In Tenebrae, the plot is considerably more important to the movies function than it was in Suspiria and Inferno. An American detective story writer (Franciosa) visits Rome on a promotional tour and finds himself embroiled in a series of murders of young women, seemingly imitative of his most recent novel. Coming under suspicion, he starts to play sleuth himself, aided by his agent (Saxon), who subsequently is himself murdered. In the end, it proves that though the murders were initiated by a deranged TV personality (Steiner), Franciosa has himself continued them out of psychopathic misogyny.

Franciosa apparently commits suicide by cutting his throat, but his action seems to have been faked, and he subsequently murders the investigating policeman (Gemma) and is about to claim another victim (Nicolodi) when he is picturesquely killed by tripping over an elaborate steel sculpture. Some elements of the material recall Dressed to Kill (1980) but Argento's film is in its own way considerably more effective.

The killings are staged with a perhaps dubious relish, but visual detail - gloved hands, keys turning in locks - is brilliantly orchestrated to jangle the nerves, and in one extraordinary sequence the camera airily surmounts walls and glides through the windows as it undertakes a prowling inventory of an apartment house where a murder is about to be committed.

reviewed by NJD

buy the tenebre dvd from www.amazon.com

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