MovieChat Forums > Tenebre (1984) Discussion > Argento's Best? You gotta be kidding me.

Argento's Best? You gotta be kidding me.

posted 14 years ago by exdimlight
32 replies | jump to latest

Reading the board I was shocked to learn that so many people regard this film to be better than Profondo Rosso or even Argento's best.

I truly love Argento's directing style and his movies but I found Tenebre to be quite bad.

The plot is too inconsistent, the characters are too many, too many things are left unexplained. I found the ending to be absurd.

The death sequences were still scary but they were also really random and weren't really driving the plot forward (like in Suspiria for example).

The pace was also a big problem.

I can see why people may like this movie but I find it all in all to be poorly executed.

If you disagree, I'd like you to explain exactly why you think this movie is good (or, if you think so, one of his best works).

[–] GasmaskAvenger 9 years ago

Tenebre is definitely a lesser Argento film, but its still a lot of fun to watch.

"What's the ugliest part of your body? I think it's your mind."

[–] shred-com 9 years ago

It's alright. I love the score, and the plot had a ton of potential, but it just isn't executed very well (it just seems to drift along without focus), and there are way too many characters. It would probably be on the lower side of his work, but he has had way too many stinkers over the last 20 years to consider this one of his weaker efforts.

[–] [deleted] 2 years ago

I think it might be my favorite Argento film. Though Suspiria, Phenomena, Opera and The Bird with the Crystal Plumage are close behind.

I've never really taken to Deep Red for some reason. Many consider it his best film but I prefer Inferno and Four Flies on Grey Velvet over it along with the aforementioned 5.

[–] Mrmojo4700 (21544) 2 years ago

I’d say it’s one of his best. Everything about it was spectacular. Even the scene in the beginning with Peter Neal riding his bike through traffic to the airport with Goblin’s theme booming in the background was great. It’s filled with a phenomenal cast of genre regulars and an amazing score.
What a cast:

Anthony Franciosa
John Saxon
Daria Nicolodi
Giuliano Gemma
John Steiner
Lara Wendel
Michele Soavi
Ania Pieroni

I really loved the cinematography where it felt like every shot was set up perfectly. Everything here seemed so modern and bright compared to traditional gialli, where dark and gothic settings are more common. Even the night time scenes were well lit. I even really enjoyed how quirky and nonsensical a great deal of the story was also.

I can’t think of much of anything in this film I didn’t enjoy. Even being such a late entry in the genre, it’s one of my favorite gialli.