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a somewhat incomprehnsible masterpiece

Well as most of you already know, you don't watch Dario Argento's movies for substance. You watch them for style. This movie delivers with bright vibrant colors and imagery, hooded figures, devils, beautiful women, and a really mean hot dog vendor. I find myself drawn to watch this movie over and over again, if only for the neon lit rooms and underwater lairs,Argento has displayed throughout.


The plot, involving a brothers search for his missing sister in a house of evil, is a follow up to Argento's Suspiria(another much lauded film) that follows the tale of the three sisters( a witch cult or something even more sinister-of course never fully explained)


If it's explanation your looking for, go elsewhere, but if your looking to be entertained by vivid kills and unusual set pieces,you might just want to set up shop in the House of Inferno.

colour

Inferno is a kind of eye candy. The colour create a special tone for this imagination story.

Hallucinatory nightmare.

Let's face it, when making a follow-up to a perfect film like Suspiria it's going to be hard to live up to those expectation's, but I really think Argento deliver's with this one. Inferno is the second film in the "Three Mother's Trilogy" by Argento (about the mother of darkness), with the first being Suspiria (mother of sigh's), and the last one titled Mother of Tear's, which has just been made now and shown at film festival's as we speak. Argentos' Inferno follow's a lot of the same theme's and imagery as Suspiria did, but instead of dealing on theme of witch-craft, deal's more with the theme of alchemy. It has the same beautiful cinematography, vibrant color's, and attention to detail that Suspiria has (maybe even a little more), and a very dark and beautiful nightmarish quality that only Argento can deliver. Argento film's are usually lumped into two catagorie's: Supernatural thriller's (Suspiria, Inferno) and murder mystery's (Deep Red, Tenebre), and while it's hard for me to choose, I'd have to say I love his supernatural stuff the most. Inferno has a good amount of special effect's, stylistic murder's and good gore scene's (probably a little more than Suspiria in my opinion) that are very well done, and Mario Bava also helped out with some of the the visual effect's for some of the scene's. I'm so sick of hearing people say that Inferno is hard to follow and incoherant. The plot is very simple, you just have to pay attention to it. It make's perfect sense, but you must have an attention-span greater than a five year olds'!!!!! Italian director's do not spell out every little detail of the for the viewer's like American movie's, they try to make you piece together the puzzle through dioluge and character's actions, instead of literally describing the plot in full detail, which I really love about them, and find flattering to my intelligence. The score for Inferno is one of my favorite score's ever for a horror film and is f*****g amazing to say the least, although it is not performed by Goblin (who did all the great Argento score's), it is still f*****g amazing, I can't wait to pick up the soundtrack. Inferno is a very worthy sequel to Suspiria in my opinion, and one of my favourite movie's of all time. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!!!!!

Beautiful and Aggravating in Equal Doses

Most fans of Dario Argento are perfectly aware of his strengths and weaknesses as a film maker. More than any other film in his canon of work, "Inferno" stands as a summation of these. Being his most beautiful film, it is also one of his most aggravating. The narrative is intermediary, resembling the "structure" of some Lucio Fulci's more famous films such as "City of the Living Dead" and "The Beyond". In fact, "Inferno" even goes beyond those boundaries of loose narrative threads. Argento has always been a much more canny filmmaker, though, and with the aid of an uncredited Mario Bava, he has created some of the most haunting imagery in horror films. The best scenes of the film are the ones that have long silent passages, primarily the ones involving Irene Miracle's character, Rose. The underwater sequence, and later where she is pursued by an unseen assailant in a dilapidated section of her apartment building are astonishing. One the most interesting aspects of "Inferno" is how tranquil this film is despite the gory mayhem and Keith Emerson's score. Unfortunately, there is a germ of a story here, and it drags the film down. In this respect, Argento should studied Bava's films like "Lisa and the Devil", which handled the surreal and fantastic in an interesting and layered fashion. "Inferno", on the other hand, provides only a series of clumsily strung together episodes, and naturally the film as a whole comes up much less than the sum its parts. Equally disappointing is Argento's flat treatment of his witchcraft/alchemy premise. Like "Suspiria", the story comes down to a banal conflict of good vs. evil. Not helping matters is the fact that the viewer has no emotional investment in any of the characters. The actors primarily occupy space on the screen reciting the most ludicrous dialogue I've heard in a while. Despite its flaws, "Inferno" is well worth seeing for its formal elements alone. Yet, if you're new to Argento, don't start here. See "Deep Red", "Suspiria", or "Tenebre" first.

