Tenebre - Special Edition

i love mystery movies. especially dario argento's! i have to say that this movie reminds me more of clockwork orange in atmosphere than of deep red and all..there are excellent gore effects for gorehounds a nice twist for you psychological killer enthusiasts. while yes, it is a great investment, i still think suspiria and inferno are far superior. this one deals with real life rather than dreamy moodscapes of the "witch" movies. swo if you get into argento via suspiria or inferno, don't expect them.


finally, what is it with this being out of print!!! look at how much they are selling for? 121 bucks?!?!? psssh..i say if you are going to get this, search ebay or some used record and movies stores..or you can even get some 30 bucks cheaper on amazon uk as of the time im writing this. i personally say that if someone is selling this for over 75 bucks, pass on it. just rent it and it will be back in print one day. it has to be re-released!

After releasing his first giallo films and taking a break to direct his mystical thrillers ("Suspiria" and "Inferno", which bacame an unfinished to this day trilogy about The Three Mothers), Dario Argento returned to his favourite genre and made "Tenebrae" and "Opera" with non-giallo "Phenomena" in between. To my opinion this two movies along with "Profondo Rosso" ("Deep Red") are the best giallo films in history of cinema although there are many great flicks and filmmakers who worked in this direction. With all my love and respect towards Lucio Fulci, Luigi Cozzi, Sergio Martino, Umberto Lenzi, Ruggero Deodato and so on, I still think Argento's movies are way better than any others.
In "Tenebrae" you still have all the necessary attributes of the genre - pretty girls being murdered, killer in black gloves, a sympathetic detective investigating a case, but the film stands out among all others of this kind. I don't even know how to explain it, but Argento knows how to create images that will haunt your memory forever after entering it. Dead girl's head hanging over at the staircase, murder on a crowded square, dog persuit, the unforgettable finale - these are the scenes you will hardly forget ever. They will still be in your head after many years, like remains of some blurry dream, and you'll be wondering: "Did I see it in some of Argento films?". And you'll definately want to watch it once more.
I know all his movies by heart, but I still can't understand what it is that makes them so special, how Argento manages to create this miraculous and dreamy atmosphere. Maybe we're dealing with some kind of divine intervention here.
About edition itself: Anchor Bay release is slightly cut, just a couple of seconds, couple of stabs :) If you really want a totally uncut version try to find either Dutch edition by A-Film (titled "Shadows"), or French one by TF1 Video, or any existing Japanise version. All others have these few seconds cut. But on the other hand Anchor Bay has some good extras, so you may want to have more than one edition if you are a real fan. By the way there is a very good German limited to 2000 copies release under the name "Unsane". It also contains some interesting extras although misses seconds.

Though the cover claims this to be the un-edited release, I have a vhs secam converted copy of the Japanese release which has some really interesting visual work - not integral to the story itself - but very wonderful for the creative filming techniques and visual affects which it provides. Very dissapointed to find this particular minute or so long segment (and possibly more I'm not remembering) cut out of this supposedly un-edited release.

Dario Argento's "Tenebre" is somewhere in between a murder mystery with graphic violence and a horror movie. Clearly, there is an element of horror in this movie with the graphic kills that take place on screen. In fact, the kill scenes in "Tenebre" are some of the finest that you will run into regardless of genre. However, to characterize "Tenebre" strictly as a horror movie would not be entirely accurate as it takes more than just graphic kills to be a horror movie. I would call it a suspense-thriller with some elements of horror being clearly evident.

"Tenebre" is about an author who wrote a book named "Tenebre" which provides details of very graphic images of murder and a killer begins murdering people using the same techniques as in the book verbatim to commit his murders. What ensues is an intricate suspense-thriller with some elements of horror in the mold of a "who dunnit" like murder mystery. As the story develops, the author begins his own investigation of these crimes, and so the story unfolds.

Fundamentalists may argue that "Tenebre" does fit the mold of a "slasher movie" and while this is technically accurate, I would argue that this movie, as a whole, lacks the "feel" of a horror movie and is more of a mystery and suspense flick. Sure, this movie has some incredibly violent and graphic kills, but that alone does not make a horror movie, and certainly not a scary movie. However, what Argento does provide in "Tenebre" is a very good and intricate murder mystery with some "slasher-movie" like kills.

The savvy viewer will notice that most of Argento's use of blood and gore and the death scenes in general in all of his movies are largely incidental to the real horror of the story and atmosphere of the movie itself. Unlike many of today's directors and their modern horror movies, Argento always succeeds as using blood and gore as an incidental mechanism to increase horror in the audience, and not as his only means of producing horror. In other words, Argento does not use blood and gore as his only vehicle to create horror, but it is the setting, suspense, the situation, the story and the horrifying atmosphere that Argento employs that are actually scary. Consequently, the killing in and of itself is scarier than it would be without the dreamlike atmosphere and tension build up that Argento uses to effectuate horror. Therefore, when the violence, blood and gore actually occur, there is already a foundation for the horror upon which the kill scenes work to magnify and/or accentuate such horror. That being said, this is where "Tenebre" is clearly inferior to Argento's earlier works like "Suspiria" and "Inferno" where Argento's use of atmosphere is clearly more evident. Still, there are undeniable elements of horror present in "Tenebre", but I was just expecting a pure horror movie, and that is not what "Tenebre" is...it just does not have the requisite feel/atmosphere of a pure horror movie.

There is no question that the cinematic atmosphere which is produced by this movie creates great suspense and thrills although not so much in the way of "chills". In my mind, "Tenebre" is definitely much better than "Deep Red", but the movies are very similar in style except for a stronger plot development which is clearly evident in "Tenebre". There is no doubt that Argento has always been long on style and short on plot development, but that is immaterial regarding its erroneous classification as a pure horror movie. That being said, Argento's horror masterpiece "Suspiria" and even "Inferno" are clearly much better in the way of producing pure horror than is "Tenebre".

I recommend "Tenebre" if you are looking for a good murder mystery and suspense thriller movie with some very graphic violence and an interesting twist to the ending, but if you are looking for a really good slasher movie or horror flick dealing with similar although not identical subject matter, check out Alfred Hitchcock's immortal classic "Psycho", which is clearly cinematic horror at its finest. In a sense, "Tenebre" is, in a sense, kinda like "Psycho" with the suspense and graphic kills, but lacking the atmospheric and situational horror of Alfred Hitchcock's classic film.

Darkness (for those who wonder what the title film means) is not the only time of the day TENEBRE's would-be victims should be afraid of when a psychopath starts imitating the murders of one best-selling author's latest creation. Before you can even say what the--, this 1982 horrorfest has already delivered the goods with style and flair. Never has it been more fun to witness the untimely premise of its cast. With a touch of ingenuity from its director and a killer-score to boost, TENEBRE is a strong and inspiring piece of film that is a definite must-see. Undoubtedly one of the best efforts of Dario Argento's career.-----Martin Boucher