| Deep Red | |
|---|---|
 Italian film poster | |
| Italian | Profondo rosso |
| Directed by | Dario Argento |
| Written by |
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| Produced by | Salvatore Argento |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Luigi Kuveiller |
| Edited by | Franco Fraticelli |
| Music by | |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | Cineriz |
Release date |
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Running time | 126 minutes |
| Country | Italy |
| Language | Italian |
| Box office | ₤3,709 billion (Italy) $629,903 (United States) |
Deep Red (Italian:Profondo rosso), also known asThe Hatchet Murders, is a 1975 Italiangiallo film directed byDario Argento and co-written by Argento andBernardino Zapponi. It starsDavid Hemmings as a musician who investigates a series of murders performed by a mysterious figure wearing black leather gloves. The cast also starsDaria Nicolodi,Gabriele Lavia,Macha Méril, andClara Calamai. The film's score was composed and performed byGoblin, the first in a long-running collaboration with Argento.[1]
The film was released during the height of the "giallo craze" of Italian popular cinema, and was a critical and commercial success. Retrospective reviews have been equally positive, and the film is considered one of the genre's definitive entries, as well as one of Argento's best works.
In 1956, during Christmas at a family home, an unseen figure stabs another to death. A bloody knife falls to the floor at the feet of a child.
Twenty years later in Rome, Professor Giordani chairs aparapsychology conference featuringpsychic medium Helga Ulmann. Helga is suddenly overwhelmed by the "twisted, perverted, murderous" thoughts of someone in the audience. Speaking later with Giordani, Helga says she believes she can identify this person, unaware that someone is listening from the shadows.
Later that night, a black-gloved figure invades Helga's apartment and kills her with a meat cleaver. EnglishJazz pianist Marcus Daly sees the murder from the window as he passes by and rushes to her apartment, finding her mutilated corpse. After the police arrive, Marcus thinks one of the apartment's paintings has disappeared, but he cannot pinpoint what exactly is missing.
The media identifies Marcus as the eyewitness and shows reporter Gianna Brezzi's photo of him. The next morning, Marcus visits the home of his heavy-drinking friend, Carlo, but only finds Carlo's eccentric mother Martha, who seems interested in Marcus. That night, the killer plays a recording of a child's song outside Marcus's door; he manages to lock the door before the person can enter, but he hears the gruff whisper, "I'll kill you sooner or later." Feeling guilty for endangering him by taking his photo, Gianna begins helping Marcus investigate.
Marcus tells Giordani, whom he met at Helga's funeral, about the encounter. Giordani, noting that Helga also mentioned hearing child's song during her vision, recalls a book of modernfolklore describing a local haunted house where a child's song is sometimes heard. Marcus finds the folklore book at the library. He rips out a picture of the house and plans to learn more by visiting the book's author, Amanda Righetti. However, the killer, who has been watching Marcus, attacks Amanda and drowns her in scalding water before Marcus arrives.
Marcus uses the photo from the book to find the huge, abandoned house. Under sheetrock he uncovers a disturbing mural: a child holding a bloody knife over a dead body. After he leaves, a loose chunk of sheetrock falls away, revealing another figure in the drawing. Meanwhile, Giordani, who has been assisting Marcus's investigation, is murdered by the killer after being distracted by a large mechanized doll.
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Continuing his search of the abandoned house, Marcus finds a walled-off room. In the middle of the dusty floor sits adesiccated corpse. Someone knocks Marcus unconscious as he backs away in horror. He awakens outside the house, which is burning. Gianna appears, explaining that she got his message about investigating the house and arrived in time to save him. Marcus and Gianna wait for the police in the house of the caretaker, whose daughter has drawn a picture identical to the hidden mural Marcus found in the house. She tells him she saw the picture in the archives of the local school.
Marcus and Gianna immediately go to the school and find the picture, which proves to be the childhood work of Marcus's friend Carlo. Gianna leaves to call the police and encounters Carlo, who stabs her. Pursued by Marcus and the police, Carlo runs into the dark street and is hit by a garbage truck, which snags his clothing and drags him until an oncoming car runs over his head. Gianna is hospitalized and survives the stabbing.
Marcus remembers that on the night of Helga's murder he met an utterly intoxicated Carlo coming from a different direction than the killing, meaning that Carlo couldn't have been the killer. Returning to Helga's apartment, Marcus has anepiphany: the supposed painting he saw on the night of the murder, and was subsequently unable to find, was really the killer's reflection in a mirror. As Marcus realizes he saw Martha, Carlo's mother, she appears behind him with a meat cleaver. Martha explains that after her husband said he would re-commit her to aninsane asylum, she murdered him in front of the young Carlo. She walled off the room containing his body. Carlo, scarred psychologically, compulsively drew the scene as a youth and as an adult tried to repress the memory of the homicide with alcohol: he attacked Marcus and Gianna to protect his murderous mother from their investigation.
Martha attacks Marcus and wounds him with the cleaver. After Martha's necklace tangles in the bars of the building's elevator, Marcus sends the elevator down, decapitating her.
