Tenebre marks Argento's transition to mediocrity.
It features a neat premise, rather fresh back then, a few sly bits, decent main performances, and yet for the first time the Master seems incapable of working his old magic.
A sequence halfway through sums it up: a minor character's demise is depicted in an excruciatingly long set-piece, clocking at little less than ten minutes, with a chase, a couple of dog attacks and the coup de grace by an axe-wielding killer. It's strangely toothless stuff and, apart for the use of Argento's trademark "killer POV camera", lacking any particular visual flair.
Quite interesting on a meta level is a moment where the main character, a writer, awkwardly defends himself against allegations of misogyny caused by the treatment of female characters in his works - allegations repeatedly faced by Argento himself in his career.
5,5/10
It features a neat premise, rather fresh back then, a few sly bits, decent main performances, and yet for the first time the Master seems incapable of working his old magic.
A sequence halfway through sums it up: a minor character's demise is depicted in an excruciatingly long set-piece, clocking at little less than ten minutes, with a chase, a couple of dog attacks and the coup de grace by an axe-wielding killer. It's strangely toothless stuff and, apart for the use of Argento's trademark "killer POV camera", lacking any particular visual flair.
Quite interesting on a meta level is a moment where the main character, a writer, awkwardly defends himself against allegations of misogyny caused by the treatment of female characters in his works - allegations repeatedly faced by Argento himself in his career.
5,5/10