Blue Underground unleashes Deep Red on BD - May 17, 2011

[The Great Owl]

While conducting a lecture at a theater in Rome, Italy, a famous psychic becomes visibly unsettled when she senses that someone in the audience has committed a murder and that the person will likely kill again. Later that night, this psychic is brutally hacked to death with a meat cleaver. While standing in the street below the victim's window, Marcus, a professional pianist played by David Hemmings, witnesses the murder. Marcus, who is intrigued by a questionable detail from the crime scene, decides to investigate on his own accord, with the help of a beautiful reporter, played by Daria Nicolodi. Unfortunately, the unknown killer is somehow aware of their every move, and is leaving a trail of bloody corpses at each turn.

The 1975 Italian film, Deep Red, was directed by the legendary Dario Argento, who also helmed horror classics like The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Suspiria, Tenebrae, and Phenomena, and it is a standout in the giallo cinema. The term, “giallo”, the Italian word for “yellow”, was adopted as the genre name for these films, because they were inspired by the murder mysteries with yellow covers that were popular in Europe at the time. In these films, victims, usually gorgeous women, are pursued by killers who usually wear black gloves. Movies in this genre often took cues from the visually mesmerizing works of Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni, and Deep Red carries the inspiration a step farther with its casting of Hemmings in the lead role, since he played the photographer protagonist in Antonioni's magnificent 1966 thriller, Blow-Up. That Antonioni film dealt with the story of an ordinary citizen investigating murders and crimes outside of the safety net of police protection, and this premise, which was influenced by Alfred Hitchcock classics, became a common element in giallo.

One scene in Deep Red, where a mechanical doll approaches a victim, is one of the most effectively eerie moments that I have ever seen in a horror film. As with all of Argento's movies, this one rewards the viewer with a plethora of sequences where otherworldly beauty is mixed with claustrophobic tension and over-the-top gore effects. The killings in Argento films seem to ignore anything and everything that we know about the human anatomy, but the payoff is that the special effects add to the uncanny charm of the stories. Everything about the aesthetic of this movie presents us with a riveting puzzle representing both the elusiveness of memory and the mystery that Marcus takes it upon himself to solve. That puzzle is brought to our eyes by way of incredible settings, namely a stately lecture theater, an abandoned villa, a country home, and picturesque Rome locations. As with other Argento films, this one features a music score by the Italian progressive rock band, Goblin, and its wonderful menace is magnified by the inclusion of a recurring children's lullaby that is played during each killing for reasons that become apparent late in the story.

I watched the long 126-minute Italian version of Deep Red, and, although many fans dislike this version's oddball comedic turns, mostly involving the relationship between Marcus and the reporter, I found that they fit into the end result quite well.

This is a horror masterpiece through and through.

This Blue Underground Blu-ray of Deep Red delivers the blood-soaked visual goods with a nicely filmic transfer with natural grain. I would not be surprised if this title is revisited with another Region A playable edition someday soon (since the limited edition Arrow version is now difficult to find), but I'm also pleased with what this existing edition has to offer. The sound quality, at least with the Italian version, brings out the best of the dialogue and the intensely creepy lullaby.

This Blu-ray goes light on extras, and the only standout supplement is a collection of interview footage with Argento, Goblin, and others.