Deep Red represented Argento's return to the horror genre after an attempted breakaway with the historical dramedyThe Five Days (1974). It was his lastgiallo film beforeTenebre (1982), which was produced years after the genre's heyday.
The film was also his first collaboration with actressDaria Nicolodi, with whom he would begin a relationship during this film, and progressive rock bandGoblin, who composed and performed the film score.[2] Argento would collaborate with Nicolodi five more times, and Goblin or its frontmanClaudio Simonetti ten more times. Nicolodi would also co-write the screenplay forSuspiria.
The film was shot mainly on-location inTurin in sixteen weeks.[3][4] Additional scenes were shot inRome andPerugia. Argento chose Turin because at the time there were more practisingSatanists there than in any other European city, excludingLyon.[5] He had previously shot parts ofThe Cat o' Nine Tails (1971) in the city.[6][7] Filming locations included Piazza C.L.N.,Santa Costanza Church andTeatro Carignano. Argento would later revisit Carignano 25 years later inSleepless (2001).[8] The "House of the Screaming Child" wasVilla Scott, a historical villa owned at the time by a convent of nuns and operated as a boarding school.[9]
Argento's original working title for the film wasLa Tigre dei Denti a Sciabola (The Sabre-Toothed Tiger), matching the "animal" motif of his previous gialli.[10]
Co-writerBernardino Zapponi said the inspiration for the murder scenes came from him and Argento thinking of painful injuries to which the audience could relate, as the pain of being stabbed or shot is outside the experience of most viewers.[citation needed] Their original screenplay ran approximately 500 pages, but after it was deemed unfilmable, Argento shortened it to 321. The use of a psychic medium originated from an early draft ofFour Flies on Grey Velvet (1971).
The close-up shots of the killer's hands, clad in black leather gloves, were performed by directorDario Argento himself. Argento was convinced that having all the killing scenes performed by himself would be quicker and easier than teaching the moves to an actor, who would require endless re-takes to perform everything to the director's satisfaction.[citation needed] The film's special effects, which include several mechanically operated heads and body parts, were created and executed byCarlo Rambaldi.
As was common in Italian filmmaking at the time,Deep Red was shot withoutsync sound, and all dialogue wasdubbed in post-production. The screenplay was written in both Italian and English, all actors except forClara Calamai spoke in English. The Italian dub cast includedIsa Bellini (Calamai),Wanda Tettoni (Del Balzo), andCorrado Gaipa (Meniconi). The English dub cast includedCyril Cusack,Ted Rusoff,Carolyn De Fonseca,Geoffrey Copleston,Michael Forest, andEdward Mannix.David Hemmings dubbed himself.
Deep Red was released in Milan and Rome in Italy on 7 March 1975.[11]In the United States, the film first premiered in New York City on 9 June 1976 and saw a wide theatrical releaseon 11 June 1976 by the defunct US independent film distributor Howard Mahler Films. The film was once again re-releasedand re-titled in the US on 18 January 1980, asThe Hatchet Murders,[citation needed] and again in 1982 asThe Phantom of Terror.[12] Unlike Argento's previous features, the film did not have a wide cinema release in the UK. The 1982 video release onFletcher Video was uncertificated. The first formal submission to theBBFC for classification was made byRedemption Films for their VHS release in 1993. It was passed 18 with 11s of cuts (to 'fighting' dogs), and reframing (of a lizard apparently impaled alive on a blade) on 03/12/1993 (all cuts were subsequently waived, see below).
The film holds a 94% approval rating onreview aggregation websiteRotten Tomatoes, based on 31 reviews with an average rating of 8.4/10. The site's consensus reads: "The kinetic camerawork and brutal over-the-top gore that made Dario Argento famous is on full display, but the addition of a compelling, complex story makesDeep Red a masterpiece."[13] OnMetacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 89 out of 100 based on 7 critic reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[14] One negative review upon the film's original American release came fromVincent Canby inThe New York Times, who referred to the film as a "bucket of ax-murder-movie cliches" and called Dario Argento "a director of incomparable incompetence."[15]
From retrospective reviews,Kim Newman wrote in theMonthly Film Bulletin thatDeep Red was a transitional work for Argento between his earlier whodunit plots and the more supernatural themed films.[16] Newman concluded thatDeep Red is "nothing if not an elaborate mechanism, with the camera crawling amongobjets trouvés" and "what sets Argento apart from imitators likeLucio Fulci is his combination of genuine pain (the murders are as nasty as one could wish, but the camera flinches where Fulci's would linger) and self-mocking humour"[16]Total Film gave the film four stars out of five, noting that Argento's films "can be an acquired taste; it's necessary to attune yourself with the horror director's style in order to get the most from his movies."[17] The review stated that the film "presents some striking visual compositions that raise it above the level of the usual subgenre offerings." and that the film was "A great introduction to Dario Argento's evolving style of horror".[17]The A.V. Club wrote, "Operating under the principle that a moving camera is always better than a static one – and not above throwing in a terrifying evil doll –Deep Red showcases the technical bravado and loopy shock tactics that made Argento famous."[18]AllMovie compared the film to other in Argento's work, noting that the film script was "significantly stronger and the actors much better"[19] AllMovie noted that "Each of the murders is perfectly choreographed with particular praise going to Glauco Mauri's killing" and that "The final reel wraps the film up in a thrilling manner and features two extremely graphic deaths that leave the viewer stunned as the credits roll"[19]
Quentin Tarantino described being "rattled" by the movie as a teenager, and picked it as one of his favorite horror movies.[20]
Multiple versions of the film exist onDVD andVHS, in large part due to the fact that Argento removed twenty-six minutes (largely scenes between Nicolodi and Hemmings) from the film, footage that was never dubbed in English. For years, it was assumed that the film's American distributors were responsible for removing said scenes, but the recent Blu-ray release confirmed that Argento oversaw and approved the edits to the film.
