Deep Red
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Synopsis
From Dario Argento, maestro of the macabre and the man behind some of the greatest excursions in Italian horror (Suspiria, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage), comes Deep Red – the ultimate giallo movie.
One night, musician Marcus Daly (David Hemmings, Blow Up), looking up from the street below, witnesses the brutal axe murder of a woman in her apartment. Racing to the scene, Marcus just manages to miss the perpetrator… or does he? As he takes on the role of amateur sleuth, Marcus finds himself ensnared in a bizarre web of murder and mystery where nothing is what it seems…
Aided by a throbbing score from regular Argento collaborators Goblin, Deep Red (aka Profondo Rosso and The Hatchet Murders) is a hallucinatory fever dream of a giallo punctuated by some of the most astonishing set-pieces the sub-genre has to offer.
Picture 8/10
Arrow upgrades yet another one of their Dario Argento Blu-ray titles to 4K UHD, presenting two versions of his classic Deep Red on two individual triple-layer UHD discs: the original Italian version and the shorter Export version. Each version is presented in the aspect ratio of 2.35:1 with Dolby Vision and encoded at 2160p/24hz. To my understanding Arrow is reusing the same 4K restoration created for their previous Blu-ray edition, which was scanned from the original 35mm 2-perf negatives. The negative had been recut into what would become the Export version, so Arrow had to put in the work to reassemble the original Italian version. From what I can tell, both versions are sourced from the same restoration, and the only shot that I think really differs between the two (though I’m sure fans will know better) is one around text in book, which is in English in the Export version and Italian in the Italian version.
I haven’t seen Arrow’s previous Blu-ray edition for the film so I sadly cannot compare, but as with the other Argento films to get a 4K-bump from Arrow the presentations for both versions clearly benefit from the format. The shadows aren’t as intense here as they are in The Cat ‘O Nine Tails or The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, but they’re still wonderfully rendered, more than likely thanks to Dolby Vision. Blacks can look a bit heavier in general, but the early nighttime street scenes show some gorgeous looking shadows, and the gradients are clean. Shadows are probably more noteworthy during a lengthier sequence closer to the end, where David Hemmings’ character is searching through a dark house a couple of times, flashlight in hand at one point. The dynamic range in these sequences is very wide, and the shadows blend wonderfully as we drift away from the differing light sources, whether it be a lone window or that flashlight.
Where I thought things were probably most impressive, though, were in the colours. The film has a very simple colour palette, made up mostly of blacks and whites, but red is thrown in pretty liberally where needed. The red can range from a small amount of blood dripping from a knife to a large auditorium dressed in red curtains. The reds look absolutely brilliant, rich and deep with a hint of rust, and there is a very wide range in the shading. They may look good in the SDR screen grabs provided here, but they look so much better in HDR, and it's again a shame they can't be properly captured.
As to the encodes for each version, they’re solid as well. Grain is rendered cleanly and looks natural. This leads to a strong level of detail, though the 2-perf source could be limiting things in some long shots. There are some minor marks and such, and the colours pulse in and out a few times, but on the whole the restoration work has been incredibly thorough. It’s a gorgeous, clean looking 4K image.
(All SDR screen grabs have been taken from the Italian Version from the source disc and have been converted to JPG files. They are presented in full resolution and may not properly fit some monitors. While the screen grabs should offer a general idea of quality, they should not be used for reference purposes.)
Audio 7/10
There are a number of soundtracks for this edition: the Italian version presents an Italian 5.1 surround soundtrack, an Italian 1.0 monaural soundtrack, and a hybrid English/Italian 1.0 monaural soundtrack, all of which are presented in DTS-HD MA. The Export version comes with an English PCM 1.0 monaural soundtrack.
Though there is a bit of an “issue” with one of the soundtracks I thought they all sounded excellent. The 5.1 Italian soundtrack is the more robust, dynamic one, though maybe a bit unnecessary, really only showcasing the score in the end. I don’t recall too much surround activity otherwise.
All of the monaural soundtracks are also clean and fairly dynamic, especially in how they present the Goblin score. As with most Italian genre films, a lot of dialogue is dubbed no matter what language you’re watching, so there is a feeling of detachment there because of that, but it’s easy to ignore.