More Supernatural Mayhem From Argento

Dario Argento's INFERNO, the sequel to the great SUSPIRIA, is the director's most difficult film; it was hard for him to pull this one off and it took a lot of time. In the end, however, it was all well worth the effort. INFERNO establishes its link to SUSPIRIA in the beginning, as Rose Elliot (Irene Miracle of MIDNIGHT EXPRESS fame) reads the book "The Three Mothers" by one E. Varelli, an architect and alchemist who built three houses for the Three Mothers, who are really evil beings who rule the world through sorrows, darkness and tears. Rose, in fact, might live in one of those dwelling places, a hotel in New York, which is the dwelling place of Mater Tenebrarum, Mother of Darkness. (SUSPIRIA covered Mater Suspiriorum, Mother of Sighs/Sorrows.) Anyway, her brother Mark (Leigh McCloskey) comes to New York and gets caught up in the weirdness that ensues.
As I said before, Dario Argento had a real difficult time filming INFERNO. He bypassed the witchcraft of SUSPIRIA in favor of alchemy for this story. Fortunately, he had help from another Italian horror legend: Mario Bava (TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE, BLACK SUNDAY, SHOCK), who filmed an amazing underwater sequence in the beginning which is a sight to behold and is really scary. Some think that the music student with the cat (Ania Pieroni of TENEBRE and Fulci's HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY) in the scenes in Rome is a representation of Mater Lacrimaurum, Mother of Tears; if that's so, what a great setup for the third film that would have been. While not as mind-blowing as SUSPIRIA, INFERNO is a wild experience in its own right and has an equally awesome music score (here by prog-rock vet Keith Emerson) and scary imagery and lighting reminiscent of an EC Comic book.
BTW: Have you noticed any similarity between this and Fulci's masterpiece THE BEYOND? I mean there's the house that maybe concealing some sort of evil, there's the gruesome murders at random, and there's the awesome score! Anyway, you have to see THE BEYOND, and I'll explain why in another review. But give INFERNO, Argento's purest film, a try but watch SUSPIRIA first so you'll understand this movie better!

Argento's best

People often criticise this film, complaining about the lack of drama and story. These people do not truly understand what this film is. It isn't the regular teen fodder to give you laughs and cheap thrills. Like Fulci's THE BEYOND, it's an exercise in pure cinema. It's a film about the images, symbols, shifting patterns of light and music. All these elements are placed together to pose certain cryptic riddles that are seemingly never revealed. Interspersed between these enigmas are moments of cinematic lyricism. We are constantly surprised by amazing shapes, colours, patterns of light. Because the enigmas regarding the truth of the legend of the 3 mothers are indecipherable, and because the clues are foregrounded to an extent in the film style, we are constantly forced to try and work things out which cannot be answered. This futility of the film's truth takes us to a meta-cinematic truth. We find out through this why the actual film was made. The reason being that the language of cinema isn't sufficient to spell out truths, it is primal. It is ultimately beyond language, and beyond time and space. Argento's film is oneiric, and is an exercise in poetic sensation. This film evokes feelings in me that are sensational, overwhelming, feelings that cannot be explained. Maybe they mean nothing, or everything. But INFERNO shows that the mechanics of cinema evoke a purer, non-language, profound sensory expression.

Argento's Inferno ignites the screen.

Italian film director, producer and screenwriter Dario Argento is best known for his work in the "giallo" horror film genre, which is a assimilation of the horror, fantastique, and erotic film genres first created by director Mario Bava. Argento not only acknowledges Bava as an influence, but also recognizes Riccardo Freda, Sergio Leone, Alfred Hitchcock, Michelangelo Antonioni, Ingmar Bergman, and Federico Fellini as influences for his films. Argento collaborated with George Romero on the 1978 zombie cult classic, Dawn of the Dead.


