pendell

Current Hyperfixation: Wizard of Oz

  • He/Him

I use outdated technology just for fun, listen to crappy music, and watch a lot of horror movies. Expect posts about These Things. I talk a lot.

Check tags like Star Trek Archive and Media Piracy to find things I share for others.



Tenebre Review

This was my second movie of the night after the 2.5hr Superman, and in retrospect, that might've been a bad idea. I struggled to follow the plot and got all of the beautiful Italian women confused. John Saxon, Mr. Nightmare on Elm Street, stuck out to me. The ¾-Goblin score was a banger, as expected. Atmospheric, beautifully shot, surreal characters behaving in strange ways, neon blood kills that progressively ramp up in insanity.

I liked the not-at-all-subtle fun Argento was poking at himself with the author in the story having his book misinterpreted by every possible party in every bad faith manner that can be fathomed, to the point he questions whether he should've written it or not - extremely fitting as this flick got deemed a Video Nasty and only got truncated, butchered releases for many years.

The plot was completely losing me until the last 15 minutes or so, when it all came crashing together. I figured out who the killer was about 2 minutes before the movie revealed it, and despite having struggled to pay attention to most of the movie up to that point, it still managed to hit hard. Sign of a good giallo, I suppose? To have a twist that surprises even people who weren't following the film very well. The last couple of kills are legendary. The prop razor struck me as amusing because it's probably the actual prop that was actually used in the film to "kill" characters previously, so add another layer to Argento teasing his own work with meta-jokes.

I definitely need to watch this again, sometime. Maybe I'll understand it better and appreciate it more fully. I picked up the Synapse standard 4K/BD 2-disc release which excludes the chopped up "Unsane" cut of the film, and honestly, I don't think I'll miss it. I'm quite happy only watching the real movie. Can't recommend it enough, I only watched the standard blu this time but it looks crisp and beautiful, Synapse/Arrow did a great job with the restoration, and hopefully the next time I watch it it'll be on the 4K disc!


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