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“So Passes The Glory of Lesbos.”
Every time a discussion comes up about what is Argento’s Masterpiece this film gets thrown around in the top 5. Rarely is it ever the top spot, but it is my personal favorite. Deep Red commonly takes the top spot among best-of lists, but something about Tenebrae brings me back to it most often.
Tenebrae is about a novelist who goes to Rome for a book tour. When he lands he finds out someone is killing beautiful young women in manners similar to his writings. Coincidently, the pages of his book are being shoved down the women’s throats as they are killed. This draws the writer into a world of murder and mystery as he tries to figure out how he is connected to the killer.
These murders aren’t just executed in the classic killer who stabs them and watches them die fashion. Each kill is incredibly stylish and creative in its execution. Argento ensures every kill has a very contrasting background for the blood splatter. It’s almost like there is a combination of art and eroticism in the violence.
As our novelist does more interviews, they start to steer away from his book and more about the killings. Peter Neal, our novelist, is accompanied by his agent, Bullmer. Bullmer is played by the absolute legend, John Saxon. When I was first researching the film, seeing Saxon in it was the reason I wanted to hunt it down in the first place. Despite Saxon not being the lead, I found the film incredibly engaging.
Our second set of kills make up a few of the reasons this film is so highly regarded. The continuous crane shot is the stuff of inventive film history. Everyone talks about it in every review, so why not? It is a fantastic tracking shot that flows right into a very creative way of splattering a blood bag. A young girl is pulling a shirt over her head, and it cuts to a razor blade slash. Then a white shirt is cut, revealing the girl’s face, and we get a hugely produced amount of blood spray. This leads to her lesbian lover roommate, who just got done having sex with a random dude, investigating the strange noises downstairs. Mostly naked, of course. This leads to her impending doom, where her throat is then cut, and her head smashed through a glass window.
During that whole sequence, we are given the main theme of the film provided by Claudio Simonetti and crew. What seems like an oddly jarring intro theme comes back later using a talk box, and what essentially sounds like the words ” Fire it Up” are sung in various octaves over and over. It works. It’s strange, but after a while, strange and Italian Giallo tend to go hand in hand.
Our third kill changes style yet again with a POV shot following our victim, which is very similar to Halloween or Friday the 13th, not before getting a long sequence involving a rabid dog chase that conveniently leads to the killer’s home, of course.
Our film seems to go along traditionally until it takes a wild left turn. We have been given confusing flashback sequences explaining our killer’s past, or so we think. One, in particular, involves a strange beach orgy that turns into a beating and shoving a stiletto heel into a man’s mouth. So we are given this exposition only for us to go off the rails and decide, ” Hey, that’s not the killer anymore.”It is impossible to figure out the plot until the end. It’s not that complicated. It’s just that it chooses an audible towards the end and switches plays.
The ending sequence and the kills involved are pretty gruesome. Some great visual effects are used here. Enough to give even Fulci some new ideas. It features some great gore and very inventive kills. The ending feels like parts would later be lifted and used in Kiss The Girls or Seven, just for its improbability alone.
Synapse recently released this on 4K, and it looks marvelous. There isn’t any sound drop at all, and the score, being so powerful, seems to pop. With a film with such contrasting color schemes, the new resolution only helps to accentuate the bright reds and the dull white backgrounds. I feel like I get more out of this with each subsequent viewing, and I will go back to it for many years to come. Especially with such a fine release from Synapse.
People always rant about Deep Red, which is a classic in itself, or the Argento animal trilogy, but for me, Tenebrae is where it’s at. The film is a life-imitating art-type situation. Obsession becomes murder. Trauma becomes lunacy. Humiliation becomes revenge. Revenge becomes more murder. Accidental death becomes more trauma. The cycle never ends in Tenebrae.
Keep your eyes peeled in the credits for genre stalwarts Lamberto Bava and Michele Soavi, both of whom worked as assistant directors on the movie.
Side note: Tenebrae is Latin for darkness. Latin is used in the film here and there. My opening line is said in Latin in the film and is not just me spouting off random quotes about lesbians.
