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Deep Red

Deep Red

List Price: $19.98
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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: WHAT A LOAD OF [...]
Review: Gawd! This movie really bit the BIG one. I was SO dissappointed. I originally caught wind of this movie from the office secretary (in her 50s) and it came highly recommended. After reading online reviews of it, I could HARDLY wait to get it thinking it would be along the lines of [...]suck when I started watching it and began having feelings of 70's grade retro Godzilla flick nausea. Maybe back in the day this was considered a masterpiece, however, movies have become much more realistic and original since e.g. Seven, Matrix, etc... What's interesting is i'm sure the movies I find to be my favorites now will make audiences mock and laugh 20 years from now.

Anyhow, if you're under the age of 30, please do NOT watch this movie.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not quite the masterpiece it could've been
Review: I really like this movie, and I like it even more now because of Anchor Bay's excellent work on its restoration. The picture is absolutely stunning. I won't go too much into why I like the movie, rather I'll talk about its faults. There are quite a few. Let's take the color of the blood, so crucial to the proceedings. -It unfortunately look more like paint, than real blood. Real blood is much more dark. Never mind. Then there's the Italian policeman, or rather his Italian voice. Awful !. I know they're used to dubbing in Italy, even bad dubbing, but this guy is ridiculous. -Did he think he was working on a comedy ?. Surely Argento could've stopped him. Maybe Dario thought it was funny ?. Who knows. Not too much make sense in this movie. -Like Hemmings' piano-playing character deciding to investigate on his own. And in a perfect world the DVD-people would also have gotten hold of Hemmings again, to re-voice his character's non-English scenes. But you can't have everything, of course. For some reason the most irritating event in the movie, as far as I'm concerned, is the old housekeeper who works for one of the victims. -Her employer has just been violently murdered, and she just goes about her daily business cleaning up the mess like it's the most normal thing in the world !. Mad as a hatter !. I swear I almost heard her whistle. But there are many incomprehensible, almost dream-like and surreal sequences like that. No, I don't know what the walking doll means either, but it's a nice touch. I don't mind long movies, but this one drags a bit and some of the scenes we could do without. In fact, I'm pretty sure Argento would've left the silly arm-wrestling sequence out today. -That scene just goes on and on, and they're not talking about anything important. I think Argento prefers this movie to, say, "Cat O' Nine Tails" which also was a long movie, but nothing was wasteful in that one. I actually think "Cat..." is a much better film than "Deep Red". -All the scenes in "Cat..." needed to be there, unlike many in "Deep Red". In retrospect, the restoration of "Deep Red", as commendable as it is, seems a bit like a case of "it was possible, so we did it", but it wasn't really necessary. The film is a welcome, but strange curio now. My favorite sequences in "Deep Red" are the snake-like p.o.v. shots of different objects, the hallway of paintings, and Hemmings two visits to the empty villa. Lovers of (arty) '70s thrillers can't go wrong with this movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: And the heavens parted...
Review: Sometimes I buy a lot of DVD's at once. I'll sit down, pop one in the player and sample each of the discs until I settle on which one to watch. No other DVD made it into my player the night I bought Deep Red. Right from the start I was floored by the beautiful framing, the rich, saturated colors, and the ominous presence of Goblin's brilliant score (remixed in Dolby Digital 5.1). I had seen Deep Red many times over the years but not like this. The option to view the film in Italian with English subtitles was also very pleasing. The disc features a so-so featurette and two trailers. My only beef is with the cover art. Of all the great artwork I have seen for this film why use such a dull photo?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Argento's best and possibly the best giallo.
Review: That's not saying its without it's flaws. Almost all of the giallos that were made always had at least one. But Deep Red is Argento's best if you weigh all of the options and it does also have his best acting and strongest script that Argento has ever worked with. The picture and sound are excelent, unfortunately some of the english dubing to some scenes were lost or destroyed so the film will jump from spoken English to Italian with subtitles(possibly the films biggest flaw). The story concerns an English pianist who witnesses a murder of his neighbor and decides to investigate the crime, but he gets more than he bargined for as the murderer always seems to be one step in front of him. A definte buy for any horror, murder/mystery, or giallo fan.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Scariest Movie I Have Ever Seen!
Review: Along with Lucio Fulci's The Beyond, Deep Red is my favorite Italian horror flick. Argento's trademark style is flying throughout this movie. The camera work, the violence, the eerieness, the creepy music. It all works here.