The one soundtrack that may be a minor issue to some is the “English” soundtrack for the Italian version. Apparently the original English recordings are lost so the English track from the Export version had to be used as the basis. Since the Italian version is 20-minutes longer that means there are large chunks of dialogue with no corresponding English track, so the Italian soundtrack fills in for these sections. This may be distracting for some, though I didn’t find it too bad. Most of the time it can work as a scene where two characters are just talking their native tongue to each other, or Hemmings’ English character is just showing off his own Italian. A lot of the cuts are clean enough that it’s not too big of a deal. It only gets awkward when the exclusive material has been inserted into the middle of a scene's dialogue, with the characters inexplicably going from English to Italian and then back again all in a matter of seconds. That ends up taking the viewer out a bit. It is what it is, though, and I honestly prefer it this way over those weird English dubs MGM did over the additional footage in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, where the voices clearly didn’t match the rest of the film.
At the very least, all of the options sound good, and it will simply come down to viewer preference.
Extras 9/10
Arrow packs on a lot of material over the two discs, starting things off with two optional audio commentaries presented over the Italian version, which is found on the first disc. Arrow ports over their older commentary featuring Thomas Rostock, recorded in 2010 for that year's UK edition for the film. It’s a half decent analysis of the film’s structure, which includes what Rostock calls “rhyming images,” where the film will repeat or recreate similar images or sequences throughout the film in an attempt to relate the sequences. He also contextualizes the film to its time in relation to the rise in the feminist movement, represented here in both its women characters and the unease of Hemmings’ character, and he even touches on how Italian fascism seems to linger in there, and the giallo sub-genre in general. I also appreciated his discussion around the multiple versions of the film, the details around those edits and why they exist, noting only the Italian and Export versions are the only two on “this” edition (though it’s true in this case, he was referring to the 2010 release).
It's a fine track, though it gets a little dry in places. The new commentary (which I believe is new for this edition) is a bit breezier to get through, and that’s more than likely due to the fact it features two participants working off of each other, critics Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson. This one gets into the various versions as well, though the two put more of a personal spin on it since they relate the topic to how they each originally saw the film.,They discuss whether the film really benefits all that much from the extra scenes in the Italian version, though the two ultimately prefer the Italian version if if they admit some scenes are redundant. They also cover more of the same topics Rostock does, including the Goblin score and Argento’s representation of the feminist movement. But I also enjoyed listening to them talk about Argento’s progression to this film from his previous films, and how his style started to develop and change with this one, Argento creating some trickier shots. This film also marks the first time Argento goes full-on into the supernatural with its psychic character who sees who the killer is. It’s an entertaining track and thankfully isn’t just a repeat of what Rostock covers in his.
The first disc also presents a number of newer features, all created in 2018, and primarily made up of interviews. There are two very lengthy ones, including a 58-minute interview with director Dario Argento (with short excerpts from an interview with actor Daria Nicolodi edited in here and there) and then a 46-minute one with production manager Angelo Iacona. Iacona's interview is a more general overview of his work with Argento with a heavier forcus on Deep Red, and he shares a number of stories, but it’s sadly all a bit stale. Argento’s proves substantially more interesting as he talks in exhaustive detail about the film’s production, from his original idea and splitting script duties with Bernardino Zapponi (Argento disappointed to find Zapponi’s contributions did not “satisfy” him) to casting and then finding the film’s music. Though it’s limited to Argento’s point of view (and it’s hard to say if he’s embellishing or changing things) it’s a very satisfactory overview of the production and eventual release.
The other interviews are all substantially shorter. Arrow includes a new 14-minute one with composer and former Goblin member Claudio Simonetti, who talks about how he got into music abefore detailing how he and his group Goblin came to be involved with the film, approached by Argento after the filmmaker couldn’t secure Pink Floyd or Genesis, something Argento also mentions in his interview. If I understood correctly, it sounds like they may have initially been hired just to play an already composed score, but the original composer, Giorgio Gaslini, sounds to have dropped out, leaving the duties entirely to Goblin.
Actor Macha Méril (the doomed psychic) also participates for a 21-minute discussion around her involvement with the film, sharing some stories around some of the film’s effects, including the rather brutal traffic death close to the end of the film. Actor Gabriele Lavia (good ol’ Carlo in the film) also pops in to talk about his own casting and talks about working with Hemmings as well as the stress behind one sequence involving a car tire. His interview runs 15-minutes.
