(1971) ***1/2Roberto, a savvy musician is being stalked. Upon confrontation the man draws a knife. A struggle ensues and Roberto accidentally kills the man. He sees a strange person in a plastic mask lurking with a camera and suddenly realizes how guilty he looks. He's standing over the dead guy with knife in hand. He flees and soon begins receiving threats. Even worse, anyone he talks to about it seems to turn up dead. He enlists two homeless buddies, God & The Professor, to help him discover the identity of the mysterious masked stalker.
Argento shot a good portion of this film in the first person perspective. We see most of the killings through the murderers eyes which is just awesome. The whole film has a Hitchcockian feel to it. The camera angles, the shots switching from person to person even the characters themselves seemed very Hitchcock. The lighting and splashes of color are totally Argento though.
The mailman was thrown in as comedy relief. In a particularly funny scene Roberto mistakes him for the stalker and wrestles the guy to the ground.
Bam!
The nails clawing the wall effect always makes me shudder. I was also surprised to not find a JSP review on this film. Ha! Scooped! An excellent watch, very entertaining and hey, it's Argento!
3 comments:
Wow, I've never heard of this film, nice discovery and review!
Ooh, sounds like one of the good Argentos! I'm very intrigued by the eyeball in the claw. But that is the kind of thing that catches my attention.
so it's shot mostly from first-person perspective. does that mean that someone is staring at Roberto's package, or that Roberto is staring at his own package?
Post a Comment