The Thing (1982)

Tagline: “Man is the warmest place to hide”
Running Time: 109 minutes

Film Quality: 5/5
Gore Content: 3.5/5
Entertainment Value: 5/5
Originality: 3.5/5

Introduction

Having already established himself as a masterful director with a small budget, John Carpenter was given a shot at the big time with a wodge of cash from Universal Pictures and a script from Bill Lancaster, son of Hollywood legend Burt. Heavily influenced by H.P Lovecraft, Carpenter didn’t collaborate with Lancaster with the writing and, as with previous films ‘Halloween’ and ‘Assault on Precinct 13’ chose to put his own stamp as an auteur with some almost unbearable claustrophobic tension. Equally as impressive as a character study in paranoia and as a body horror, many consider what was an almighty turkey on release to be Carpenter’s masterpiece.

In a Nutshell

A fatal encounter with two Norwegians at a US research outpost in Antarctica encourages the team to find out what persuaded these Scandanavian scoundrels to start shooting at an Alaskan hound. Bringing back a badly burned, deformed corpse and footage showing something unearthed in the ice, a shapeshifting alien lurks within the camp. But who is really human and who can they really trust in order to survive?

So what’s good about it?

Why beat about the bush, Rob Bottin’s practical effects work in this film have gone down in cinematic history as some of the finest ever committed to film. The sequence with the defibrillator penetrating Norris’ chest to bite off a colleague’s arms, only for a monster to burst out of it, all whilst Norris’ head slowly detaches itself from the rest of his body to sprout legs and scamper off is utterly jaw-dropping. One of the characters sums it up sublimely by staring at the spider-head to utter “You’ve got to be f*cking kidding”, echoing our thoughts. That’s just one of many highlights including the dog reveal, the blood serum test and the brilliantly conceived deformed bodies.

But this is so much more than a gorefest. Carpenter uses the alien’s shapeshifting capabilities to create an ever escalating feeling of paranoid tension. MacReady even records this in his notes, saying ‘Nobody trusts anyone anymore’. The testosterone flying around amongst the all male cast renders the arguments and confrontations perfectly believable and Carpenter makes absolutely the right decision in keeping us out of the loop in terms of who is infected and who isn’t. We don’t trust anyone either meaning we can’t side with a particular character…even Kurt Russell’s weary hero MacReady acts irrationally, strapping himself to a flame thrower whilst holding several sticks of dynamite. This tension is made explicit with the blood serum test where we finally get to find out who’s human and who’s not without having any idea as to what will happen – the way it is filmed and scripted suggests the characters don’t know either.

The outpost was a constructed set and Carpenter makes incredible use of all of the dark corridors and corners. We see figures walking past doorways, shadows on a door as the dog enters someone’s room but who is it? We never get a true sense of the geography of the place, adding further layers to our confusion and increasing the sensation of being trapped in a maze from which there is no escape. In many ways it’s reminiscent of Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien’ with the added element of not knowing who’s on your side OR what the alien looks like.

The film sank like a stone in cinemas and reviews were terrible, one of the elements attacked was the characterisation which I find odd. I think the characters are well written with their own distinct personalities. You have the volatile Childs, mild-mannered Norris, slightly disturbed Palmer, the leader Garry amongst others. These characteristics come to the fore in such elevated states of confusion and self-preservation in what I consider to be a very believable way. The acting is spot on throughout and reactions to situations range from taking control or looking for inspiration to blind panic and each character steps up to his given characteristics.

In an unusual move for him, Carpenter chose not to score the film himself, instead enlisting the not inconsiderable talents of Ennio Morricone. His score is subtle, simmering away underneath the surface, just like our character’s emotions and alien’s identity. Apparently Carpenter got married to Morricone’s music which was the primary reason for wanting him to score one of his films, and what better opportunity than with Universal’s backing?

No phoning home for this alien

What about the bad?

They couldn’t have picked a worse time to release it! Steven Spielberg had just introduced the world to one of the cutest and most lovable aliens that ever wanted to ‘go home’ in a decade that was full of optimism, colour and happy endings. So, along comes Carpenter’s tale of a seriously pissed off alien full of pessimism, paranoia and distrust with an ending completely at odds with Spielberg’s tearjerker. Factor in that it was released on the same day as Ridley Scott’s other sci-fi classic ‘Blade Runner’ (also a flop, also dark and brooding) and it never stood a chance.

My only other complaint is more a testament to the brilliance of the rest of the film and that is that the final special effect reveal is overshadowed by almost every other special effect in the film. It’s not that it’s particularly bad, far from it, but it doesn’t compare with the defibrillator scene and is something of an anti-climax. Of course it does pave the way for the brilliant final moments with MacReady and Childs and we can all give thanks that a happy ending, insisted upon by studio execs, was never used (take note ‘Blade Runner’!) and hasn’t even seen the light of day as a blu-ray extra…at least not yet!

Any Themes?

Self-preservation

Paranoia, madness and the effects of isolation. As part of what Carpenter refers to as his ‘Apocalypse Trilogy’ (also including ‘Prince of Darkness’ and ‘In the Mouth of Madness’) this is an incredibly nihilistic film. The end offers very little hope and throughout the film, at the very moment that the characters need to stay together they push each other further apart as relationships completely break down and they quite literally kill each other.

