By Steve Biodrowski

DEEP RED is one of the most important films in the career of Italian horror maestro Dario Argento (Suspiria, Inferno, Tenebrae). It represents a quantum leap from Argento’s early, Mario Bava-influenced giallo thrillers into a brand of horror all his own. Abandoning composer Ennio Morricone, who had scored Argento’s “Animal Trilogy” (Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Cat O’Nine Tails,and Four Flies on Grey Velvet) with conventional suspense music, the director for the first time employed the rock group Goblin to provide an overpoweringly assaultive soundtrack that suited the new high-powered visual dynamics.

Baroque and rich in detail, the film is a dizzying feast for the eyes. Argetno exhibits an almost fetishistic delight in the weapons of violence, and his camera is no longer bound by the dictates of narrative. The lens dances around the details of Roman architecture, contrasting their formal, classical beauty with the chaos of the plot (about a deranged murderer stalking a witness whose confused memory may hold the key to the killer’s identity). It’s not enough that he makes a point clear, especially if it is the point of a knife; instead, he dwells not only on the violence but on the results in a lurid way that makes watching the film akin to being in a state of delirium. In fact, at times the film seems to want to take you briefly inside the mind of the killer, as when the Macro-closeup lens performs an intricate ballet (choreographed to the Goblin’s title them) across a table top covered with the killer’s childishly demented trinkets (dolls stuck with pins, etc) until finally sliding up the gleaming surface of a switchblade knife.

RETROSPECTIVE

Director Dario Argento had completed three “giallo” thrillers in the early 1970s. The term “giallo” (a reference the yellow tinge of pulp novel paper in Italy) indicates a genre that emerged in Italy in the wake of Alfred Hitchock’s Psycho, characterized by masked serial killers, usually targeting beautiful women and utilizing extremely brutal methods, usually filmed in an extremely stylish manner. One of the seminal works in this sub-genre is cult director Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace, starring Cameron Mitchell.) Argento’s early work in this field (the “Animal Trilogy”) proved him to be a talented practitioner. Deep Red, however, proved him to be a master, equally on par with Bava.

The film uses many of the same mystery plot devices that characterized Argento’s previous films: most importantly, the story focuses on a non-detective (in this case, David Hemmings as Mark, a jazz pianist) who becomes involved in a murder investigation, having witnessed some detail that he can’t quite recall but which he feels sure will lead him to the killer before the police can find him. His amateur investigation draws the attention of the killer, who targets Mark, while at the same time cutting off every conceivable loose thread that Mark might follow. Ultimately, a vague clue leads him to a supposedly haunted house, where a hidden painting and a walled-up body eventually lead him to the identity of the killer. Or so he thinks. That nagging, half-remembered clue finally comes back to him in the last reel, precipitating a nifty twist ending and a horrifyingly gory denouement.

What sets Deep Red apart from the “animal trilogy” is the richness of its stylization. At this point in his career, Argento was still careful enough about his scripts (this one co-written Fellini collaborator Bernardino Zapponi) to include interesting, quirky characterization and lots of clues leading to the revelation of the killer. However, in this film he layered this basic component with camerawork beyond anything he had ever achieved before. Location shooting in Italy, coupled with some fine production design on the interior sets, gives the film a lavish, beautiful look, captured in garish lighting schemes and filmed from outrageous, often moving, camera angles. The outbreaks of violence are intense and graphic, and Argento takes almost a movie musical approach to the interludes: i.e., he’s not afraid to let the plot grind to a halt while he waits for the last note to fade out on a big set piece. The language here is more literal than figurative, as the intense, progressive rock score by Goblin highlights both the murderer’s insanity and the violence of his crimes. The result is almost operatic—in the same sense that Sergio Leone’s Italian Westerns inspired a critical review of the genre titled “Opera of Violence.”

