Over the past few months I've come to appreciate the genre of horror films known as giallo more than I did in the past. While I'd seen several of the movies long ago I never quite got what the whole interest in them was. I get it now. It's a style, the way a story is told, the images that combine with those to make a compelling movie. I've discovered movies I missed and gone back to revisit some I saw long ago. TENEBRAE falls into that latter category.Anthony Franciosa stars as Peter Neal, an author who specializes in horror filled tomes revolving around murder. In Italy to promote his latest book he suddenly finds himself in the midst of a real life serial killing situation. It seems that the killer must be a fan as he's murdering people similar to the styles used in Neal's books and stuffing pages from his books in their mouths.As the film moves forward more questions come to mind. Is the killer someone influenced by the work of Neal or is it actually Neal himself doing the killing? What tie with Neal does the killer have, a personal connection or just that of crazed fan? Who will the next victim of the killer be and do all the victims have something in common? All is revealed by the end with something most viewers won't see coming.First off let's start with the acting. There isn't an actor in the bunch here who doesn't turn in a fine performance. Franciosa, a regular on numerous television series in the sixties and seventies, does a fantastic job as Neal, giving him that investigative edge when it comes to trying to solve the identity of the murderer while at the same time presenting himself as a likely suspect. A nice trick if you can pull it off and he does so quit well. John Saxon, a man who starred in what is considered the first giallo film, is on hand as well doing a great job as Neal's agent. The other actors also turn in great performances though I'm honestly not as familiar with their previous work, the only exception of which is Daria Nicolodi who has starred in several giallo works and was also the longtime companion of director Dario Argento.Dario Argento. Among the directors most noted for creating and giving life to this genre, Argento is the one who made it more mainstream than ever and who led it from simple murder mysteries into the realm of horror with supernatural touches in several films. He takes the various elements of the genre, the black gloved hands, the violent deaths, the bright colors and camera angles and makes them his own. The blood spilled in Argento's films always flows bright red and bursts forth more so than earlier examples of the genre and yet in an artistic way that doesn't force you to turn your head. His style is truly recognizable and puts him among the greats of film history.As I said, I've watched films in this genre in the past and TENEBRAE is one of those films. I even recall having it in the video store I once owned, a new release that I was sure fans would embrace. But it never really quite caught on in my area and neither did the whole giallo genre. Even I wasn't quick to embrace it but at least I recognized it existed. In part that might have been because the quality of the movies at the time left much to be desired. It wasn't that they were terrible but still, the transfers were usually soft focused and dubbing was terrible. That all changed with DVD and more so now with blu-ray. When coupled with the treatment of this film by Synapse it gets even better.Synapse has released a new version of the film on blu that is something to behold. The quality, the clarity, the crispness of the image is amazing. This new version features a supervised color correction and restoration of a 1080p scan from the original camera negative, presented in the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. What that means is the best quality picture to watch that has ever been offered.In addition to that there are a number of other extras worth noting. There is a commentary track by film critic and Argento expert Maitland Mcdonagh. The blu-ray version includes a feature length documentary, YELLO FEVER: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE GIALLO by High Rise Productions discussing the rise in popularity of the genre from its early roots in crime fiction and on through its influence on slasher films into the world today. Also included are the original end credits sequence from the films U.S. version title UNSANE, alternate opening credits and an international trailer. Synapse is doing a great job with the way they're handling releases like this and it makes fans and movie lovers grow anxious to see what they have next in store. Right now they're taking orders for another Argento film, PHEOMENA, and I for one can't wait to see what they do with it. If nothing else I'm certain that we'll get the best looking version of the film, another among those I once saw in low quality VHS. With the care they're showing to the films of Argento it just makes you wish they could be responsible for handling all of his films.

Is when you fearfully expect one certain thing to happen. Unlike horror, which is sudden and random. Terror builds up and is foreshadowed. This movie in my opinion succeeds in terror, I found it terrifying. Not horrifying. I loved the plot. With its crazy plot and plot twists, it certainly helped the movie to make me terrified. Anyway the story is convoluted and Dario as usual doesn't spoon feed his audience with the answers leading some people to believe there are plot holes in the movie. (Requieres repeated viewing). All I will say is the movie is cut in two parts and connecting those two parts requires logical reasoning. (Referring to the shiny ornament in the middle of the movie, with organ pipes playing in the background). So the movie doesn't fall into everyone's taste meaning it is not mainstream, mainstream movies usually explain everything to the audience. Tenebre doesn't. Also it is bizarre, moody and ultra-violent. Also the Goblin soundtrack will turn some people off but they are the reason why I love this movie. What I also love about this movie is it is atmospheric and artistic. What the movie does is it first establishes mood before every murder and make us wait for it. It doesn't just mindlessly show someone getting killed every 15 minutes. It builds up tension and uses that tension to make the murders more terrifying. As an example I want to mention that wonderful crane shot with the Goblin music, it left me in awe. It was great cinematography. What the point of the crane shot is to give the feeling of the murderer scouting the location. (Have you ever played the Hit-man games?) Also to add tension and make the audience wait for imminent death. There was also the segment with the Doberman, which had the get away from a dangerous situation just to get into a more dangerous situation. Where she should have been safe she ended up being in greater danger. It was full of tension. It was bizarre yes and for some out of place, but it added irony and I love irony. The violence made me uncomfortable, but that is how I want violence portrayed. Even by our standards it was uncomfortable. By the way, this movie is also a slasher so it means it is more bloodthirsty than 'Profondo Rosso' and 'Suspiria'. It is also the most sexually oriented containing nudes. So more bloodthirsty and more sexual, I honestly love that. A lot. The tone of the movie is very psycho-sexual. Which isn't so foreign in an Argento movie, but sexual deviancy being one of the main themes the tone fits well. Another theme is revenge. Passionate revenge. Anyway I also loved the POV of the killer, it made the movie more unsettling to watch since it forced its viewer to take "part" of the killing. The screaming at the end of the movie evokes strong emotions and dread. It is one of the craziest endings I've seen to be honest. It shook me to my very core. Remembering the scene gives me the chills.The movie gets 10/10 from me and it is my favorite Argento movie, although I don't consider it to be the best Argento movie (Profondo Rosso is definitely his best, in my opinion).

