Perhaps one of cult Italian director Dario
Argento's most popular pictures, Deep Red stars David Hemmings as English jazz pianist Marcus Daly, who's living in
Rome and happens to witness the brutal murder of a woman in his apartment block one evening. It turns out that the
woman was a renowned psychic medium, and had claimed to have sensed a murderous presence during a university lecture about her
abilities earlier that day.
Intrigued by the events that had led up to her death, and convinced that he saw something else in her apartment during the murder. He starts to do a bit of investigating himself and is soon helped by a nosey journalist named Gianna Brezzi (Daria Nicoladi), who is basically there to get in the way and provide the movie with some lighter hearted moments.
He later discovers that the woman's murder, and that of several others who have been killed since, are somehow linked to an old abandoned mansion house in the city, where it is claimed that the sound of a young boy screaming can often be heard at night. But what is it's significance, and why does the killer always insist on playing child's nursery rhyme music on a tape recorder when committing the murders?
With so many twists and turns in the storyline it really does make you wonder what's actually going on at times, never mind who the killer might be. There's also some extremely bizarre moments, such as the first murder scene which oddly appears partway through the opening credits, and the killers reason for playing creepy children's songs whilst stalking his victims.
In some ways there is a striking similarity to Argento's later pic "Tenebrae", but don't let that bother you. If your a fan of Italian horror/thrillers this movie will not disappoint you and Argento fans will undoubtedly love it.