But the film has more on its mind that just gruesome violence. The profoundly disturbing impact of Argento’s films (at least the ones made during this period) is that they present a pessimistic worldview of madness, chaos, and death lurking just behind the placid façade of everyday life. The protagonist Mark is, typically, an artist, in this case a pianist (other Argento films have featured writers, dancers, and singers). As an artist, Mark’s job is to create beauty by finding a sense of order in the chaos. He goes through life (like most of us) blissfully unaware of the true nature of the world, until his pleasant (even self-satisfied) worldview is shattered when he witnesses a murder. The little niggling fact he cannot quite remember will lead him on a quest that will take him deeper into the dark recesses of the killer’s world, and the tragedy of his situation is that, even if he succeeds in capturing the murderer, Mark will never be able to regain his previous mental equilibrium. Typically for Argento, there is no “morning after” scene in which Mark resumes his old life; instead, the film abruptly ends after the killer is dispatched, leaving Mark gazing at his own reflection in a pool of blood, and it seems he will ever after be living in a world tinted ‘deep red.”

ALTERNATE VERSIONS

Unfortunately, DEEP RED has only been seen in truncated form in most countries. After its initial Italian release, the film’s two-hour-plus running time apparently was shortened to approximately 100 minutes before it was exported to other countries. In the U.S., at least some theatrical prints were retitled Hatchet Murders, and even more footage (mostly dialogue snippets) was deleted. Later airings on broadcast television censored the violence, shortening the film to close to 90 minutes. The VHS videotape release in the 1980s restored the missing bloodshed, but the widescreen image was pan-and-scanned for television screens. A Japanese laserdisc in the 1990s offered a good letterboxed image and a 105 minute running time, but there was still quite a bit missing. The result was that, as effective and horrific as it was, DEEP RED still appeared to suffer from many of the flaws often associated with visually-oriented directors; that is, it often jumped from one big horror scene to the next, without always keeping track of the characters or the plot.

A complete, unrated cut of the film (running 126 minutes) finally became available in the U.S. on DVD in 2000, thanks to Anchor Bay. A blessing for fans, the disc nonetheless was marred by some obvious problems. First off, the reinstated footage is missing the English-language track, which means that every time a new scene shows up, you hear it in Italian, with English subtitles. The effect makes it easy to identify new footage, but it is considerably distracting. is, on the one hand, considerably distracting. As an alternative, you have the option of watching the film entirely in Italian with English subtitles; although this may seem like a logical thing to do with an Italian film, the movie was shot with English actor David Hemmings speaking in his native language—hearing an Italian voice come out of his mouth is distracting in its own way.

This longer version is superior in many ways, but the pacing is slower; sometimes the trade off is to the film’s benefit, sometimes not. In particular, Mark’s search through the allegedly haunted house goes on way too long and ruins the build-up to the revelation of an important clue by cutting away to an additional, unnecessary bit of business.

There are also a couple of inexplicable freeze-frames added to shots that run as live action in the theatrical prints. The first instance is merely distracting; the second is nearly ruinous. (SEE ADDENUDM FOR DETALS.)

TRIVIA

Director Dario Argento and actress Daria Nicolodi met on this film. They went on to fall in love and live together for many years. Nicolodi appeared in many subsequent Argento films, and she co-wrote the screenplay for his very next movie, the cult classic SUSPIRIA. Their daughter, Asia Argento, became an international movie star in films like QUEEN MARGOT and TRIPLE X; she also appeared in several of her father's films (TRAUMA, THE STENDAHL SYNDROME, PHANTOM OF THE OPERA).

The film's title seems to have been inspired by the rock group Deep Purple (best known for the hit song "Smoke on the Water). Dario Argento had wanted the group to score his previous film, FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET, but they were not available.

Composer Giorgio Gaslini was originally hired to score DEEP RED, but Argento was not satisfied with his work. Co-star Daria Nicolodi gave Argento a copy of the self-titled debut album from a group called Cherry Five, a progressive rock effort (obviously inspired by Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer) that included titles like "The Swan is a Murderer," "Picture of Dorian Gray," and "Country Grave-Yard." Argento liked the group so much that he asked hired them to finish the music for DEEP RED.

The group dropped their lead vocalist (since the movie's soundtrack needed no lyrics) and renamed themselves Goblin. They ended up arranging and performing some of Gaslini's music and also composing some original tracks of their own (including the memorable main title theme). In the finished film, you can hear three species of music: some composed and recorded by Gaslini (mostly traditional suspense music, plus some jazzy source music supposedly performed by the film's protagonist); some written by Gaslini but performed by Goblin; and some composed and performed by Goblin.

