Tenebre marked Dario Argento's return to the "giallo" or the Italian mystery-thriller, after making two films with supernatural themes back to back: Suspiria and Inferno. It was a sensational return and a fitting follow-up to his excellent Profondo Rosso (Deep Red).

The film starred the American actor Anthony Franciosa and Argento's girlfriend Daria Nicolodi. Once again, the pounding score was composed by Goblin, but due to legal difficulties, they recorded under their names: Simonetti, Pignatelli, and Morante. The director of photography was Luciano Tovoli, who had done such a marvelous job on Suspiria.

Argento based the film on an incident that happened when he was in Los Angeles. A fan had gotten his number and started making threats on his life. To the director, that episode along with some other violent incidents he had seen or heard about, was emblematic of city life in America.

He deliberately set Tenebre in a Rome bathed in sunlight, inspired by the many cop shows of the '70s based in L.A., such as Charlie's Angels. (Ironically, tenebre roughly means shadows or darkness.)

The impulse had become irresistible. There was only one answer to the fury that tortured him. And so he committed his first act of murder. He had broken the most deep rooted taboo and found not guilt or fear, but freedom. Every humiliation which stood in his way could be swept aside by this simple act of annihilation: Murder.

And so begins the film, with a passage from a mystery novel called Tenebre, written by the author Peter Neal. Based in New York, Peter is headed towards Kennedy Airport to catch a flight to Rome to promote the book.

As he's about to board the plane, he hears his name called over the speakers. There is a phone call for him from his ex-wife Jane (Veronica Lario), who's upset because Peter hasn't seen her in six weeks.

He promises to call her the next day. However, Peter is unaware that Jane has placed the call from a telephone booth just a short distance from him. While speaking with him, a friend of hers also manages to sabatoge the contents of Peter's travel bag which he left unattended. Jane then watches as the plane takes off.

In Rome, Elsa (Ania Pieroni), an attractive young girl, is browsing through a store. She comes across Peter's book and slips it into her handbag. There are two people watching her: one is an unseen presence, and the other is the store mangager who promptly hauls her into his office for questioning. Although the girl has a history of shoplifting, she flirts with him and he lets her go.

While walking home, Elsa is menaced by a homeless man. He chases after her, but she manages to make it to her building and lock the gate to her apartment complex. Safely inside, she realizes that someone has cut the power. Just then, the homeless guy knocks on the window and frightens her.

She backs away, only to find herself in the grip of a black-gloved stranger inside her home. He holds a razor up to Elsa's neck while he stuff pages from Tenebre into her mouth. Then with one swift move, he takes the razor and cuts her neck. Elsa falls to the ground, as the killer takes snapshots of his work.

Peter arrives in Rome and is greeted by a group of reporters, including an old friend of his named Tilda (Mirella D' Angelo), a magazine writer. Friends for ten years, Peter is shocked when Tilda accuses him of writing a sexist novel.

Also on hand is Peter's agent Bullmer (John Saxon), who cuts short the casual interview and whisks Peter away. He informs his client that his book is a bestseller and has been number one for 12 weeks. Peter wonders about a fellow who was silently standing around with the other reporters but who didn't speak a word.

Bullmer tells him the man is Christiano Berti (John Steiner), a book reviewer for a local television station, and that Peter is booked on his show that week.

The two men are met outside of the airport by Peter's secretary Anne (Daria Nicolodi), and Gianni (Christian Berti), Bullmer's assistant. Peter tells Anne he has a gift for her, but when he opens his travel bag, he finds his clothing slashed and her present broken.

Peter, Anne, and Gianni then go Peter's hotel room, where Detective Giermani (Giuliano Gemma) and Inspector Altieri (Carola Stagnaro), await them. They inform the trio that a girl was murdered a few hours earlier, and that pages from Peter's books were found stuffed in her mouth. This detail, along with the fact that Tenebre involves a killer who uses a razor, is what brings the detectives to Peter for questioning.

Giermani hands Peter a note he found in the room addressed to him. There is a quote from his book: "There was only one answer to the fury that tortured him." Peter is told to keep in touch and to let the authorities know if he receives any more notes.

Before the inspectors leave, Peter remembers to tell them about his travel bag. Just then, the phone rings. It's the killer, calling from a phone booth outside and threatening to kill again. Before Giermani and Altieri can get to him, the killer disappears.

Someone is having a nightmare... a girl (Eva Robbins, a transsexual), is frolicking on a beach with some young boys. One of them strikes her in the mouth, causing her to bleed. The boy runs away but the girl catches up to him and sticks the heel from her red shoe deep into his mouth.

