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Inferno (1980)

Director: Dario Argento

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From Time Out Film Guide

Argento's career has largely centred on a series of outlandish thrillers, notable for their bizarre set pieces, elaborate editing and camerawork. These bravura displays of technique remained at odds with his banal handling of actors and narrative, but his best known film, Suspiria, seemed to indicate that Argento had begun to devise a style of commercial film-making which was moving away from the limitations of conventional narrative (or certainly treating it in the most perfunctory fashion), and thrilling the audience only through sound, image and movement. Sadly, Inferno - murder and the occult in a New York apartment house - is a much more conventional and unexciting piece of work. Argento's own over-the-top score has been replaced by religioso thunderings from the keyboards of Keith Emerson, and the meandering narrative confusions are amplified by weak performances. Even the set pieces fail to set the screen alight, and the film's remaining virtue is a series of remarkable individual shots illuminated like masterworks of comic book art.

Author: SM 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide