Disc Reviews

Tenebrae Blu-ray Review

27th Jul 2013

Arrow Video are at it again with this 2011 release of Argento’s early 80s effort Tenebrae. This time round we have an American novelist visiting Italy only to find that there’s a killer on the loose stuffing pages from his books in victim’s mouths. The police natural come to the author for help and then pretty soon everyone under the sun starts getting the axe.

It has to be said that there is a pretty high body count in this one. Even when you think things will slow down so the film can end you find even more murders being committed. And it’s all done is glorious Argento style. For sure, all the rules go out the window. Don’t expect characters to act rationally for their own safety. And all sorts of things happen at just the right time to send people off in just the wrong direction to meet their grisly fates. But this is hardly a film that Argento is about to apologise for. He’s having too much fun holding his hands in the air and saying “Ok, this is what you think of me, so this is what you are going to get.”

Argento was taking a break from his supernatural turns (Suspiria, Inferno) and Tenebrae is often thought of as his last truly great masterpiece as a director. Whilst it may be a film that all the critics agree on, there are many that would disagree that this was his last truly masterful piece of art – Opera and The Stendhal Syndrome speak volumes for themselves.

The film has been given the Blu-ray polish and while the picture is a vast improvement, it’s often very noisy to look at. This can’t be helped as the picture is mostly shot in very bright surroundings and daylight, so it’s next to impossible for the restoration given to hide the film’s age. Thankfully Argento keeps things moving at a pace so we can be distracted from it easily enough.

The disc also comes with some valuable bonus features. Like previous Argento releases on the Arrow label we have interview time with the director and also composer Claudio Simonetti and actress Daria Nicolodi. There’s also a 15 minute extra with the musicians playing live music.

As per usual we get the booklet of writing by Argento expert Alan Jones, and he also pops up in yet another commentary with fellow journo Kim Newman. These two are as happy as peas in a pod when talking about this work and they have a few Argento commentaries under their belt now. Fingers crossed they continue to do them. There’s also a second commentary from another Argento expert, Thomas Rostock.