His violent, highly-artistic supernatural thriller, Inferno (1980) is the second film in a trilogy about "The Three Mothers," three ancient witches residing in three different modern cities (Rome, Freiburg, and New York). Suspiria is the first film in the trilogy, and the third movie (The Mother of Tears) was released in 2007. (I have read the title "Suspiria" and the concept for the trilogy was drawn from Thomas De Quincey's sequel to his Confessions of an English Opium Eater, Suspira De Profundis.) Inferno tells the story of a young man's investigation into his missing sister, Rose Elliot (Irene Miracle), a poet living alone in a New York City apartment building that was also the residence of an ancient witch. After discovering an old book called The Three Mothers, Rose is brutally murdered. Soon others are also murdered when her brother Mark (Leigh McCloskey) arrives in New York from Rome asking questions about his sister's disappearance. Argento collaborated with his his mentor, Mario Bava, on the film's optical effects, matte paintings, and camera shots. Although Argento frequently called Inferno one of the least favorite of his films (possibly because he was suffering from acute hepatitis during production), it is a definitive horror film with surreal imagery that will ignite your TV screen.


G. Merritt

Disappointing followup to horror classic "Suspiria"

Apart from one knockout horror sequence (with the heroine swimming in an underwater chamber) this movie never really catches fire. The performances are very poor, in marked contrast to Suspiria. The music is also strangely sedate for a horror film, also in contrast to Suspiria. The look of the film partly makes for the lack of real horror, but only in certain spots. Overall a disappointment.

A beautiful film by a truly gifted film maker.

Anchor Bay have done the most amazing job bringing Argento's films back to his fans. Inferno is probably the best transfer I have seen so far.

Inferno was not as widely embraced as Argento's other films but it is a beautiful and haunting film. I have seen this film 10 or 15 times and each time I find myself being absolutely fascinated. It's a crime that there is no director's commentary on this dvd and on Deep Red, but there is enough quality in this DVD to keep any fan happy.

Bring on the DVD release of Suspiria!

The Third Key is Under Your Feet

Classic Argento. In my personal opinion its not as good of a film as Susperia but is definitely a worthy sequal to such a classic piece of horror cinema. As in Susperia the cinematography is amazing and the kill scenes are always (in true Argento fashion) not only gory, but gory in a clever and orignal way with kills that at least i've never seen before. The finale of the film is fantastic. Overall this film was everything i'd expect from Argento. I'd recomend it to any fan of horror.

Mater Tenebrarum's House of Terror

Excerpt from the Three Mothers: "I Varelli, an architect living in London, met the Three Mothers and designed and built for them three dwelling places, one in Rome, one in New York, and the third in Freiborg, Germany. I failed to discover until too late that from those three locations, the three mother ruled the world with sorrow, tears, and darkness. Mater Suspiriorum, the mother or sighs and the oldest of the three, lives at Freiborg. Mater Lachrymarum, the mother of tears and the most beautiful of the sisters, holds rule in Rome. Mater Tenebrarum, the mother of darkness, who is the youngest and cruellest of the three, controls New York. And I built their horrible houses, the repository of all their filthy secrets..."

That is what Rose Elliott, living in an apartment building in New York, discovers in an ancient book sold to her by Kazanian, an antiques dealer and later, as we learn, rabid ailurophobe--fear of cats. She realizes that she lives in one of the three houses and sets out to unlock the riddle. However, she is brutally killed, but not before sending a letter to her brother Mark, who is studying music in Rome.

Mark, distracted by a sultry woman with a huge dirty white Persian, forgets the letter at the music auditorium. His classmate Sarah reads it, and calls Mark. When he gets to her place, he finds her murdered. He arrives in New York and gets mixed up in what his sister was investigating.

The scene preceding Rose's death is one of the eeriest, with windows lit hellish red, shimmering blue lights dancing along the walls, lightning, and glass breaking with the rain pouring in. It climaxes with her gory demise.

Another is when Rose drops her keys in a pool and diving to get them, finds a weird room underwater. Actress Irene Miracle clearly put her talents as an experienced underwater swimming to good use.

Two other characters meet with even worse deaths. Elise, Rose's neighbour, has a, well, CAT-astrophic fate. It's a highlight of this movie. Cats feature a lot in this movie, BTW. Ditto Kazanian, only worse, and with a different animal. The casualty rate in this film is higher than in Argento's Profondo Rosso and Suspiria.

Although not mentioned, the girl with the cat was Mater Lachrymarum, and wordlessly played to perfection by Ania Pieroni. Check the closeups of her blue eyes. Two alumni from Profondo Rosso appear: Gabriele Lavia and Daria Niccolodi. As in Rosso, Lavia plays a character named, yes, Carlo. Daria Niccolodi (Elise) was Gianna in PR and was the ex-wife of Dario Argento and mother of Asia Argento. Alida Valli (the desk woman) came out in Suspiria as the menacing Miss Tanner.

