¹⁄₂ *****