Italian movie poster for ‘Profondo rosso’ for sale at Westgate Gallery
 
Dario Argento’s 1975 giallo film, Deep Red (Profondo rosso), stands as one of the auteur’s greatest works. It’s been given the 4K treatment, and the restoration is about to be released on Blu-ray in the US for the first time. We’ve got a preview in the form of a clip, and it’s one of the highlights of the picture. Creepy, scary and so sadistic it’s painful to watch. But in a good way!

Well-known British actor David Hemmings plays Marcus Davy, a professional pianist, who witnesses a brutal murder. Daria Nicolodi is journalist Gianna Brezzi, who, like Marcus, wants to know who committed the murder. As Marcus learns more and more about the case, the body count mounts.
 

 
This is the first Argento movie for Nicolodi, who went on to be a regular in his films. Argento and Nicolodi also became a couple, with their daughter, Asia Argento, arriving a year after they met.
 

 
For his co-writer, Argento chose Bernardino Zapponi, a frequent cohort of Federico Fellini. It was Zapponi who came up with the idea of incorporating relatable injuries, like begin scalded by hot water, and banging your head.
 

 
Argento fans might notice that the theme of faulty human memory, a concept first explored in his debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, is also the central motif of Deep Red.
 

 
Alfred Hitchcock was an early influence on Argento, and Psycho most certainly comes to mind here, while the original Italian poster recalls Saul Bass’s artwork for Vertigo.
 

 
Argento was disappointed with the Giorgio Gaslini’s score for Deep Red, so he asked Pink Floyd if they’d come aboard; they declined. The director was subsequently given a demo tape of an Italian group called Cherry Five, and was so impressed he hired them. The band would soon change their name to Goblin. The jazz rock score the unit composed and performed for the film is fantastic, and went on to sell millions of copies on vinyl. Argento and Goblin would work together on other pictures, including the director’s follow-up, Suspiria, which resulted in one of the scariest (and most stylish) movies ever made.
 
More after the jump…

 
Well, I say in full, but this is actually the shorter US edit, which cuts out twenty odd minutes of the film. Gone are most of the scenes between David Hemmings and Daria Nicolodi, which are actually quite sweet and charming, and add to whatever vague arc these characters are meant to have. This isn’t a great transfer (with a fair amount of color loss) but if you haven’t seen this before it’s worth a watch. The brutality is intact, and most importantly so is the soundtrack by Goblin. It’s one of those films that is worth watching just for the music.

The Profondo Rosso score is as good as any score that came out in the 70s. Yes, that’s saying a lot, as the mid-to-late 70s were a golden age of soundtracks—from Blaxploitation to John Williams to big commercial hits like The Exorcist/Tubular Bells, Grease and Saturday Night Fever—but with its combination of horror-atmospherics and tightly woven sleuth-funk it’s truly brilliant.

If Dario Argento is anything, he’s a master of atmosphere, and it seems obvious to say that he was at his zenith when he worked with Goblin. Profondo Rosso is the first fruits of that collaboration, and while they may have topped it with their work together on Suspiria, this is still a filmic landmark.
 

 
Goblin’s Profondo Rosso - The Complete Edition is available to buy on CD.

Deep Red has just been released on Blu-Ray, you can find it here.