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Tenebrae is one of Dario Argento‘s many murder movies and he’s going to make sure he gets his money’s worth when it comes to spilling the blood juice he’s bought to spill.
Tenebrae is a book dubbed the ‘Thriller of the Year’ by the critics, full of grisly murders, with the killer acting out what he or she has read in the book, which is written by celebrated author Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa), so he’s more concerned than anyone that such behaviour is going on as it’s obviously not the greatest publicity.
If there’s not murders being committed, then there’s often big-breasted women walking around with little or nothing on.
In fact, a lot of the murders depicted happen to people who just stand there and wait for the killer to plunge the knife into them. They have plenty of time to run away, but they just sit there patiently and let it happen. As such, I’ve got no sympathy for them.
When it comes to the languages in the film, while Argento is Italian, the film was shot with most of the cast members speaking their dialogue in English so as to increase its chances for successful exportation to the U.S. Back home, it was dubbed into Italian where the killer’s voice heard reading aloud from Neal’s book in the opening sequence was supplied by Argento himself. In the English-language version, Franciosa, Giuliano Gemma, John Steiner and John Saxon all provided their own voices, while it’s rumoured Daria Nicolodi‘s voice was dubbed by actress Theresa Russell.
As such, the actor playing the coroner goes by the name of Gianpaolo Saccarola – clearly Italian, but here, he sounds more like Rodney Bewes 🙂
There’s also a small amount of Spanish spoken in the film.
Tenebrae has been released in a number of different versions. It was first put out at 110 minutes in length, then later edited down to 91 minutes, but the version presented here is Dario Argento’s 101-minute director’s cut. I hadn’t seen any version before, but the definitive cut of any film should be the director’s cut.
The acting, throughout, is pretty much appalling, but in the world of cult classics, that’s going to be a plus for a film like this. I found the film mostly a nonsense but enjoyed the murders.
The film is presented in the original 1.85:1 widescreen ratio and in 1080p high defintion and there’s a hazy look to the print on occasion but most of the time it’s a glorious high-definition print so there’s nothing major to concern yourself with if you think the hazyness might put you off.
For the record, I’m watching on a Panasonic 50″ Plasma TV with a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player.
The sound is in mono and is a combination of screams and synth music which comes across with no issues whatsoever.
There’s Italian, English and Spanish spoken during the film, but the disc offers a choice of English and Italian soundtracks, so purchasers of this Blu-ray can literally pay your money and take your choice.
The extras on this disc are as follows – most of which are in HD, too. Sadly, none are chaptered:
- Introduction (0:11): Short and sweet, you can choose to open the film with a few words from its star, Daria Nicolodi.
- Screaming Queen! Daria Nicolodi remembers Tenebrae (16:04): Thoughts from the actress who has worked many times with Dario Argento including films such as Suspiria, Deep Red and Inferno.
- The Unsane World of Tenebrae: An interview with Dario Argento (15:13): The director answers his critics who say he’s a mysoginist, a murderer and more by putting all these aspects in the film itself, just to piss them off. And why not 🙂
- A Composition for Change: Claudio Simonetti on Tenebrae (10:04): One of the three musicians involved in the awesome ’80s synth music you can hear talks about how they recorded several different lengths of the track for use in the film so it could be heard in full during those scenes.
- Goblin: Tenebrae and Phenomena Live from the Glasgow Arches (16:37): Recorded in 2011, the music from the film is performed live. Oh yes! Groovy as fuck! The downside with this is that you only get two tracks. Surely they would’ve performed more on the night and they seem to spend far too long introducing each other inbetween them.
- Maitland McDonagh on Tenebrae (12:20): Thoughts on the director and his work with the author of Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento.
- Trailer (3:14): Longer than the average trailer, some of the dialogue has been re-dubbed (again, in English) for this. It basically shows you all the murders and meanders a lot.
- Audio commentaries: Two here. One from Alan Jones – author of Profundo Argento – and horror writer Kim Newman, and the other from Danish writer/director Thomas Rostock who is a big fan of Argento’s work.
The package also includes a reversible sleeve with original and newly commissioned artwork by Rick Melton, and an exclusive collector’s booklet featuring brand new writing by Alan Jones, but neither of these came with my review disc.
As you put the disc in, the menu bursts into life with clips from the film and a piece of groovy ’80s music from the theme. There are subtitles in English, but when it comes to the chaptering, I feel one should come every five minutes on average. Arrow, like many other distributors, go for a low 12 however long the film. I would like them to increase this number.
|
FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
6 8 7 6 |
| OVERALL | 7 |
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 101 minutes
Year: 1982
Distributor: Arrow Films
Released: December 16th 2013
Chapters: 12
Cat.no: FCD886
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: LPCM 2.0 (Mono)
Languages: Italian, English, Spanish
Subtitles: English
Widescreen: 1.85:1
Disc Format: BD50
Director: Dario Argento
Producer: Claudio Argento
Screenplay: Dario Argento
Music: Massimo Morante, Fabio Pignatelli and Claudio Simonetti
Cast:
Peter Neal: Anthony Franciosa
Gianni: Christian Borromeo
Tilde: Mirella D’Angelo
Jane McKerrow: Veronica Lario
Elsa Manni: Ania Pieroni
Girl on Beach: Eva Robins
Detective Altieri: Carola Stagnaro
Christiano Berti: John Steiner
Maria Alboretto: Lara Wendel
Bullmer: John Saxon
Anne: Daria Nicolodi
Detective Germani: Giuliano Gemma
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.