Retrospective Film Review

Inferno (1980) • 40 Years Later

An American college student in Rome and his sister in New York investigate a series of killings in both locations where their resident addresses are the domain of two covens of witches.

Since his directorial debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), Dario Argento became known as a prominent proponent of the Italian giallo. Except for the historical satire, The Five Days (1973), his first five films and two television shorts all helped to define and consolidate this important new sub-genre. Their domestic box-office success earned him a degree of celebrity in his Italian homeland, where he also became known as a director who enjoyed challenging expectations and playing with established tropes — even those he’d established himself. But, it wasn’t until he broke away from giallo with his first full-blooded supernatural horror that he gained any substantial international traction.

On the strength of its Italian success, the US distribution rights for Suspiria (1977) were snapped-up by 20th Century Fox…