Before the multiplex days that squeezed out choice, a wide variety of films would get runs of a week or two before either being dropped or released nationwide to satisfy demand. Back during the late 70s and 80s, Italian horror king Dario Argento enjoyed such worldwide box office hits as "Suspiria", and to a lesser extent "Inferno" and "Tenebre".
If you haven't seen these films, they are classic examples of a director who quickly loses the thread of a plot in favour of visual and atmospheric effect. Often described as 'the Italian Hitchcock', this is a ridiculous comparison. In a Hitchcock movie you follow a strict track of tension, meticulously plotted-out. With Argento, you're soon derailed, but what moments of gruesome terror you might experience as a result, can really unsettle.
He specialises in a thriller genre known as 'giallo'. The Italian word for yellow, the expression is derived from the yellow covers of the penny dreadful paperbacks that were sold in Italy and featured lurid tales of murder and mystery. Undoubtedly his most successful thriller was "Deep Red", where David Hemmings spots the killer on the scene of a murder without realising it, only then to become the next target as the victims pile-up.
In "Suspiria" and "Inferno", Dario explored the first two films of an, as yet unfinished, 'Three Mothers' trilogy. The plot is bonkers, but the atmosphere of dread is very palpable as hapless characters find out what it's like to live in a house of the damned, with cruelly imaginative but violent results. These films, like many of his best efforts, feature pioneering camerawork and crane use, to create his unmistakable gliding cinematography that has been widely imitated ever since.
The lack of cinema releases for Dario's later product, along with a decline in budgets available to him, and then some frankly poor films in the 90s, saw Dario's star fade somewhat. The release of his latest film "Sleepless" is a return to his form of old, but sadly not yet to UK cinemas, despite a healthy European box office.
If you love the idea of a good horror thriller, but are relentlessly disappointed by the anaemic mainstream cinema output, then treat yourself to any one of the films mentioned in this article. They will wreak havoc with your nightmares.
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