Back when Dario Argento loved the smell of fresh celluloid in the morning, a film like Tenebrae could come out. It was the peak of his powers as a filmmaker, coming off of work like Suspiria and Inferno, he decided to once again make a hardcore 'Giallo' (Suspiria and Inferno diverge a bit, though still have the tropes). If you look at it, the story isn't that so much different than other films of his: a character, or a couple of them, our heroes, are in Rome or Italy someplace and a killer-with-black-gloves (that's all we see, naturally) is killing people, and the cops are on the case and the case also involves these characters, and the hero/es try to figure out the murders themselves - this despite how relentlessly grisly and gory they can get. In this case in Tenebrae, the story surrounds a celebrated author of horror-thriller books (Anthony Franciosa), who is in Rome to promote his new book of the title, and murders are happening that are connected with his material. At first he tries to ignore it, but gets drawn in inexorably as does happen. But not all is what it seems.Tenebrae - or "Unsane" as it was called for a while in the US - is Argento going the route that sometimes creators of pulp like this went into: think Stephen King with Misery, a story of an author who is stalked by a fan, for example. But for Argento, the kills don't all have to be people we've followed diligently throughout the film; indeed the first person killed is just a would-be shop-lifter who wanted a copy of the book in a store, and is stalked home and stabbed by the killer (after an uncomfortable but sort of darkly funny scene with a mangy old man trying to fondle her I guess), and the pages of the book are crumpled in her mouth before the throat gets slit. Oh boy.Or take the girl who we do get to know a bit and like, the daughter of the manager at the hotel Peter Neal is staying at. In probably the most intense and masterful sequence in the film, or at least one of them (and, again, sometimes with dollops of absurd comedy), she gets in an argument with the boy she went with for the day, is out by herself at night, and a dog - a rotweiler of course - wants to attack her, jumps over a high fence, and proceeds to chase her, occasionally bite her (them she gets him away), and then runs some more. She then happens upon the killer's domain - how she gets there and how she gets inside is just one of those contrivances, go with it, it's a movie silly - and then more stalking happens from there. The quality of horror is so high and disturbing that it made me ask a frightening question of logic: what happens to the dog after she goes inside the lair? We may never know...Argento's only faults here, and they should be noted, are the familiarity aspects - the scenes with the cop explaining things with Peter Neal back and forth are alright, but he's just alright as an actor, maybe near the end he tries more, he's there to give exposition and figure things like a Detective Movie Character does - and just part of the ending. I can't go into it without really spoiling things to high heaven, however suffice it to say the killer is revealed (in some part), and then it kind of feels disappointing as more exposition and other things about the killer are revealed that we, as the audience, already know and don't necessarily need to be shown twice.... but even this is excusable, perhaps like the ending of Psycho, for suddenly how twisted the final moments after this reveal turn things on their heads. This is clearly a filmmaker having so much fun, and in LOVE with filmmaking.It may not have always the same stylish tenor of Suspiria or Deep Red. At the same time, there's rarely a moment I don't see Argento working out psychological quandaries here and twisting them into trashy ways. He's also making a very sexual film in many scenes - there's more nudity than I can remember than from any of his films, and certainly some buxom ladies at that, occasionally to comical lengths like with the prostitute in the lesbian house - and there is one particular crane shot that, arguably, shouldn't exist. This sequence could be told without it, you might suggest. Hell with you, Argento says, and does it HIS way, in a manner that is so elaborate that you can't help but be with the movement of it, especially as Goblin, the director's preferred and awesome devisers of the synth-macabre, make it even more epic.This is a filmmaker who wants to REVEAL things is elaborate and twisted ways, and when the violence really flows it can be shocking; one woman is killed in such a way that isn't so much fun as disgusting, but it's part of the point. Truffaut once said that he wanted to feel a director's love or pain while watching a film, with little interest in the in-between parts. Argento's on fire with Tenebrae, with his thin-but-sometimes-bold characters, occasionally with flashbacks - where Franciosa winds up shouldn't make sense, and at the same time there is a demented logic to it that you can go with in this filmmaker's hands - and his exquisite (yes, deliciously done) set pieces. If you're going to put the audience through suspense, at least know where to point and get the camera for maximum effectiveness. Tenebrae is effective and cracked Italian Horror viewing, filled with ridiculous peril and the joy of terrifying an audience.

Tenebre marks Argento's transition to mediocrity.It features a neat premise, rather fresh back then, a few sly bits, decent main performances, and yet for the first time the Master seems incapable of working his old magic.A sequence halfway through sums it up: a minor character's demise is depicted in an excruciatingly long set-piece, clocking at little less than ten minutes, with a chase, a couple of dog attacks and the coup de grace by an axe-wielding killer. It's strangely toothless stuff and, apart for the use of Argento's trademark "killer POV camera", lacking any particular visual flair.Quite interesting on a meta level is a moment where the main character, a writer, awkwardly defends himself against allegations of misogyny caused by the treatment of female characters in his works - allegations repeatedly faced by Argento himself in his career.5,5/10