Both are great, illuminating discussions around some details of the production, but I was most pleased with a couple of shorter interviews, likea 7-minute one featuring Jacopo Mariani, who played a child center to the film’s plot, and also worked again with Argento on Suspiria after the director recognized him at an audition for that film. This is then followed by a 5-minute interview with Lino Capolicchio, who shares the rather insane story behind why he lost out on the part that eventually went to David Hemmings (though it’s mentioned elsewhere that Argento had a number of actors in mind for the role).
The disc then features a handful of galleries featuring posters (7), Italian and Spanish lobby cards (18), promotional materials that give away the killer (26), scans from the Japanese press book (13) and then photos of two of the film’s soundtrack albums, showing cover art and labels. Interestingly, the film was called Suspiria 2 in Japan. The disc closes with the original Italian trailer and then Arrow’s 2018 home video trailer.
The second triple-layer disc, which features the Export version, includes what appear to be the old features Arrow created for previous editions. There’s a 33-minute video essay by Michael Mackenzie looking at Deep Red and how it represents the shift from Argento’s previous story-driven films to his more heavily stylized films, pointing out all of the early signs of “style over substance” in this one, thought he argues that the style is ultimately the substance. He also examines how the film addresses feminism and globalization, and how the longer Italian version exposes some of the anxieties that came with these. It’s a decent essay with some good observations around the film’s visuals.
Composer Claudio Simonetti then pops up again with a quick 24-second introduction to the film, followed by a 14-minute interview, both in English. The interview, surprisingly, isn’t a rehash of the newer one found on the first disc (where he spoke Italian), Simonetti talking more about his influences and how he created the sounds for the film's score. He mentions that progressive rock was a major influence on him and his band at the time, naming Genesis, the other band that Argento looked into hiring, as one of the primary influences.
There’s another interview with Argento, filmed in 2010, though this one only runs 12-minutes and is [how should I put it] odd. It opens standard enough, Argento talking about the films that influenced him, including American films and Hammer horror (films his father would not allow him to watch), but he then kind of goes into a couple of mildly uncomfortable tangents. As Argento talks about the theme in the film around how family can be damaging, some of his own inner demons around his family make their way out before he goes off on the interviewer when asked if Hemmings’ character is gay. He almost seems offended at the suggestion, which I was a bit surprised by. Things go back on course a bit as he talks about the butchered versions of the film that exist before confirming that there would be no 3D version of the film. That last one comes out of left field, so I must assume there had been some discussion around it at the time. I like that Arrow pulled this over for archival purposes but man, I’m glad they managed to get a new one with him!
Daria Nicolodi—who also appeared briefly in the longer interview with Argento on the first disc—sits for a 19-minute discussion around her casting and the relationship with Argento that developed. The most interesting inclusion on this disc, though, is what is essentially a 14-minute tour, with Argento’s long-time collaborator Luigi Cozzi, of the Profondo Rosso shop in Rome. The shop sells various film paraphernalia and also houses a museum in the shop’s basement, done up like a dungeon. It showcases props, masks, and costumes from a number of notable horror films, including Demons, Phenomena, and more, and Cozzi takes us through all of it. It’s a fun little addition.
The disc then closes with the original US trailer.
Arrow also packs in some other goodies for their limited edition. The standard double-disc 4K case (that includes 6 post card sized lobby card recreations) is housed in a sturdy cardboard sleeve, which also holds a double-sided poster (featuring original poster art on one side and Arrow’s new artwork on the other) and a 58-page booklet. The booklet starts off with an essay by Alan Jones focusing on the film and its production, which is then followed by another essay by Mikel J. Koven, describing the film as peak giallo, pointing out how it handles some of the common themes and topics that come up in the sub-genre. He even touches on how the film, despite some progressive elements at the time, still has some questionable aspects. Rachael Nisbet then closes the booklet off with an essay on the film’s surreal imagery.
In all, Arrow has really outdone themselves with this set. Short of maybe yet another cut of the film I can’t think of anything else that could be added. The release covers the film’s production and its place in film history thoroughly.
Closing
Arrow has put together a spectacular new edition for this film, delivering a wide range of supplementary material, both old and new, along with a wonderful looking 4K presentation that really highlights those reds. A very easy recommendation.
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