TENEBRAE

Italy, 1982, 110 minutes, Colour.
Anthony Franciosa, Christian Borromeo, Mirella D’ Angelo, John Steiner, John Saxon.
Directed by Dario Argento.

Tenebrae (Under the Eyes of the Assassin) is a typically gory-horror thriller by writer-director Dario Argento (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Deep Red, Suspiria). The film has a mixture of Americans and Italians in the cast, American and Italian settings.

Argento is noted for his visual flair, his homage to makers of thrillers and horror films and his imitations of their sequences - but with more gusto and visual style. He is interested in crime stories, horror murders - though the presentation seems to be more important than the content. Argento also contributed to his own musical score.

This film has Tony Franciosa and John Saxon giving good performances insofar as they are allowed to as they are secondary to the complications and the bloodletting of the plot.

Argento has a body of work that is quite characteristic - and appeals to cinema buffs of violent murder, horror films.

1. The impact of the film? A gory horror thriller? Its using these conventions and audiences accepting them? The quality of the film-making?

2. The director's flair and visual style: the use of colours, light and darkness, garish tones? The use of American and Italian locations? The importance of making the locations sinister, night sequences, shadows and darkness? Mansions, gardens? The streets? Editing and pace, special effects? The atmospheric and characteristic score?

3. The titles - shades of darkness, the emphasis on the killer? The multiple murder thriller? The irony of the central character being a writer of such stories? The stories being visualised? The glamorous penny dreadful on film?

4. The focus on Peter Neal, best-seller, American background, his agent and assistants, relationship with them? The arrival in Rome and his being feted? The gory murders? The parallel withthe events in his book? The photos of the corpses? The quotations from his writing? The visit to the home of Cristiano Bruni? The growing number of deaths, Jane and Anne, Bulmer and Neal's fiancee Jane? His relationship with these peopte? His response to their deaths? The police? The death of Policewoman Altler? meal beside the bodies? His melodramatic slashing his throat? The explanation of his behaviour, the humiliation by the girl when he was young, his revenge? His wanting to destroy Jane? The fate suicide? The murder of Germani, the confrontation with Anne and his accidental death? The credibility of this kind of character and his behaviour? For this kind of heightened melodrama?

5. Jane and her fickleness, relationship with Bulmer, her death? Anne and her assistance? Her investigating the events?

6. Bulmer and his friendship with Neal, the investigations. the subtlety of the sequence highlighting his death? Germani and his death? The work of the police, both investigators being murdered?

7. The focus on Christiano Bruni, murder, perversion, wealth - decadent Roman? His death? Providing a setting for Nealls murders?

8. The importance of the visuals, the atmosphere? The tour de force sequence of the scaling of the building before the deaths? Bulmer's murder? The homages to Hitchcock, de Palma and other directors?

9. The popularity of this kind of film? The tradition of grand guignol horror? The effect of heightened and gory melodramas on the audience?