One superlative visual effect was done by Mario Bava, and that was the transformation scene of Mater Tenebrarum. Not bad for a period without digital graphics technology.

Keith Emerson's (of Emerson-Lake-Palmer) piano score captures the eerie atmosphere of this film, as does his Latin choir in the Mater Tenebrarum song near the film's end and credits.
The second in Dario Argento's as-yet uncompleted Three Mothers trilogy, while not as visually grabbing as Suspiria, still maintains horrific deaths and images, lots of blood, whispering voices, and menacing hands. And Leigh McCloskey (Mark) comes across as unassertive and undynamic. Still, a laudable effort from Argento.

A stunning visual feast from the brilliant Argento

Having just viewed Dario Argento's "Inferno", his follow-up to "Suspiria", I must say it was fantastic. This film is a real banquet for the eyeballs. The use of color and lighting in this film is magnificent, and the cinematography first-rate as well. The story is dark and ominous and you quickly find yourself immersed in it. I rate it right up there with "Tenebre", "Suspiria", and "Deep Red" as one of his finest cinematic achievements. Just awesome. Dario is one of the greatest filmmakers ever. Period. An uncompromising visionary of stellar genius. He has a vision and he does not deviate, he is unconcerned with studio execs approval or public perception of his films. Unwaivering, he makes the kind of films HE wants to make. He doesn't set out to make a commercially successful film. He doesn't compromise his ideals and sacrifice the integrity of his films by allowing their content to be edited just to please producers, or in a pathetic attempt to try to appeal to a more mainstream audience. Perhaps that's why some of his releases have been cut by nearly an hour! (In the U.S. and other countries outside of Italy.) Sadly, "Phenomena" was originally released in the U.S. at just 82 minutes. The U.S. version from Anchor Bay is 110 minutes. (It should be noted that this is not the complete version either. The "integral version" available in Italy, Holland, and Japan runs 115 minutes.) That's 28 to 33 minutes that was cut previously!! That's absolute butchery and that's sickening! The Director's original vision needs to be preserved at all costs. At any rate... Dario is an immensely talented director and "Inferno" is a prime example of the man at his best. No true Argento fan, or horror film buff in general, should do themselves the injustice of not owning this movie. 5 Stars, hands down. Highly recommended viewing if you enjoy dark, morbid stories with dazzling visual imagery. I wish that even 25% of the directors in Hollywood had the talent, the vision and the balls that Dario possesses. Maybe then we wouldn't be bombarded with the gutless, unimaginative, uninspiring trash that is heaved upon us month after month, year after year, by the Hollywood filmmaking community. But, I digress. Definitely buy this one if you like Dario or horror movies. You won't be sorry.

Visually Stunning and Hallucinatory

Considering that Suspiria is by far the most popular and acclaimed film in Argento's catalogue I'm rather confused as to why the sequel Inferno isn't more popular. Fans of Suspiria, like myself, ought to eat this up. Admittedly, it isn't as good as Suspiria, but it takes all the things that made that film so extraordinary and unusual and pushes them boundaries even further, while managing to be a fairly distinct from it's predecessor. This is most definitely a worthwhile piece in and of itself, and it is a must see for any horror fan, or those who enjoy visually startling films.

Visually, Inferno is even more stylized then Suspiria, with virtually nothing being shot in a perfuntory or realistic manner. It takes the most prominent visual aspect of Suspiria, the bright, garish sets and surreal colored lighting,(most often red and blue) and takes them to a greater extreme, and in a slightly different direction. In Suspiria, the set design and colored lighting were relatively simple, generally using open areas and relatively simple lighting, frequently with the entire scenes bathed in a single color.(And it rarely become more complicated than simply having 2 colors for the background, and 1 more illuminating the characters in the foreground) Thus, for all it's eeriness, the lighting in Suspiria actually illuminated the scene quite well. Not so in Inferno. The sets are cramped and elaborate, with numerous different light sources illuminating small portions of the scenes, generally with much of the scene still shrouded in darkness.(often to the point which you can't easily identify objects) Thus, although Inferno has many of the visual elements of Suspiria, they are used in a notably different style. Personally, I think that Inferno looks even better then its predecessor. The most notable scene, visually, is when Rose is attacked in her apartment. It is simply astounding.