The movie opens at a theatre where some psychics are giving speeches. The lead psychic goes into some sort of convulsion saying that someone in the audience has killed, and will kill again. She tells the audience that she reveal the identity of the killer the next night. That same night, the psychic is killed off by our mysterious killer, and it is all witnessed by a jazz pianist living in Rome(David Hemmings). He then sets out on an investigation to find the identity of the killer and end his/her murderous ways. What follows is some of the creepiest music, graphic violence, and most nerve-racking scenes I have ever seen. Really cool twist ending. Don't delay, pick up Deep Red today. The Anchor Bay release of Deep Red on DVD and VHS contains an English and Italian trailer and a short 25th Anniversary Featurette.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Must have
Review: I just love this film, Dario really went all the way for this one. Intresting story, good acting, amazing camera shots, some scary scenes. This one IS a masterpiece. A great place to begin for Dario newbies.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Deep Red is a flawed masterpiece
Review: Let me clear up first that my actual rating for this film is three and a half. This movie is considered by many to be Argento's masterpiece. Others believe SUSPIRIA is his masterpiece. i belong to the latter group. DEEP RED would be an average giallo if it had not been directed by Argento who always infuses his movies with his own great style which means that they are least good to look at because he has a talent for visuals. DEEP RED was written by Argento and another writer named Zapponi and like always Argento is not the best writer but he usually compensates for his writing with his directing. But here the movie depends on the script and since it does the script brings the movie down a bit. There is a lot of senseless dialogue in this film and that significantly slows it down. It is a great showcase for Argento's visual talent though. The murders are set up and executed very well. And in this film Dario worked with the musical group Goblin for the first time and they would go on to colaborate on the films SUSPIRIA, TENEBRE, PHENOMENA, and most recently in Dario's new film NON HO SONNO (SLEEPLESS). Dario's wife, Daria Nicolodi also works with Dario in this film for the first time. If the film had had a better screenplay to work with it would be much, much better.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Deep Red (1975) d: Argento, Dario
Review: Part of the "animal trilogy" [The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1969), Cat O' Nine Tails (1971) and Four Flies on Grey Velvet], this film marks the beginning of the evolutionary trademark style that horror fans have come to love. Dario Argento's Giallo films [a genre named after the fading yellow color of pulp paperback novels], full of bright colors, and irregular editing techniques have gained him a reputation comparable to that of Alfred Hitchcock. With Deep Red Dario Argento started to push the envelope of splatter & gore a littler further than he had done in the past. "...This film also marked the beginning of Argento's artistic staging of elaborate and often frightening set pieces." A pianist [played by David Hemmings, who was most recently seen as the coliseum announcer in Ridley Scott's Gladiator (2000)], witnesses the murder of a psychic and tries to solve the crime with the help of his neighbor [played by Daria Nicoldi, Argento's real-life companion and co-writer]. The film is slim on plot and full of talking - though the longer version is more coherent with tension building beautifully. Much of the added footage in this version is character development. The extra scenes are in Italian, with subtitles, as they were never filmed for an English speaking market. Although there is no commentary by Argento on this disc, he does give a short interview at the beginning of the film. The pulse-pounding, driving electronic music of Goblin is a pleasure to hear and make this 5.1 well worth the price.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Beautiful presentation for an average giallo
Review: Some feel that this is the best giallo made since the invention of the genre. Personally, I feel that it starts off with lots of energy and somehow falters around the first hour. Having seen 'Deep Red' in a uncut version for the first time on video about 10 12 years ago from a German 16mm transfer , I must say that Anchor Bay's transfer is in fact quite beautiful and colorful not unlike most Argento films. The extra 20 minutes or so added to 'Deep Red' isn't more gore but a sub-plot between David Hemmings' and Daria Nicoldi's attraction which doesn't really help the core storyline at all. Call me weird but 'Tenebrae' is still my favorite Argento film...

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: crosses the line
Review: Like everything the director does, here is a classic example of "crossing the line". On facing expulsion from a human, demons begged to be put into a flock of pigs rather than to have to return to Hell, says the Bible; yet this director cries to get in. Obviously, he's been fooled, utterly and completely, his tremendous talents wasted. His keen eye for details and what could be gorgeous (vs. what they are) sets, and all his life's work, wasted. At this point, it appears that there's just no talking to him.


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