Tenebre: And the Winner for Breakthrough Performance Goes to...That Crazy Ass Dog!

Ah the return of classic Argento movies. My head was swimming with visions of beautifully sprayed blood and the return of red paint blood as well. I love a good blood spraying and Tenebre was certainly a refreshment. Peter Neal is an american author who comes to Rome and is met with an unfortunate surprise. Someone is killing women in a manner very similar to his books and stuffing the pages of his book Tenebre into their mouths. Who is doing the killings and what's with those creepy flashbacks? All important questions when viewing the movie and all are pretty much answered in the end.

Lets start off by saying that the movie was great. Great fantastic wonderful orgasmic whatever adjective you use it much boils down to amazing. The murder mystery type atmosphere is refreshing in a time where horror movies have become vehicles for boobs and soft core porn. There is a killer and we don't know who it is. BAM plot. To add to the effect- the killer seems to love the artistry of blood as much as I do! White walls are necessary, blood is perfect, and murders happen quickly and beautifully at the same time. The music is exciting and has the usual strangely out of place for a horror movie but perfect for an Argento movie vibe. There ARE boobs but who frickin cares because it's Argento and takes place in Italy. and BONUS time there's an insanely acrobactic dog who is amazing. Yes this movie has it all.

The best scenes have to be the axe cutting off the hand scene- the way that blood just flows across that blinding white wall is possibly one of the mose amazing things I've ever seen. I also enjoyed the close up of the razor blade being washed, the double murder, bodies crashing through glass, and the DOG- but we already know I'm obsessed with the dog.

Ok the dog scene is incredible. First of all- why are you provoking the dog in the first place? He's just barking at you, you don't have to hit him with a stick you moron. If you hit him with a stick he's obviously going to be extremely pissed off, hop the 10 foot tall fence and come after your stupid ass. But oh no he doesn't stop there. He rallies from being hit in the head with a new stick- walks away like he's over the whole thing and JUMPS OVER ANOTHER FENCE and chases the bitch. Then surprises her when she thinks she has found shelter in a basement. hahah I love when he just jumps down there, what a lovely surprise.

The story line and the final moment of reveal is somewhat surprising although I'm still a little dumbfounded. I felt kind of let down when the "killer" was revealed. Yes I supposed it made sense- but not really. His little flashback there throughout I guess explains his madness but not enough. Not to mention he's not even responsible for most of the murders- sorry I'm giving away everything but I hope most of you have seen this. I guess I just felt like we were kind of getting two stories all of a sudden. It seemed like most of the movie we were dealing with this nutso killer- killing hookers and lesbians and shit and then BOOM here's this whole other piece with affairs and red shoes and stuff. It was a pretty serious turn of events. Not to mention that every single suspect dies before the big reveal so it's not that difficult to guess where the story is going.

Overall though, solid movie by my favorite director. Even though he has been faltering of late I can still think back to these moments of pure cinematic perfection and smile at how dark and wonderful the paint blood really is.

Here is the dog scene


Annnd the axe-hand scene