This film is not big on plot or character development. In fact, I would say that it has perhaps the least character development of any film I've seen. (none) And to my surprise, I think this is actually a slight problem. Although Suspiria wasn't too big on character development, it managed to make me genuinely like Suzy and Sarah, whereas I don't give a damn about anyone in this film. And this actually makes the horror scenes less effective. The plot extends the mythos of Suspiria, with Rose reading a book, The Three Mothers, in the opening scene. The book states that 3 sisters rule the world, Mater Suspiriorum, Mater Tenebrarum and Mater Lachymarum, and that they live in Freiburg, Rome and New York respectively.(Naturally, Mater Suspiriorum was Helena Marcos in Suspiria) And she discovers that, wouldn't ya know it, she's living in the apartment complex in which Mater Tenebrarum resides.(She lives underneath it though, not in one of the apartments.) She's disturbed by this story and calls for help from her brother, Mark, living in Rome. Thus, an investigation is begun by various individuals, generally leading to their untimely deaths. As you might imagine, the plot is driven by absurdities and contrivances almost exclusively. But I don't care, and neither should you, considering the film and its goals. It can be a bit confusing at times as well, but you ought not worry about that, for the reasons stated above.

The murder sequences are very elaborate and nicely done, in much the same magnificently colored and hallucinogenic slasher film manner found in Suspiria, this time generally with taloned, cowled killers. They do have some slight flaws, however. Most significantly, they lack much of the sheer intensity and brutality of the killings in Suspiria. (Sorry about the endless comparisons, but they practically beg to be done) Simply put, the victims in Inferno are, for the most part, not made to suffer the way they did in Suspiria. Some people found the more sadistic aspect of Suspiria offensive, but that's what gave the deaths there power. Naturally, the most affecting death is the most painful seeming one, where the victim has their head pinned down through an open window, and the broken window pane repeatedly dropped on their throat. The visualization of this event leaves something to be desired, but it is conceptually nasty enough to make it work very well. Still, all the other deaths are beautifully shot and staged, even if they aren't as painful or personally affecting. Another problem is that they attempt a few more animal attacks, with little success. There is a cat attack, which is unintentionally humorous, and a massed rat attack which is just kinda bland. Fortunately, that is not all that is going on in those scenes, and they are still excellent sequences overall.

One of the most famous aspects of Suspiria was its extraordinary score by the band Goblin. Here Keith Emerson takes over scoring duties, and takes them in a different, somewhat more conventional direction, with lots of omionous, discordant piano pieces. Though not as effective as Goblin's work, it still works quite well, and is preferable to merely attempting a retread of the previous score. It uses the old trick of having a vicious murder contrasted with a grandiose, incongruent classical piece,(to great effect) and I also particularly enjoy the rock version of some Verdi piece they use during the cab scene.(It's cheesy, but I like it)

Sadly, the end of this film is somewhat anti-climatic.(Though to a lesser extent than was Suspiria) It's primarily hurt by the fact that it has a conceptually solid but incredibly hokey visual effect during the confrontation with Mater Tenebrarum. It's also hurt by the fact that the evil is defeated not by the actions of any of the protagonists, but just through luck and chance.


Well, that's about it. Somewhat flawed, but the flaws don't matter much. If you haven't seen Suspiria yet, see it first. If you like that, check this out.

Hypnotic, stylish, atmospheric horror masterpiece

Dario Argento has made some of the most captivating, brilliant horror movies I have ever seen, and I absolutely love and devour horror movies, old and new. "Inferno" is no exception; it holds your attention from start to finish, and if you weren't fascinated by it, you have to be a pretty dull person. So the plot is not crystal clear,who cares? Argento has never specialized in the plot department. But, contrary to what many people think, Argento's movies DO have substance are not just fanciful exercises in style. Argento, more than any horror director I've ever seen, evokes a sense of the marvelous and otherworldly:his films point away from the commonplace, the ordinary, and push us in the direction of the unknown. Half the people who bash this movie probably couldn't take their eyes off it while it was actually playing. True, some of the dialogue is ludicrous and the scene at the end with the 'grim reaper' was absurd, but the sheer magic and intrigue of the movie make its flaws unimportant. Argento is to horror cinema what Lovecraft, Poe or Kafka are to horror literature. I find it hard to believe that the 'fans' who dismiss this movie because of qualms they have over it 'not making sense' or the incomprehensible nature of the plot were Argento fans to begin with: the premise of the movie is neither more nor less ludicrous than the plots of his other movies. Argento's work is not meant to be logically coherent or rational, but to penetrate the mystical, shadowy side of existence. You will never see a more visually stunning or visionary horror movie. Don't just rent this movie, buy it.

