All Business Halloween Week Day 1: Inferno
Well it’s October 27th, which means that there are only FIVE days until Halloween (It’s FOUR now, because Today is the 28th and yesterday was my birthday and I wasn’t able to post this because I got drunk at a Dave and Buster’s). That’s right, just one business week left. Since its only a single business week, I’m going to give you a no BS guide to five horror movies. That’s right, one a day until Halloween! I am giving you the low down and then making a judgement on whether to recommend them or not. Just because I’m a swell fella, I’m even going to give you an alternate pick for the night. Hopefully this list makes it even harder to binge-watch ALL of Stranger Things: Season 2 before Halloween. Let’s Begin.
Year Released: 1980
Director: Dario Argento. Regularly called a maestro for a damn good reason. He has directed Suspiria, Phenomena, Deep Red, Tenebrae, and Opera just to name a few. The world of not only horror, but filmmaking in general would be a lesser place without his contributions to the art.
Plot: What plot? This is an Italian Horror movie. If you were looking for something thought provoking and coherent story wise then you are going to be very disappointed. A lot of horror from this time and place was far more concerned with music, style, color, and killing people than dazzling us with a complex story. Argento and his ilk were largely crafting experiences not drama (in this case, a nightmare). What plot there is, as far as I can tell, goes something like this:
Inferno is a sequel to Argento’s masterpiece Suspiria (a film about a witch in a ballet academy in Germany). The story revolves around an apartment building in New York and a letter sent by Rose Elliot, a tenant of that building, to her brother Mark in Italy. Rose is a poet and Mark a musicologist (because of course they are). Rose has picked up a copy of Three Mother’s from the antique bookstore next door and has begun to suspect that she lives in the home of Mater Tenebrarum, a very powerful witch. She has even found evidence to help her case. By the time her brother arrives she has disappeared, and so he sets out to find the truth. So much more happens and some of it makes no sense, but that is the general thrust.
Style: Argento’s work takes place in a dreamscape. It looks like our world, but everything is heightened. Everything is a gorgeous nightmare. Inferno is absolutely overflowing with style. Dario Argento and his team’s use of color, production design, special effects, rain, and camera movements are mesmerizing. There is not a single wasted frame in this film. These stylistic pyrotechnics were Argento’s jam back in the day, something he got a lot of recognition and praise for with Suspiria. Inferno takes Argento's bag of tricks to an even higher level of insanity. Even a stack of chairs in an unused area of the apartment building are stacked to absolute perfection. The film is nothing less than intoxicating, you lose yourself in it’s horrific beauty.
The only drawback I can think of is the music. It’s not bad, it just isn’t Goblin. Goblin is a 70’s progressive rock band (originally called Cherry Five) who collaborated with Argento on many of his best films. What Argento and Goblin were able to create together was untouchable magic. In Italian horror from this time period, only the pairing of director Lucio Fulci and composer Fabio Frizzi could ever stand a chance of dethroning them. The theme from Suspiria is one of the all time greats for films in any time or genre. Inferno may be composed by prog-rock legend Keith Emerson (that's right, of Emerson, Lake and Palmer) but it just doesn’t work as well as the nightmarish compositions of Goblin.
Scare Factor: Argento is a master of creating an atmosphere of dread, but in terms of actual scares, Inferno ranks higher than a lot of his films. Higher than Suspiria actually, where the opening is really the only sequence to truly give me a fright. Inferno has many incredible set pieces i(ncluding one that is so absolutely out of control that you have to see it to believe it), but it has two unquestionable showstoppers in fright. One is the opening underwater sequence which is spellbinding, gorgeous, and insanely claustrophobic. The other is, for my money, one of Argento’s absolute best in visceral terror. It involves Mark’s girlfriend being spooked at night as she sits in her apartment listening to classical music while the power goes in and out. It is an auditory assault that really disturbs.
Recommended?: You better believe it. Inferno takes the over the top stylization, shot selection, and use of color even further than its predecessor Suspiria. Despite this, it was critically panned and has not been given the respect of many of Argento’s other projects. It is criminally under seen and you can help fix that. If you don’t like it, just use it as knowledge as a cocktail party or to see some absolutely delicious kills.
Warning: Dubbing. It doesn’t bother me, but I seem to be in the minority (it took a while to get used to). In Italy at the time they didn’t take any sound on set, so everything you hear was created in post. This isn’t jarring in the sound design usually, but it is in the dubbing. Argento would have all the actors speaking their native language and then just stick in the dialogue for the version to be released in each language. That’s right, you have people speaking english to people speaking Italian, but the audio is all english and doesn’t match anyone’s mouth exactly. I think it helps the film’s dreamlike quality.