Movie Review: Deep Red (1975)

Widely considered one of director and co-writer Dario Argento’s masterpieces, Deep Red is perhaps the most celebrated film of the Italian giallo genre. I watched the director’s cut because that’s what I had available to me. I’m not sure the differences, of course, but I’m assuming this was much more violent than whatever was originally released in the US (but may or may not have been too different from what was released in Italy).

David Hemmings (Blowup) plays an artist who witnesses a murder and eventually notices a peculiar clue in a photograph. Just like in Blowup. That’s where the similarities end, of course, as Blowup is a completely unique movie.

Anyways, the first murder in this movie happens during the opening credits, around Christmas, when someone is stabbed to death, causing a child to scream. This scene feels very disconnected from the rest of the movie.

Years later, a psychic, Helga Ulmann (Macha Meril), gives a lecture to a crowded theater, exhibiting her abilities by saying she knows there’s a murderer there who will murder again.

This becomes true, of course, as she is murdered in her apartment. Jazz pianist Marcus Daly (Hemmings) is out with his best friend, Carlo (Gabriele Lavia) when he sees her through the window and rushes to save her, but it is too late, as her throat was pierced by broken glass from the window.

As the police investigate, Marcus meets Gianna Brezzi (Daria Nicolodi, Tenebrae), a reporter that takes a photo of him that makes it into the newspaper, mentioning he’s the witness. He also realizes that he can’t find a painting that he knows he saw when he came in, thinking that it was stolen.

In his apartment the next night, Marcus hears music he doesn’t recognize, and the killer comes at him, but he’s able to escape by locking himself in the study.

Helga’s psychiatrist boyfriend, Professor Giordani (Glauco Mauri) believes that the music must have played an important part in a traumatic event in the killer’s past. Gianna now wants to help Marcus, feeling guilty over her photo almost getting him killed. She recalls a folk tale of a house in which a child was heard singing followed by screams of a murder.

She reads a book titled House of the Screaming Child written by Amanda Righetti (Giuliana Calandra), but before she can talk to her, Amanda is killed in her home, her face scalded by hot water.

Gianna and Marcus find the house from the book, abandoned for over a decade, and Marcus uncovers a drawing of a little child holding a knife by a bloody dead body and a Christmas tree through removing plaster from a wall. After he leaves, more plaster falls away and reveals a third figure.

Marcus goes to Carlo to tell him about it, but Carlo angrily insists that Marcus leave town. Giordani investigates the murder of Amanda Righetti, and is attacked by a mechanical doll toy that he breaks, only to be killed by someone coming in through the window.

Marcus discovers by looking at a photograph of the house that where there was a photo before, there is not one now. He goes to the house to investigate, and finds a walled in room with a dead body, but is struck from behind and knocked out cold, though he’s saved by Gianna from the house which is now on fire.

They go to the caretaker of the house to call the police, and Marcus discovers another drawing of the child with a bloody knife by the Christmas tree, though this one was created by the caretaker’s daughter, who tells him she was inspired by looking in the archives at the Leonardo Da Vinci school. That’s where Marcus and Gianna go next, with Marcus finding the drawing and seeing the name on it. Gianna, however, is stabbed.

The killer reveals himself to Marcus as Carlo, his friend, who says that he had told him to leave for a reason.

Before Carlo can kill Marcus, however, the police arrive, chasing Carlo, who gets hit by a truck and caught by some kind of hook hanging off of it, getting dragged throughout the streets of Rome until the truck comes to a stop. His head is then crushed by traffic going in another direction.

Marcus learns that Gianna is going to be alright, but as he takes a stroll, he realizes the killer couldn’t have been Carlo, seeing as how Carlo didn’t have enough time between leaving Marcus to go up and kill Helga that one night.

Marcus breaks into Helga’s apartment, looking for that painting, that he thinks is important. He doesn’t find it, but does find one peculiar thing: a mirror.

The mirror indicates that the woman whose face he had seen in the painting was in fact really there, and the murderer. The woman (Clara Calamai) reveals herself to him, and in a flashback, we see that she was Carlo’s mother, who had killed her husband as Carlo watched. She says Carlo was only protecting her and didn’t kill anyone.

She hits Marcus with the cleaver and chases him around the building. Her necklace gets caught in an elevator shaft, and Marcus hits the button which sends the elevator down, decapitating her with the necklace.

Deep Red was an exilarating watch. It had plenty of twists and turns, but still leaves you with plenty of questions. It’s a far more satisfying mystery than Tenebrae, which was more than a bit predictable, and it still features the wonderful cinematography that Argento is known for, and a good score by Goblin. Goblin’s score for the movie is far more rock-heavy than the score for Suspiria, but it still works very well except for one bluesy song that plays when Gianna is trying to be all sexy.

It’s a really entertaining movie. The violent kills satisfy, and the storytelling does even more so.

Rating: 8/10