Good, but a few noticable flaws bring it down

I am a huge fan of Suspiria and Dario Argento so naturally after seeing Suspiria I rushed out and bought this. I knew this installment couldn't really match up to Suspiria but to tell you the truth I couldn't help but be a little dissapointed. Here are some of my likes/dislikes with the film.

LIKES:
Dario's direction and sense of style have not changed and the set pieces and shots in the film are top notch.

The kill count nearly doubles in this installment which leads to some very good moments, and some not as good. But nothing horrible (I mean you gotta love that hot dog vendor scene). And although the music may not be as creepy the suspense is still very much there.

The elaboration on the plot (although still a little confusing) is always nice.

DISLIKES:
The music bugged me a lot and is by far my number 1 compaint with this film and basically why I gave a 3 instead of a 4. This may seem trivial but the heart pumping masterwork in Suspiria gripped you and kept you on the edge of your seat for the rest of the film. The score in Inferno just fails to do this and is mostly just a soft piano score which loosens the tension and atmosphere for a lot of the film.

The only other thing that bugged me enough to mention was a few of the killings. I mean as I stated earlier I like most of them but they failed to match up to the grandiose masterpieces in Suspiria. More deaths are always good but it seems in some cases they exchanged quality for quantity. Moreover the back on the DVD says it's uncut but particularily in one of the scenes it fades out rather abruptly which bugged me because it was probably the best death in the film (I speaking of the window scene where Rose is killed).

OVERALL:
Despite a few areas most of the aspects of this movie are quite enjoyable and I highly reccomend this, especially to fans of Suspiria and Dario Argento.

A TRUE horror film by one of the masters

In an age where garbage like the SAW movies and endless remakes of horror classics (The Hills Have Eyes, Amityville Horror, etc.) clutter up theaters, it's nice to be able to revisit the visionary horrors of Dario Argento. Sure, Inferno is slow-paced by today's standards...and it's all the more terrifying for it. Like a master painter, Argento takes time to compose each scene for maximum visual impact. Each time I watch Inferno, I get drawn in again.

Like his masterpiece, Suspiria, Inferno isn't terribly well-acted or even conventially plotted. But again, it's about the visual experience, the in-your-face horror. Do your nightmares make sense? More often than not, they don't. And that's what the best of Argento's films do: they approximate living nightmares. Even the music--at times discordant and jarring--adds to the unsettling feeling that Something Is Not Right Here.

It's safe to say if you're a fan of those recent movies I listed at the start of this review, you probably won't care much for Inferno. But if you have a little patience and willingness to go along for the ride...you may just have a few nightmares after spending a couple of hours in the world of Dario Argento.

Raising hell...

Good stylish Argento movie dating back to 1980. Yet something wrong. Maybe the plot, too close to that of 1976 Suspiria, of which Inferno is probably an ideal sequel, but not as whipping and fascinating. The academy school has been replaced by a groomy building, nest of Mater Tenebrarum, one of the three Mothers who rule the world. The impression is that something is missing, probably the final part of the mothers trilogy, which began with Mother Suspiriorum in 1976. Superb cinematography and juicy episodes, such as the cellar immersion of the protagonist or the double gore murder of Eleonora Giorgi and Gabriele Lavia, whose screams mix up with Verdi's Nabucco. I expected something better from the solution of it all, but your nerves will be whipped from the very beginning up to the whole development of the movie.
Good job from Anchor Bay Ent., with a widescreen presentation (1.85:1) enhanced for 16x9 TV's, the audio track is only in english language, but in 5.1 Dolby Sorround. The extra features are essential, with an exclusive Dario Argento interview (which begins before the film starts, but cannot be selected from the menu), the theatrical trailer, a still gallery and the talent bios. Good exercise of tension with a great score from Keith Emerson, excellent style and fascinating colours.

Grade-A DVD treatment for Argento misfire

Though prized by many Dario Argento fans as one of the director's major works, "Inferno" (1980) emerges as a real disappointment. Stripped of the necessity to construct a cohesive plot (which distinguished the giallo epics that made his name), Argento relishes the opportunity to strip "Inferno" down to the bare essentials: Leigh McCloskey is an American music student in Rome who returns home to New York to look for his sister (Irene Miracle) who's gone missing in a neo-Gothic apartment building where deadly supernatural forces hold sway. This 'bare bones' scenario allows Argento to concentrate exclusively on a series of loosely-connected set-pieces, each self-contained and virtually independent of the main thematic framework. For reasons which will delight some and mystify others, characters react to extraordinary events in completely unrealistic ways: Miracle discovers a rotting corpse in a hidden room in the basement and fails to contact the police. Likewise, McCloskey is drugged into unconsciousness while searching the building and dismisses the experience as though it were nothing. A ghostly Ania Pieroni turns up in the middle of McCloskey's music class, completely unobserved by anyone else, whispering something unintelligible before drifting away on a gust of supernatural wind. And so on.