The on screen credit for the score reads "Music by Giorgio Gaslini and the Goblins." A bit more accurately, the credit on the original soundtrack album translates as approximately, "Music by Giorgio Gaslini, arranged and executed by Goblin."

DVD DETAILS

The Anchor Bay DVD presents the film in its original 2.35 aspect ratio, with the image enhanced for 16x9 television screens. The image is clear and sharp, and contains picture image at the edge of the frame that was missing from the Japanese laserdisc (such as the coated figure Mark sees walking around a corner after the first murder).

There are two soundtracks, English and Italian. Both are presented in Dolby 5.1 and Dobly 2.0 stereo sound. There is also an option for English subtitles. As mentioned above, the English version reverts to Italian for all restored scenes. The sound mix enhances the score by Goblin, but in general the film still sounds like a mono track for dialogue and effects, with the only the music spread out over the separate stereo channels. Still, this isn’t something to be discounted, as the music plays an important part in building up the horror of the film.

This disc has a fairly simple interactive menu, which consists mostly of images from the film with musical loops playing behind them. In a clever touch, as you select buttons for the different features, a scream erupts from your TV speaker as the camera seems to zoom into the mouth of the corpse seen in the film.

The bonus features include talent bios, two theatrical trailers, and a 25th anniversary featurette, including interviews with Argento, co-writer Zapponi, and members of Goblin. These extras are relatively minimal compared to some “special edition” discs, but they are quite interesting and informative.

The American trailer emphasizes the violence, accompanied by a narration that stretches for hyperbole (“Deep Red—it will put you into…Deep Shock.”) The Italian trailer (which can be viewed with or without subtitles) takes a more enigmatic approach. Backed by Goblin’s rather ambient “Wild Session” track, the trailer suggests a genuinely creepy movie rather than a simply slasher flick, relying mostly on static images and still frames (ironically, the closing credits shot, of Hemmings reflection in the pool of blood, is shown in three snippets—and it’s live action, not a still frame. A brief snipped on the soundtrack gives us an early demo rendition of the “School at Night” theme, a sort of children’s lullaby, played on the piano instead of with full orchestra as in the film. (This is one of the tracks composed by Georgio Gaslini before Argento replaced him with Goblin.) There is no narration on the Italian trailer, so the English subtitles add little, except to tell you that the trailer presents the film as “An Exceptional Event,” in keeping with Argento’s stature in Italy.

The talent bios are for stars David Hemmings and Daria Nicolodi, director Dario Argento, composers Goblin, producer Claudio Argento, and co-writer Bernadino Zapponi (who died on February 11, 2000 shortly after recording his interview for the “making of featurette). The information contained is, of necessity, condensed, but the result is fairly informative for those not familiar with the careers of the people involved. It is enhanced by the use of some judicious quotes taken from previously published interviews, especially for the entry on Argento, making this a bit less like a dry encyclopedia entry and more like a short article.

The 25th Anniversary featurette runs about ten minutes, featuring interviews with Argento, Zapponi, and Goblin. Argento and Zapponi discuss the film’s script, while the rock group barely have time to do more than introduce themselves. (Why not get them to perform the film’s main theme? Now that would have been a value added extra worth having!) Inevitably, these brief sound bites leave you wanting more, but there are some great tidbits of information. Zapponi explains the killer’s methods were chosen because they were reminiscent of something most viewers could have experienced in real life—being cut, burned, etc, as opposed to being shot with a gun. Argento insists the film isn’t more violent than his previous “animal trilogy”; it’s just presented with greater impact. He also alludes to the reason for dismissing the film’s original composer, Georgio Gaslini, in favor of Goblin but gives no details except that his work didn’t “capture the spirit” of the film.

Perhaps tangentially explaining why there is no director’s commentary track, Argento goes on to say that he doesn’t like to revisit his old films, because the experience only reminds him of what didn’t work or was cut out; he does, however, express gratitude to Anchor Bay’s William Lustig for preserving Deep Red in complete form. The featurette also reprises Argento’s comments (previously seen on the Inferno DVD) about why he uses his own hands for insert close-ups of the killer at work (“I know how to do those dramatic movements”).

