MonsterHunter

I originally figured that since “tenebre” sounded a little like “tentacle” that maybe this movie was going to be about a giant squid. Then I discovered that it was an Italian flick so I figured that some giant squid was on the loose in Rome eating fashion models. It ended up though being a fairly straight forward slasher flick where the murders were all related to a book that Anthony Franciosa’s character Peter Neal had written, called Tenebre.

Just because it was straight forward though doesn’t mean that it really makes a lot of sense. It’s another one of those Dario Argento flicks with a couple of shocking endings which exist because he again goes to the “there’s two murderers out there” gag that he used to better effect in The Bird With The Crystal Plumage.

Neal flies over to Rome to promote the book along with his agent played by John Saxon. Saxon is familiar to most of us because of his roles in Enter The Dragon and Cannibal Apocalypse and his role in this case consists of little more than to talk kind of loud and babble on about this cool new hat that he bought. He explains in painful detail to Neal how the hat looks really good, but is tight enough that it won’t blow right off. Immediately this movie loses the audience, because we are now rooting for Franciosa to whack him Lizzy Borden style just to shut him up about that damn hat! He also manages to have an affair with his client’s ex-wife.

The movie keeps killing off people semi-regularly, so if you don’t pay attention, you might miss out on the fact that some of the story is pretty stupid. There’s really no reason for Neal’s woman to show up in Rome to hump Saxon while Neal is also in Rome with Saxon. Why wouldn’t she wait until Saxon got back to the States? Wouldn’t it be easier to explain her presence in her home country, then why she’s mysteriously shown up in Rome at precisely the same time as Neal and Saxon?

Don’t let yourself get too bogged down in the lack of logic that pervades the goings on in Rome. Dario isn’t worried about it, so why should you be? You probably also shouldn’t get too bogged down by all these women that Dario has running around that look like men (and apparently one really did used to be a man). The general rule of thumb on this sort of thing is that you should use that type of woman sparingly. I’ve got nothing against them or anything, but they’re very distracting to the movie. I spent most of the movie convinced that Neal’s assistant was a dude in drag and that this would naturally result in some type of shocking finale that had The Crying Game written all over it (or at least Sleepaway Camp). All this effort to spot an Adam’s apple on this person meant that I missed the significance of several muddled clues. How am I expected to solve the case when I can’t even solve whether someone is a man or a woman?

Once Neal arrives in Rome, strange things begin to happen. Things such as Neal’s luggage getting all wrecked inside as well as the packet of photos he gets slid under the door of the place he is staying at. These aren’t 8×10 headshots his publicist wants him to sign for the throngs of Italians that apparently can read and have enjoyed his work. They’re photos of some skank the killer sliced up. I would note at this point that we do get the killer quoting from and reading from this awful book that Neal has written. It’s a bunch of purple prose about annihilation, humiliation, and people getting killed.

In order to promote his book, Neal endures questioning from a few reporters at the airport and later at a TV station. At the airport, this woman reporter starts berating him for his treatment of women in the novel. He responds that it isn’t his view of women, but the character’s view of chicks, so don’t blame me, I just thought up and wrote the damn thing down. Could this woman be the killer? The killer is talking about getting rid of people that the killer views as filth and eliminating the corrupter (Neal). Later, at the TV interview, the talk show host makes some strange comments along these lines and Neal decides that he is going to help the police out by trying to solve this real-life murder!

This leads to one of those scenes where the main character goes off and investigates the killer’s house without telling anyone (making it much easier for really bad and stupid things to happen to all involved). Suspecting the TV talk show host, because we all know that TV talk show hosts have nothing to do with disseminating filth and corrupting people, he and a hired hand head out to this TV guy’s plush house. This young kid peeks in the window and sees an axe get embedded in someone’s head!

The movie involves more people getting bumped off and they’re is one of those scenes where Neal is trying to talk it all out. He says stuff like, “theres’ just a small piece of the puzzle missing.” He also says, “it’s like someone who should be dead is alive or someone who is alive should be dead.” Then he breaks out one of my favorite old chestnuts of detective philosophy. It’s the old line from Sherlock Holmes about how “whenever you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable must be the truth.” People always are saying that in these kinds of movies like it’s a magic phrase along the lines of “open sesame” and once spoken, the solution will instantly reveal itself

Some of the murders aren’t exactly helpful in solving the case either. I am of course referring to the infamous “dog chases Neal’s landlord’s daughter into killer’s house” sequence. This girl somehow gets chased by this surly mutt and it attacks her and tries to eat her and then she seeks refuge in the talk show host’s house and she notices all these pictures of dead chicks and a bunch of letters cut from magazines and then the killer gets her. What did that have to do with anything? Talk about artificially pumping up your body count!

The scenes with the dog are great and watching the dog run up to a really high fence that the woman scaled, seeing him regard its height, then having him turn around and walk a little so that he can get a running start to jump it really reinforces the relentlessness this murderous pooch had. This dog should have been our killer! But again, I’m not real sure what any of this had to do with Neal, the talk show host or that crappy book Neal wrote.

The ending sees our bloodiest scenes including a real stunner when someone has their hand lopped off and red liquid sprays everywhere. Another person gets an axe in the back, followed by a throat slitting. The killer’s motive is revealed via the expected flashback and we learn that all the killings may not be exactly what they seem to be. None of it is remotely believable, but Dario does keep things going with frequent kills and loud background music from genre stalwart Goblin.

I still have yet to figure out why people heap praise on stuff like this. It’s okay in that you’re not going to be falling asleep during the movie and the Argentos of the world usually turn in a good performance technically behind the camera, but does it really make up for the haphazard and slapdash plotting we get in this one? It’s purely an exercise in scenes designed to shock, from the flashback on the beach to the really sharp implements being shoved into hapless victims.

Lucio Fulci’s giallo Don’t Torture A Duckling has its share of shocking scenes, but that one’s a lot better at keeping a handle on its story (and it had a twist ending, too!) and is the better for doing so. It’s easier to forgive the lackadaisical plotting in Italian horror movies like The Beyond or City Of The Living Dead, because they don’t even pretend to be grounded in reality. Tenebre though would like to be a psychological thriller with a mystery where everything is explainable so it really can’t afford to sacrifice logic for style and gross out moments or it runs the risk of also sacrificing the audience’s goodwill.

© 2008 MonsterHunter