At a local bar, Tilda is out with her girlfriend Marion (Mirella Banti). Marion is flirting with a man and takes him back to their apartment. Tilda shows up later in the evening and finds Marion drunkenly bragging about the sex she had with the guy.

Furious, Tilda throws a glass at her and goes to her bedroom. (An amazing tracking shot is shown, going around the apartment complex, in and out of the rooms. Just terrific!).

We then see a black-gloved intruder enter the ladies' apartment. While Tilda is changing into her nightgown, the intruder calls her a "filthy, slimy pervert" and strikes her with the razor. Marion hears the sound of breaking glass and heads down the stairs of the duplex to see what happened.

She catches a glimpse of Tilda's body and tries to run away. The killer is right behind her and cuts her in the back, before slitting her throat. Again, he takes photos of the corpses.

The next day, the hotel manager's daughter Maria (Lara Wendel) goes to Peter's room to fix the water heater. She flirts with him, much to Anne's amusement. Another note is slipped under the door which says "so passes the glory of lesbos." When an autopsy performed on Tilda and her girlfriend reveals they were killed by the same razor, Detective Giermani phones Peter to tell him of the murders.

That day, Peter is scheduled to be interviewed by Christiano Berti. Before the taping, they have a short discussion in the studio lounge. Christiano surprises Peter by giving his take on Tenebre. He says that the book "is about human perversion and its affects on society" and wonders how the author sees these affects of "deviant behavior on our lives."

Peter disputes this assertion as well as the notion that any of his characters are deviants. It's a friendly disagreement and the men head into the studio to tape the show. While waiting, Bullmer spots Detectives Giermani and Altieri, and steers them away from the interview. Giermani tells the agent that his client holds the key to the killings and that they are a tribute to Peter Neal.

Later, Peter spots Jane in her car outside of his hotel window. He phones New York but gets her answering machine. Anne tells him Jane probably came to Rome to apologize for destroying the contents of his travel bag.

Night falls and the killer plans another murder. He pulls out a file with photos of a hooker and heads out to pick her up, but unwittingly leaves a key in the backdoor of his house.

Meanwhile, Maria has spent the day riding around on Gianni's motorcyle with him. They get into a fight and Gianni lets her off in the middle of a street in an unfamiliar neighborhood. As she's walking home, an angry doberman pincher suddenly begins harassing her and chases her through a park.

Maria finds refuge in a huge house in which she finds a key still in one of the doors. She searches the house for help, but finds something horrific...photos and articles about the murdered women. Realizing she has entered the house of a killer, she puts some of the photos in her pocket.

The killer returns and spots Maria about to make a telephone call. The young girl catches a glimpse of the razor and runs out of the house. The killer picks up an axe and goes after her. Maria falls and is struck repeatedly in the chest.

Peter and Detective Giermani receive yet another note which says "I grieve for this child... her death was the only way I could go on." This time the killer threatens Peter's life directly.

While trying to put the pieces together with Anne and Gianni, Peter remembers Christiano's comments about perversion and realizes he lives a few blocks away from the hotel. He drives out to the reviewer's house with Gianni, and together they watch Christiano through his huge glass windows.

Gianni leaves Peter to go around the house and watch from another area. As he's looking through a window, he sees that someone has cut the power and watches helplessly as that person strikes Christiano in the head with an axe.

Frozen in fear, he suddenly is frightened by the killer, who throws a sculpture through the window, shattering the glass. Shocked, Gianni runs and finds Peter on the ground, apparently knocked in the head with a rock by the same person that killed Christiano.

Gianni didn't get a good look at the killer, but it seemed to him as if the victim knew the murderer. Peter washes his head wound, and when left alone with Anne, the two share an intimate kiss.

We see another dream with the girl wearing the red shoes. In this one she is walking with a young man, while someone is watching her. Left alone, that someone suddenly leaps out from the bushes and stabs her in the stomach.

Peter visits with Bullmer in his office and tells him he wants to leave Rome. When Peter leaves, Jane emerges from a closet and we see the real reason she's in Italy. She's having an affair with Bullmer. The two agree to meet later that afternoon.

Gianni drives Peter back to Christiano's house, where investigators are pouring over the place. The evidence they find shows a clear obsession by Christiano of Peter and his work.

Baffled, Peter quotes a passage to Detective Giermani from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles. It goes "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." (A very prophetic line in this film!) He also tells the detective he's going to leave town that day, fearing for his safety.

When Jane arrives back at the apartment she's renting, she finds a gift she believes is from Bullmer. Inside the box is a pair of red shoes, which she wears to her rendevous with him. As she approaches Bullmer in a busy square where he's been waiting, someone stabs him in broad daylight. Jane turns and heads in the opposite direction.