CONCLUSION

Seen today, DEEP RED (even in truncated form) remains an excellent horror-thriller that retains its capacity to shock. The stylistic excesses, both audio and visual, are not to everyone’s taste, and thirty years after the original release, they make the film seem a bit like a weird artifact from another time. This is especially true when the action on screen does not quite justify the techniques being employed. For example, when Mark nearly falls to his death while trying to break through a walled-in upper story window, the initial suspense wears off as soon as it becomes apparent that he has a good grip on a drainage pipe that will allow him to climb down to safety—and yet the music keeps blasting away as if he is in eminent danger. And a few lines do provoke titters, as when a frightened Mark tells Gianna over the phone that someone in his apartment is “absolutely trying to kill me, you know?”

But these flaws are few and far between. More often than not, Argento succeeds at creating an elaborate visual style that justifies itself with its own effectiveness. As a murder-mystery, DEEP RED may not rank with HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, but it stands on its own as an excellent piece of cinema that ranks alongside PSYCHO as a psychological horror film in which the violent set pieces are only part of the terror. Argento’s approach may not be quite as sophisticated as Alfred Hitchcock’s, but it has a mesmerizing vitality nonetheless. You leave the theatre feeling as if you have awakened from a nightmare, but it’s a nightmare that never wants to let you go.

ADDENDUM: NEW FOOTAGE/VARIATIONS

For those who want a Video Watchdog rundown of the additions and changes seen in the director’s cut of DEEP RED on the Anchor Bay DVD, here you go…

The first noticeable difference occurs in the DVD’s Chapter 1: Goblin’s main them starts up immediately over the opening credits, which run slightly longer and contain the English-language title rather than the Italian version (“Profondo Rosso”). Previous version had the first few title cards over silence, then cut to a flashback murder scene (accompanied by a children’s lullaby), then resumed the credits with the main title music fading in. This means that in the director’s cut, the “Deep Red” theme music is interrupted by the lullaby, which later turns out to be part of the killer’s modus operandi.

After the credits, the film immediately cuts to the first new scene: Chapter 2 (“Rehearsal”) begins by showing Mark rehearsing with some jazz musicians. (Mark’s career was referenced in the shorter cut, but you never really got to see him at work.) Thereafter, much of the new material takes the form of additional bits of dialogue peppered throughout several scenes, such as the parapsychology conference where psychic Helga Ulman detects the presence of a killer in the audience (Chapter 3, “Evil Thoughts”), a feat which soon costs her life. In the subsequent investigation (Chapter 6, “Crime Scene”), Mark’s status as an immigrant is emphasized; also, it becomes clear that the voice of the investigating police detective has much too comical an intonation in the Italian dubbing.

After Helga’s funeral (Chapter 8, “The Funeral”), there is a new scene between Mark and female reporter Gianna (Daria Nicolodi), which helps establish the bickering romance that will develop between them later. Backed by a track from the soundtrack album called “Gianna,” this is one of many character-oriented scenes dropped from the shorter cut. It also shows that Argento, at least at this point in his career, knew how to maintain highs and lows in his films, buffering the violent moments with some good, often funny dialogue scenes (thanks no doubt in part to co-writer Zapponi).

In this case, Mark’s defensiveness in reaction to Gianna, when she accuses him of being “nervous,” is very amusing. The addition of this scene pays off later (Chapter 10, “The Weaker Sex”), when the camera peeks in on the couple (Mark is buttoning his shirt, suggesting—though not definitely confirming—that he has had sex with her) and Gianna says, “See, you’re not nervous anymore.” This scene also has additional dialogue on its conclusion to show that the two do not, in fact, part on unfriendly terms. This also emphasizes Gianna’s predatory approach to Mark, a little red herring to make us wonder whether she’s not stalking him because she is in fact the killer.

Throughout the rest of the film, a similar effect will be seen: old dialogue sounds “new’ because it has been given a new context by the additional footage. Other restored scenes merely add atmosphere or a bit of fun, such as when we see Mark playing a piano duet in a bar with his friend Carlo.

As Mark tries to track down the killer, the expanded cut also starts to make more sense. For one thing, there is additional dialogue (Chapter 18, “Too Late”) to acknowledge some details that have occurred to thoughtful viewers over the years; to wit, since Mark is always showing up one step behind the killer, and leaving his fingerprints at the scene, why don’t the police suspect him? Well, now we know that Mark is worried about precisely this, which is why he is avoiding the police and trying to find the killer on his own. Also raised is the question of how the killer always seems to know where Mark is headed next—an early hint that the killer will turn out to be someone quite close to him.

