Director: Dario Argento
Year: 1977
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Arriving at a renown German dance academy, an American dancer begins to suspect that something strange is going on behind the scenes with her instructors and finds the supernatural connection between them and the rash of murders plaguing the students at the school.
Review:
This is a classic film in just about every sense. The first thing that most notice is that the movie is simply beautiful to look at, as nearly everything is filmed in shockingly bright colors with their continual reappearance being refreshing to see. The deep, dark reds and blacks, and the light, fluorescent blues and greens are quite in abundance here, giving the film an almost dream-like atmosphere. The film is a journey through the world of dreams, offering many common themes and visions. As well, the constantly booming sounds that pop up everywhere in the film continually make the viewer on edge, and ends up drawing them into the story even more. Almost every scene in here has a sound of some sort, and most of the time it utterly jangles the nerves. There is a decidedly European style to the whole affair as well, mixed in with all the other wonderful attributes from the typical Argento brilliance on the camera to the way of telling a simple story, this is a European-centered approach in its most classic sense.
When it wants to, it can also be as explosive and action-packed as it wants to. The opening double murder is as graphic and brutal as anything he's ever filmed, and in terms of opening a movie up, is arguably the greatest opening scene in movie history delivering one of the few rare shock jumps and is so creative in it's concept and shocking in it's realization that it has to be seen just solely on this sequence alone. From the escape in the rain to the attack in the bedroom leading up to the stalking on the roof and finally going into that shocking kill, this one really gets this going on a spectacular note. However, unlike other films that start out with a great bang, the film rarely lets up, featuring such spectacularly grotesque and chilling moments of the sea of maggots falling from the ceiling onto the girls, a truly chilling sequence of the blind worker getting attacked in the village square and one victim who stumbles upon the room containing the barbed-wire and becomes ensnared.
These graphic scenes are all apart of the film's rather fun pace here with it stopping only for the usual exposition and character introductions before going right back into the discovery of the academy. That build-up here is another strong factor leading throughout here by giving this a truly engrossing mystery needing to be solved that's quite chilling once it's finally revealed. Coming from the gradual disappearances of the students to the history lesson involving the witches of the past who lived there and even tying in the true events of the opening sequence that has been wrapped in her head the entire time, this storyline reveal comes as a great surprise and really serves this one well. The greatly-hyped closing sequence is rightfully atmospheric and doesn't disappoint at all, giving this a great book-ended film opening and closing on very strong points. These here give this a lot to love about it though there's one main flaw to this one.
The dreamlike atmosphere that it so wonderfully exploits also makes the film simply confusing for first-time viewers. It's purposely done that way as it wants to concentrate on the visual rather than telling a story as what happens is of little consequence only how it is told. Those who aren't used to that can sit through the film wondering what everything is about since the preponderance of dream-logic to focus on sense of story here so it can be confusing at times to focus on the story. It's all symbolically done, and that can be something to first-time viewers to get through which is the only flaw.
Overview: *****/5
Not only one of the finest horror films of all time, but easily one of the greatest movies as well, this is a shining masterpiece of cinema that's undoubtedly deserving of every ounce of praise bestowed upon it. Highly, highly recommended to any fan of the genre, Euro-horror aficionados or those of the creative side who should seek this out immediately, while those that don't should feel ashamed they have no taste in cinema at all.
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