Deep Red
Italy / 1975
Directed by Dario Argento
Starring
David Hemmings
Daria Nicolodi
Gabriele Lavia
Color / 126 Minutes / Not Rated
Format: DVD (R0 - NTSC)
Anchor Bay Entertainment
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2007 Blue Underground reissue

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Review by
Brian Lindsey
 
9
    7   10 = Highest Rating  
The horror movie as art?
    Unequivocally yes, at least where the stylish films of Dario Argento are concerned. His 1975 shocker Deep Red (Profondo Rosso), never before seen uncut in the U.S. and released on DVD in 2000 by Anchor Bay, is an influential classic of the Italian giallo mystery thriller genre.
    A twisted tale of psychopathic compulsion, Deep Red is a stunning journey through a shadow labyrinth of repressed memories and madness. English jazz pianist Marc Daly (David Hemmings - Blow-up, Gladiator), who lives and works in Rome, witnesses the savage murder of a renowned psychic (Macha Méril) who lives in his apartment building. Though all he can definitively tell the police is that the killer wore a brown raincoat, Daly is troubled by the persistent notion that he saw something else in the victim's flat    something he can't remember that holds the key to the murderer's identity. Obsessed with jogging his memory of that fateful night, Daly begins his own amateur investigation of the crime. But once the Englishman's picture is published in a tabloid newspaper article about the case, the murderer targets Daly himself.
    Deep Red is a tour-de-force thriller, overflowing with stylistic camera moves and editing techniques that have been copied again and again by filmmakers ever since. (Not that Argento isn't guilty of a little "borrowing" now and then...) Eschewing traditional suspense movie music, Argento tapped Italian rock trio Goblin to provide the film's pulsing, eerily unsettling score, perfect accompaniment to its nightmare images. And what images! Though this movie is 25 years old, some scenes managed to shock even this jaded viewer. Not with copious amounts of gore — though it does have its share — but rather in the artistry with which such scenes are composed
.

Anchor Bay did an incredible restoration job with this film. Deep Red looks like it was shot yesterday, not over a quarter century ago. The audio has been remixed in Dolby 5.1 stereo. For the first time, U.S. audiences can see the authorized director's cut of the film, which runs almost 30 minutes longer than the butchered theatrical print shown here in the late '70s. The English language dialog for these scenes was either lost or never recorded, so they are presented in Italian with English subtitles, which automatically kick in at the appropriate moments. (This might throw you off at first, but much of the restored footage has no dialog anyway; one can also opt to watch the whole film in Italian, with subtitles, if desired.)
    And now a friendly word of warning, if I may... While DVD is a fabulous format, it can lead to temptation. To wit: Just like the film's protagonist, we the audience are shown the killer's identity long before it is "revealed". Please refrain from hitting the freeze-frame button at certain moments! (Something movie theater patrons can't do... It’ll ruin the ending!) Also, there's a neat 25-minute documentary included on the disc that contains clips from the film which are major "spoilers". View this after seeing the movie itself. 3/30/01
UPDATE The AB edition reviewed here went OOP in 2005. In 2007 Blue Underground reissued the same disc reviewed above, only with different cover art. In May 2011 BU is releasing a newly remastered special edition on DVD and Blu-ray. Hooray! (The Blu will include two different cuts of the film.)
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