For me a Big Disappointment...

I'm watching the current Argento season on Zone Horror in the UK, and having seen "The bird with crystal plummage" which I thought was a very impressive and assured debut film, then wallowing in the rich imagery atmosphere and shocks of "Deep Red" which i felt took the main devices of "Bird" and took them to new and dizzying levels... it was time for "Tenebre"...

And as the title of this thread suggests I thought it was bobbins, a film of utter bobbins...

I found it to be a flatly shot, flatly lit, horribly dated movie in the way everything that's 80's looks dated today, the music was laughably bad as was most of the acting... John Saxon "acts" like he doesn't know what the hell's going on and cares even less, though I will say his murder in broad daylight in a public place with none of the silly music was one of the few good bits in the film. Another surprisingly moving bit I thought was Neal saying goodbye to Gianni and saying he was "sorry he had to get involved in all this" like he knows he's going to kill him but is actually sorry he "has to" do it - but sadly these bits were few and far between.

To me this seemed like Argento was responding to the people who ridiculously claim that there "aren't enough" murders in "Deep Red" - IF people said such a thing at the time I don't know, maybe that's just a recent development - and I'm sure it was all supposed to be very shocking and stylish but by the end when the killings really started piling up i was actually bored by it and found it passe... I was thinking "alright Dario, you can try something different now"

To sum up It's beyond me how anyone could think this is in any way better than the masterpiece that is "Deep Red/Profondo rosso"... and on a brighter note i'm now very much looking forward to "Phenomena" next week which i think is a film i'll enjoy alot more.