Gianni offers to drive Peter to the airport for a flight to Paris. He tells him that he's trying to remember something about the night he saw Christiano murdered. After dropping Peter off, Gianni goes back to the murder scene, and remembers that Christiano yelled out "I killed them all" before his death.

If Christiano killed the four women, then who killed him (?) he wonders. He rushes back to his car, but before he can drive away, he's strangled by someone in the backseat with a piece of rope. (He does manage to catch a quick glimpse of the murderer.)

Jane calls Peter's hotel room, but Anne answers and tells her that Peter has left Italy. Jane wants to confess to something she did wrong (presumably her affair with Bullmer), and Anne tells her to stay put. She gets the directions to the apartment and heads over. Terrified, Jane sits at a table holding a gun.

There's a fierce thunderstorm outside as she waits for Anne. Suddenly, an axe breaks through the window next to her, slicing part of her arm off. Screaming in agony, she sprays the white wall with her blood before falling to the ground.

The killer strikes her several more times with the axe. (One of the all-time great horrific scenes, so much so that it was cut out of most American prints.) Cut to another dream sequence of the girl with the red shoes being stabbed. This time we see her killer take the shoes off.

A woman arrives at Anne's apartment. As soon as she enters, she is hit in the head with the axe. We finally see the killer...it's Peter Neal himself. The woman he's killed, however, is not Anne but Inspector Altieri. Detective Giermani turns up, followed by Anne.

Anne cannot believe her eyes, as she tries to make sense of what's before her... her old friend slumped on the floor next to the savagely slaughtered woman. Giermani has figured out a motive.

Peter became aware that Christiano was the killer, and when he found out Jane was having an affair with his agent, he killed all three. That way, all the murders would be blamed on some unknown maniac.

Peter is told he is under arrest, but as he is about to surrender, he has a surprise in store. He turns around and sticks a razor to his neck, slashing himself from ear to ear. The inspector helps Anne to his car, where he explains to her how Peter could have been the second killer.

When Peter was a teenager, a girl he knew was brutally murdered. It's believed that Peter committed the crime although he was never charged. When Christiano's killing spree began, it triggered something in Peter he had suppressed all these years. (This would explain the dream sequences.)

Inspector Giermani goes back into the apartment, but doesn't find Peter's body. He discovers that the razor was actually a trick, complete with fake blood. Before he can react, Peter strikes him with the axe, knocking him towards the door and knocking over a huge sharp-edged sculpture.

Anne hears the commotion and decides to go back in just as Peter is heading out of the apartment. When she opens the door, she accidentally impales Peter with the sculpture. Realizing she has just killed a friend she thought was already dead, all Anne can do is scream...

It was Argento's intention to put on film a "gory rollercoaster ending full of fast and furious murders." He certainly succeeded.

There's an interesting anecdote about this film from the director which might not be obvious to the casual viewer (it certainly wasn't to us).

Referring to the film's setting, Argento claims: "Tenebre isn't based in the present but about five years in the future. It was never meant to be a story about something that is happening now and it doesn't contain one shot of typical tourist Rome.

"It isn't exactly my Blade Runner but nevertheless a step into the world of the future. Watch the film with this in mind and it will become very apparent. The film occurs in a world inhabited by fewer people with the result that the remainder are wealthier and less crowded."

When people ask us to recommend films by Dario Argento, we usually name three: Deep Red (Profondo Rosso), Suspiria, and this film. They are, in our opinions, most representative of his work. Seen for years in a cut version with the ludicrous title Unsane. our friends at Anchor Bay have re-released it on video and DVD in its original version. It's never looked better.

Hunter: Ah, the Italians...known for their great works of art. Would we expect any less from their filmmakers? At the risk of sounding sick, nobody films a death sequence quite like Argento. They're beautiful. This film contains some of my favorite moments: the double murders of Tilda and Marion, the death of Jane, and the fantastic final scene with Daria Nicolodi as Anne just screaming and screaming in the rain!

It also features pure Argento elements I've always enjoyed, such as one of the characters (in this case, Gianni), slowly remembering important pieces of the mystery. Another is the truly scary and nightmarish concept of someone escaping harm only to be killed in the next few minutes, i.e. Elsa threatened by the homeless person, and Maria chased by the dog.

Jason: One of Dario's three strongest films, this is also one his most fun to watch! It's a sort of roller coaster ride of atmospheres, taking you from the silliness of the quarreling lesbians, to the starkness of Jane's brutal murder, to the revelation of *two* killers, to the rawness of the climactic ending. Whereas Suspiria swirls with breaths of dark sorcery and Deep Red simmers in its own childhood trauma, this one is pure slasherdom done Italian style!