“A movie like an axe!” – With this martial advertising slogan, the film “Tenebre” by Dario Argento was released in German cinemas in 1982. Or what was left of it, because like so many films by the great Italian horror author, this one too had to lose a lot of feathers for an FSK rating. Freed from several minutes, “Tenebre” was shown on the German screens from the very beginning only in a rather bloodless version, in which, due to the action-carrying function of some splash scenes, it was not at all easy to follow what was happening. Of course, these drastic cuts didn’t help either…
In 1987, this “Tenebre” torso frame was seized nationwide. The ban lasted a quarter of a century until it was lifted in 2022, and today you can not only buy this once banned movie anywhere on Blu-ray for your collection, but also You can even stream it on Netflix anytime.
“Tenebre”: Argento’s return to the classic giallo
“Tenebre” also marks a turning point in Dario Argento’s work, as in many ways it is an expression of both Argento’s enormous artistic sensitivity and a certain attitude of denial. Made famous with a series by Gialli, Argento had turned to the supernatural horror film with his most famous film “Suspiria” in 1977 – and then followed with “Inferno” not only an equally colorful sequel, but an entire trilogy of the three mothers. Argento, however, demonstratively had no interest in the third and final part for 27 years and preferred to return to the giallo – with the form with which he continued to experiment, as in the animal trilogy at the beginning of his career .
At first glance, it is striking how much “Tenebre” differs from its predecessors, which were characterized by deep red and blue tones, with its cool color scheme. The scorching end of the 1970s is followed by the cold metallic, modernist surfaces of the 1980s, and cinema artist Argento can’t help but reflect that in his films.
It also shows just how much Argento’s films emerge from their locations. In his highly readable autobiography “Fear,” Argento repeatedly describes how, like a dowser, he wanders manically through the city and nature to find just the right house or landscape for a movie. “Tenebre” would be unthinkable without the setting of the Roman EUR sitewhich Mussolini had built for the planned 1942 World’s Fair and in which resolute modernism meets the neoclassical megalomania of fascism.
A crazy plot – but logic was never important to Argento!
Through these unique structures, Argento allows the killer of “Tenebre” to sneak, who preys on the artist, but at the same time is inspired by the art and may be an artist himself. As so often with Argento, it is a stranger in a strange land who must track down the monster: the writer Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa) travels to Rome to present his new novel “Tenebre” – only to discover that a serial killer is meticulously copying the bloody deeds from his novel. Even more conservative Argento fans regularly accuse the film of the plot following a whole series of circles that sometimes push the boundaries of probability – a view that rests on a fundamental misunderstanding.
Than Argento was never concerned with logically understandable whodunit plots to puzzle with, rather all his films are about the gradual slipping away of what we consider to be the laws of reality. That is why when the dream logic takes over, the ground is lost and there is nothing we can be sure of. Not even ourselves anymore.
“Tenebre” is undoubtedly one of the great masterpieces of Dario Argento and shows the director at the pinnacle of his art – after more than three decades now finally also in full and also extremely accessible to the German public via Netflix!