Tenebre

1982's TENEBRE is considered by many fans to be director Dario Argento's best film.  Certainly arguable, but what is not is how influenced and influential it is.  Argento pays tribute to both cinema and literature's rich past with scenes that play as direct homages.   How he frames things, how they're edited.  Even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is quoted.  It is also clear that many later films have attempted to recapture Argento's artistry, namely the creative killings and bloodletting.  It would be interesting to conjecture if Brian De Palma was inspired by or inspired Argento, as the former's DRESSED TO KILL from two years prior shares many themes and predilections with TENEBRE.  Right down to this film's murder weapon of choice, a straight razor.   But the killer here does switch to an ax for the later dispatches.

American author Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa) is enjoying the international success of his latest bestseller, which shares the title with this movie.  He arrives in Rome to learn that a young woman was brutally slashed, with pages from Tenebre stuffed in her mouth.  Then a mysterious envelope is shoved under Neal's hotel room door.  Written by the killer, with a quote from the novel.  The local detectives are quick to question Neal, and inform him it is likely there will be more letters, and murders.  They are correct.

Argento also provides curious moments throughout, real life flashbacks or scenes from Neal's novels perhaps, of a young woman with red heels who dallies with men on the beach.  And also meets the business end of a knife.

TENEBRE is a film that contemporary viewers will undoubtedly find quite cheesy.  The 1980s aesthetic, the rock/disco hybrid score, the at times abysmal acting, it adds to some campy fun.  But none of this masks the fact that Argento is a master of the giallo, and has composed some wonderfully suspenseful and gruesome moments.  One death late in the film, complete with blood spray on a wall, is an instant classic.  Thematically, the director draws on some of his own experiences as the victim of a stalker.  How someone like Peter Neal, who at least appears to have his head together, can create such nightmarish visions and remain sane is another running theme.  Hmmm.

TENEBRE is also rife with fetishism of all stripes.  It may include fixations with broken glass and weapons, for starters.  You could certainly get lost in analysis.  I bet De Palma wishes he made this.

P.S.: Bravo to the Doberman pinscher who, in a nicely terrifying sequence, gets to chase one character across several fields and through houses.  His jump over a fence is quite impressive; he even pauses to size it up before backing up the appropriate distance.  Dario must've been proud of that dog, taking direction so well.