With characterisations, plot and - most importantly - drama sacrificed in favor of dream-like set-pieces, it's virtually impossible to get a handle on the proceedings, and for all its mayhem and visual beauty, it simply lies there and dies there. Perversely, the film's refusal to operate in a conventional narrative manner and to supply concrete answers to most of its mysteries has provided plenty of ammunition for intellectual movie students over the years (Maitland McDonagh provides a good account of "Inferno's" subtextual concerns in her book 'Broken Mirrors Broken Minds The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento'). But anyone simply looking for a good story, well told, are best advised to look elsewhere.

But don't despair! When "Inferno" works, it sings. There's a genuinely terrifying moment when a supernatural presence makes itself known in the apartment of Eleonora Giorgi, one of McCloskey's fellow music students - Argento's use of sound and vision during this sequence is extraordinarily effective, particularly his use of 'Va Pensiero' from Verdi's 'Nabucco' as an aural counterpoint to the on-screen horrors. The subsequent assault on Giorgi and Gabriele Lavia (a helpful neighbor who comforts Giorgi following her hair-raising encounter with a spectral killer at the local library!) is brilliantly ochestrated, and so is the pay-off when McCloskey stumbles on the gruesome aftermath. "Inferno" achieves greatness during moments like this, but it can't sustain itself over feature length, and the result is probably Argento's least memorable achievement.

That said, anyone who loves this movie will find themselves well-served by Anchor Bay's definitive DVD version (running time: 106m 7s). Presented anamorphically at 1.85:1, this is the only home video print to date which accurately reproduces the beautiful color scheme employed on this production. Recalling "Suspiria" at its most vivid, the DVD is completely unblemished. And anyone lucky enough to have 5.1 audio playback capabilities are advised to turn the volume up to the max (warn the neighbors beforehand, though!) and allow the awesome soundscape to scare you witless. It doesn't have the same frightening intensity as "Suspiria", but you won't be disappointed. Add to this a trailer, brief interviews with the film's chief collaborators and a handful of biographies/filmographies, this adds up to an impressive achievement. Whatever you think of the movie itself, there's no denying Anchor Bay's superb reproduction on DVD.

Style over substance... wanna make somethin' of it? ;)

Strange Argento shockfest (the Tenebrae - "mother of darkness" - part of the proposed Three Mothers trilogy - Suspiria was the first, and Lachrymarum - "mother of tears" - has yet to be made) follows a woman's search for the mysterious Three Mothers, evil dieties in which she becomes obsessed after reading an alchemist's diary. He was also an architect who built houses for the three mothers, and while investigating one of these houses she gets the attention of followers of the mothers, who silence her, leaving her brother to find out what happened to her. This, of course, leads to more flashy killings (cat attack, rat attack, window-as-guillotine, etc.). The story is so hard to follow that it gets lost in all the red herrings, and style overwhelms substance... but since this Argento at his Argento-ist, style is enough, I promise. You have the famous underwater-room sequence, a weird scene with a hauntingly-beautiful girl in a classroom, opulent use of red and blue lighting, and some impressive fire scenes. And Keith Emerson's music score is excellent - "Suspiriorum! Lachrymarum! Tenebrarum!" Mario Bava helped with this film, and his influence is definitely felt here. This may not be Argento's best film (for my money that's Deep Red) but it does contain some of his best sequences. And if you don't get the whole story the first time, you won't mind having to go for repeated viewings.

Not quite this world

Don't analyse this film or admire it's fine acting talents (the film is dubbed) - you won't get anywhere. Instead admire the skillful direction by the virtuoso director, Dario Argento. This film, like Suspiria, are truly ingenious as they don't quite seem like this world. The sets are all fractured and watered with vibrant colours of red and blue. The most effective part of the film is the soundtrack. Most of the film, including one great and graphic murder scene, are (if I remember correctily) set to Beethoven.Enjoy!