Also in this chapter of the DVD, there is a brief new scene at the police station, which contains some talk about the police going on strike—presumably to give a hint about why the police investigation is seen so little in the film. And there is a brief bit emphasizing Mark’s growing isolation: instead of just seeing him meet with Professor Giordani, we see him call to arrange a meeting—he’s in a glass phone booth surrounded by cars on either side of the expressway, visually isolating him into a tiny little section of the world. At the end of the meeting there is also a quick shot of a pair of dogs fighting in the street; it has nothing to do with the plot, but it keeps the sense of dangerous violence present in the minds of viewers, even when they’ve just been sitting through a dialogue scene.

So far, all the new elements on the DVD have been improvements. Sad to say, at this point some problems arise that prevent this disc form being the definitive presentation of Deep Red. The first is relatively minor. As Mark tracks down the old, allegedly haunted house that seems to be connected to the killer’s past, he meets the building’s owner and his daughter, a strange girl who seems to enjoy impaling lizards on hat pins. We don’t see her do this, but we do see the result—a small lizard writhing in pain just at the end of Chapter 21 (“Last Words”). For some reason, the image freeze-frames before the film cuts to the next scene—an anomaly not found on the Japanese laserdisc.

In the chapter that immediately follows (“House of Ghosts”), we start to get the impression that what we are seeing is not a director’s cut but a first assembly or a rough cut. This excellent, atmospheric scene (of Mark’s searching the house, accompanied by a repetitive bass figure on the soundtrack) now feels formless, almost aimless, thanks to additional footage that interrupts the interior search with a brief sequence of Mark outside the house (for no apparent reason), before returning him inside, where he makes his “Dark Discovery” in Chapter 23.

This scene (of Mark chipping away plaster to reveal a child’s painting that depicts a murder) has also been expanded in a way that destroys the buildup of tension. The expanded sequence includes a brief interlude of Mark searching the basement for some tool to help scrape away the plaster—an unnecessary digression that interrupts the flow toward the climactic revelation. Another result of this expansion is that the dramatic main theme music now drops out long before the sequence is over, leaving Mark to finish his work in near silence. The additional footage, in this case, only detracts from the overall effectiveness.

Things pick up again in at the end of Chapter 24. After Giordani receives his “Blade in the Neck,” there is a new sequence of Gianna informing Mark of the professor’s death, which leads Mark to decide to leave town before he becomes the killer’s next victim. This believable detail (our hero realizes he’s in over his head and decides to leave matters to the police) helps make the story seem less like a contrived movie plot where everyone always does the predictable thing, and it also shores up a major whole in the continuity (Mark never knew or questioned what happened to Giordani in the short version).

The extended scene is perhaps a bit too much: it ends with actress Nicolodi doing a sultry, vampy exit (accompanied by some twangy blues on the soundtrack) as Gianna mocks Mark’s past preference in women (“You used to go for vamps, huh? You like super sexy women?”) It should come as no surprise to learn that the actress and her director fell in love while making this movie. Perhaps Argento was indulging his leading lady in scenes like this, letting her add decorative bits of business to the scenes. It’s not necessary to the story, but at least it helps give the characters some personality, instead of leaving them as stock figures.

After this, the film proceeds through the rest of 32 chapters without any more additions. There is, however, one major, crucial gaff at the very end: another freeze frame, like the one that mars the lizard shot in Chapter 21. In this case, [Mild Spoiler Alert] after Mark dispatches the killer, the credits roll while, wounded and exhausted himself, Mark stares at his own reflection in a pool of the killer’s blood. The problem? The entire shot is a single freeze frame, with the credits rolling over the top. Without the actual motion, we cannot see that this is a pool of red liquid, so the impact of the shot is almost totally destroyed. The whole point (as with many Argento films) is that Mark the artist has been forcibly jolted out of his previous world view, which was presumably informed by the structure and order of the art he practiced. Now, he sees the world through “deep red,” tinted with the color of blood, the result of senseless, almost random violence. With the freeze frame, all we have is an abstract credits sequence: a photograph of the lead actor’s face upside down on the screen, looking as if it was shot through a red filter.It’s a sad way to end what should have been the perfect version of the film.