Eleven seconds of animal cruelty cuts made to the film by theBBFC in 1993 were waived when the film was re-submitted in 2010. Upon consideration, examiners concluded that the 'fighting' dogs were actually playing, and a letter sent from the production company stated that the lizard on a knife was a 'visual effect'.[citation needed]
In 1999, Anchor Bay acquired the rights to release the film uncut on both DVD and VHS.[citation needed] Their version restored the missing footage but kept the American end credit scene (a freeze-frame shot of Hemmings looking down into a pool of blood). As there were no dubbed versions of the missing scenes, the scenes (and additional dialogue omitted in the dubbed version) were featured in their original Italian language. The DVD offered both English and Italian audio tracks as well.
Blue Underground obtained the rights to the film in 2008[citation needed] and released it as a standard DVD. Their Blu-ray release, released in 2011, contains the US version of the film (which is referred to as "The Director's Cut") and the original edit (referred to as "Uncut" and contains option to watch it in either language).
Arrow Films, a distributor of the United Kingdom, acquired the rights to the film and released it on January 3, 2011. The 2-disc set was released uncut as part of the now out-of-print window slip cover sets which released a number of films by Argento and other directors; it contained several special features including interviews, a documentary, trailers, audio commentary, four cover artwork designs, an exclusive collector's booklet written by Alan Jones on the film, and a double-sided poster. Both the director's cut and the theatrical cut are available on the set with an English and Italian audio track, and English subtitles.[21] On January 25, 2016, Arrow Films releasedDeep Red in a 3-disc Limited Edition set of 3000 copies. The edition is available in new4K restoration, with new commissioned artwork exclusive from Arrow Films. The original version of the film, as well as US cut are available, with new special features including a soundtrack CD featuring 28 tracks, 6 lobby cards, double-sided poster, reversible sleeve, and a limited edition booklet written by Mikel J. Koven. Bonus features from the previous edition are also included.[22] A standard version of the Limited Edition was released on May 30, 2016 in a single-disc set and contains only the director's cut/original version. Special features from the edition are available.[23]
On November 6, 2013, Australian distributor, Umbrella Entertainment made the film available with both the director's cut and the theatrical cut included.[24]
Argento originally contacted jazz pianist and composerGiorgio Gaslini to score the film; however, he was unhappy with Gaslini's output. After failing to getPink Floyd to replace Gaslini, Argento turned back to Italy and foundGoblin, a localprogressive rock band. Their leaderClaudio Simonetti impressed Argento by producing two compositions within just one night. Argento signed them immediately, and they ended up composing most of the film's musical score[5] (three Gaslini compositions were retained in the final version). Subsequently, Goblin composed music for several other films by Dario Argento.
The soundtrack was made available for the first time ever on vinyl after Waxwork Records released the complete score by Goblin on a triple LP. In addition to Goblin's music, the LP also included instrumental and alternate tracks by Gaslini.[25]
Two key sequences in this film influenced directors of later horror movies: the lead-up to the famous exploding head scene in David Cronenberg'sScanners is modeled after the parapsychology discussion at the beginning ofDeep Red, and Rick Rosenthal'sHalloween II contains a scalding water death inspired by the death of Giuliana Calandra's character Amanda Righetti here.[26]
DirectorJames Wan has cited the works of Dario Argento as an influence for theSaw horror series, andBilly the Puppet, the avatar of the series' villain, is visually similar to the mechanical doll that menaces Giordani inDeep Red.[12]
DirectorLucile Hadžihalilović said that the empty and dilapidated palazzo inDeep Red was a big influence in creating the environment in her filmThe Ice Tower (2025).[27]
Profondo Rosso, aRomehorrormemorabilia store owned and operated by Argento andLuigi Cozzi, is named after the film.
In 2010,George A. Romero was contacted byClaudio Argento to direct a 3D remake ofDeep Red, which Claudio said would also involve Dario. Romero showed some interest in the film; however, after contacting Dario – who said he knew nothing about the remake – Romero declined Claudio's offer.[28]
In 2007, Argento directed amusical theatre adaptation ofDeep Red with music byClaudio Simonetti.[29][30] The role of Marcus was played byMichel Altieri.
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