“Tenebrae” (“Darkness”, also called “Tenebre”) is another gory Giallo whodunit from acclaimed director Dario Argento. Considered to be one of his best, this Giallo has all the expected ingredients: great visuals, a whodunit mystery, gore, and sleaze. Argento got his inspiration for this plot from his own experience of being stalked by an obsessed fan. (I would bet that the fan did not receive a ‘thank you’ note.)

The movie begins with surreal imagery, where a man (Anthony Franciosa) is seen biking across a New York freeway, all the way to a terminal in JFK Airport. (I wonder if this was possible, even in the 80s.) The biker is revealed to be Peter Neal, an author of horror fiction, who is traveling to Rome. A car parks right next to him, and its driver hands Peter a leather duffel bag.

Peter is accompanied on his trip by his agent Bullmer (John Saxon of ‘Enter the Dragon’ and ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ fame) and his secretary, Ann (Daria Nicolodi). The scene shifts to Rome, where a young lady, Elsa, is caught shoplifting Peter’s latest novel, also named Tenebrae. The cop who apprehends Elsa lets her go on condition that she meets him later for obvious reasons. Next, Elsa is attacked on the street by a homeless maniac. Elsa breaks free and runs away, but the man pursues her. Elsa hides in an apartment, when a gloved hand grabs her from behind, stuffs her mouth with pages from the novel, and slashes her throat. The homeless man watches the murder from the window of the apartment. The murderer takes photographs of Elsa’s bloody corpse before leaving the scene.

Next, a reporter, Tilde (Mirella D’Angelo), meets Peter and accuses him of portraying the female victims as weak objects of sex in his books and asks him why he is misogynistic. Bullmer interrupts the conversation and arranges an interview between Tilde and Peter for another time.

When Peter arrives at his apartment in Rome, he meets detective Germani (Giuliano Gemma) and his partner from the Roman police. Germani, a fan of Peter’s novels, informs Peter about Elsa’s murder and that the murder bears an eerie similarity to a murder described in Peter’s novel. Peter tells Germani that he has received an anonymous letter from someone claiming to be an obsessed fan. The person who sent Peter the letter claims to be a serial killer and uses the modus operandi for murders described in Peter’s books as inspiration for his kills.

The killer murders Tilde and her lesbian lover, Marion (Mirella Banti), at their apartment. This scene is a long take, lasting two and a half minutes, where the camera moves to the roof of the apartment building, then descends, makes its way through the windows, up the stairs within the apartment, as it presents both gruesome killings. The filming of this scene was done using a Lorna crane and took three days for completion. Some critics considered it ‘meaningless but brilliant’.

Peter’s landlord’s daughter discovers the killer’s hideout but soon becomes his next victim. To complicate things further, Peter’s ex-wife (Veronica Lario) arrives in Rome. It is revealed that Bullmer has been having an affair with her.

As the murders continue to occur, Peter, assisted by his young male assistant (Christian Borromeo), plunges into the investigation. Will they ultimately be able to find the killer? The rest of the plot answers this question. The movie ends with a series of unexpected twists.

Interspersed in the plot are some eerie, disturbing scenes of partial nudity and gore that feature a group of young men and a strange woman on a beach. It is later revealed that this was a traumatic event in the killer’s past.

“Tenebrae’s” riveting plot that includes themes of sexual perversion, voyeurism, and repression of traumatic experiences is unique and riveting. Its gory and sexually explicit scenes made it a controversial film that was banned from theaters in the US until 1984 and from being released on VHS video in the UK until 1999. Despite having no groundbreaking performances, the entire cast puts in acceptable performances. As is expected from all of Argento’s movies, the cinematography in the movie is excellent. I also loved the ‘tingling’ background score from the Italian progressive rock band Goblin, especially in the ‘crane scene’.

“Tenebrae” today is included among the top Giallo movies on the lists of numerous critics and is definitely worth watching for all fans of horror movies and whodunits.

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenebrae_(film)