Tenebre (1982) review

(7/10)

This Argento work redeemed itself from the near-mess that Inferno left behind. It's much creepier with a better plot and vision.

PLOT:Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa) is a best-selling author who has just release his latest work, named Tenebrae, which describes a few murders. His fame is rising steady until someone starts to murder real people influenced by his book. Now he must try and figure out who it is with his colleagues, Anne (Daria Nicolodi) and Detective Germani (Giuliano Gemma), as well as others. It's a good plot executed very well.



ACTING:The performances in here are pretty great. Anthony Franciosa played a great part as the misunderstood author, Peter Neal. I think his final scenes were the best. Daria Nicolodi also played a brilliant job; she's been in a several other of Argento's films and I can see why. Her final scenes in this film were also the best in here. The other shiners would be John Saxon as Bullmer, John Steiner as Cristiano Berti, and Christian Borromeo as Gianni.

SCORE:The score is done this time by Cladio Simonetti, and he does a great job composing creepy themes for the film. It reminds me much of Goblin and the unique score they do. I rather liked it.

EFFECTS:The blood flows freely in this Argento flick. As the body count stacks up, the blood flows further; each kill gets bloodier and bloodier. I was impressed by how violent some of the kills in this one were, but I enjoyed how he did each of them, especially the last few deaths. Argento really did pull himself up from Inferno.



OTHER CONTENT:This Argento work is actually a really good one considering it followed Inferno. This one's much creepier with its atmosphere and has a more visionistic approach to it. Some of the cutscenes/dream sequences along with the kills were very much a part of Argento's unique vision; I really appreciated it. It even kept the twist at the end that Argento usually has in each film, except this one was a lot more spread out. It still lacked in scariness and a bit of substance, but it was good overall.

OVERALL,a good Argento horror with a good plot, great acting, creepy score, impressive kill/blood effects, a creepier atmosphere, a more visionistic approach, and a set of Argento twists, but it lacks a strong scare factor and some substance.