Writer-director Dario Argento’s 1970 debut, the first in his so-called Animal Trilogy, immediately established him as a master of the lurid giallo film, in which an improbable, convoluted murder mystery is drenched in blood, sex, and operatically staged violence.
Its protagonist is Sam Dalmas (Tony Musante), an expatriate American writer in Rome. Walking by an art gallery one night, he sees a woman struggling with a man inside, wielding a knife. Trying to help her, he gets trapped between two glass doors, but his intervention has scared off the man, and the woman, beautiful Monica Ranieri (Eva Renzi), survives.
When Inspector Morosini (Enrico Maria Salerno) informs him that the incident is but the latest in a series of murders that have baffled the police, Sam tries to recall every detail of what he witnessed in the belief that his memory could be key to the identity of the killer. He becomes obsessed with the case, endangering his life and that of his girlfriend Julia (Suzy Kendall) in the process. The solution is, as usual in gialli, outlandish, involving a strange painting and deep psychological trauma, but the point of the exercise is style rather than logic, and Argento certainly delivers that in abundance.
The killings are shot and edited with a languid lushness that accentuates their gruesome character, and the suspense is calibrated to escalate until the climactic revelations, which then (as in Hitchcock’s Psycho) are followed by a humdrum explanation of the motivations at work by a know-it-all psychologist.
The film—which takes its title from a truly rara avis whose cry provides an important clue to the culprit’s location—is admittedly ludicrous from the standpoint of narrative credibility or lucidity, but Argento’s wizardry in creating a hallucinatory world of menace and mayhem, working in tandem with cinematographer Vittorio Storaro and editor Franco Francelli, is undeniable, and Ennio Morricone’s hypnotic score adds to the spell.
Arrow’s 4K UHD transfer is the finest the film has ever received, and the Blu-ray has abundant bonus features: an audio commentary by giallo specialist Troy Howarth; “The Power of Perception,” a visual essay by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas on Argento’s narrative style (21 min.); “Black Gloves and Screaming Mimis,” an analysis of the film by Kat Ellinger that points out the inspiration of Fredric Brown’s novel The Screaming Mimi (32 min.); “Crystal Nightmare,” a 2017 interview with Argento (32 min.); interviews with actors Gildo Di Marco (22 min.) and Eva Renzi (11 min.); three trailers (7 min. total); and image galleries of posters, lobby cards, promotional materials, and publicity stills. Recommended, especially to collections in Italian film and horror.