Picking up on similar themes explored by the 50s version of ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’, the film explores the notion that trust is ultimately fruitless as, when it comes down to it, self-preservation is our strongest basic desire. Others’ wellbeing and looking out for each other is meaningless when compared to our own wellbeing so, when we think others are putting their own wellbeing above our own, trust in those others breaks down and paranoia kicks in. Call it survival of the fittest, kill or be killed or dog eat dog, it boils down to plain old survival instinct and once trust is lost it’s almost impossible to get back.

Release history

No censorship issues in the UK, although a US TV version was created that removed some of the potty-mouthed parley (full marks for political correctness to the genius who dubbed ‘motherf#cker’ with ‘monkey fella’!) , some of the more gruesome effects and featured a voiceover at the beginning of the film. It also introduces most of the characters via voiceover and features an additional shot at the end of one of the dogs running away and turning back to look (possibly a repeat of one of the opening shots) which more explicitly implies that The Thing has survived and escaped. From memory the TV version shown on 80s TV in the UK was virtually uncut, apart from some of the swearing.

Cultural Significance

Massive! Despite bombing like a Lancaster it has been reappraised countless times and is now not only regarded as one of Carpenter’s best but one of the best of the 80s full stop! It is also considered a reference film for practical special effects, how they should be done and a prime example of a film that uses its effects, not just for shock value but also to propel the plot.

A prequel of sorts was released in 2014 which suffered by comparison to the original but enormous effort was made to pay respect to the original. This included creating an exact replica of the room where The Thing escaped its ice block, using Kurt Russell’s height as a reference point, explaining how the deformed bodies came to be and even explaining the axe in the wall that Macready and Doc come across. It’s such a shame that they felt the need to ‘touch up’ the practical effects, why go to all that effort to create such effects only to hide them behind CGI? Will Hollywood ever learn???

It should also be mentioned that ‘The Thing’ was a clear influence behind Quentin Tarantino’s wonderful ‘The Hateful Eight’, even using unused parts of Ennio Morricone’s score that featured as music on the menu of the original DVD. Both films star Kurt Russell in the lead role, they both feature a group of, in this case largely, male characters trapped in an isolated space by a snowstorm, both play significantly on the paranoia and breakdown of trust because a person or persons unknown aren’t who they appear to be. Tarantino is a known admirer or Carpenter and an expert in reusing themes, scores and entire scenes or sections of dialogue to pay homage to classic films and this, to me, is his best since the equally paranoid ‘Reservoir Dogs’.

Final Thoughts

Considered by Carpenter to be his love letter to H.P. Lovecraft’s monumental novella ‘At the Mountains of Madness’ and visiting a number of the themes covered in that classic piece of literature is has quite a heritage. Just as relevant as a paranoid thriller as it is a sci-fi body horror it works on so many levels that it’s quite astounding that it was considered a flop upon its theatrical release. That it has been reappraised as a classic of the decade and genre is testament to those that love it and turned it into a hit on VHS and one in the eye for the critics who got it horribly wrong.

Memorable Quotes

Garry: “I know you gentlemen have been through a lot but, if it’s alright with you, I’d rather not spend the rest of the winter TIED TO THIS F@CKING COUCH!”

Palmer (as Norris’ head sprouts legs and walks off): “You’ve got to be f@cking kidding.”

Palmer: “I was wondering when El Capitan was going to get the chance to use his pop gun.”

MacReady: “Trust’s a hard thing to come by these days.”

You’ll like this if you enjoyed…

‘Alien’, ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’, ‘Species’, ‘Lifeforce’

Jaws (1975)

Tagline: “The terrifying motion picture from the terrifying number one best seller”
Running Time: 124 minutes

Film quality: 5/5
Gore Content: 2/5
Entertainment Value: 5/5
Originality: 4/5

Introduction

When Universal producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown independently read Peter Benchley’s ‘Jaws’ they could have had no idea that they were about to change the direction of cinema. Settling on the, at the time, unknown and still in his 20s Steven Spielberg to direct it was to prove a masterstroke of fortune that would lead to the creation of one of THE greatest films of all time. Plagued by trouble during production, escalating budgets, technical problems, re-writes and a bloated shooting schedule, this is a lesson in putting faith in a talented director who can work around problems and make the best of a situation.

In a nutshell…

A young girl is killed in a suspected shark attack at a seaside resort reliant on the tourist trade during the holiday season. As more bathers perish at the fins of a Great White Shark, the leviathan must be destroyed before it threatens the town’s livelihood and the lives of its residents and holidaymakers.

So what’s good about it?

When you think of ‘Jaws’ it’s nigh on impossible to shake the two musical notes that escalate and reverberate throughout the film, signalling the deadly menace and intent of Spielberg’s monster. John Williams’ score is simply incredible, so much so that it’s easy to forget that you don’t see the shark until well into the second half of the film! Its’ effectiveness is enhanced almost by mistake as, due to multiple problems with various mechanical sharks, the decision was taken relatively early to use the music as a replacement for the real thing. This decision worked out wonderfully, ratcheting up the tension to Hitchcockian levels and leaving us all with that deceptively simple, heartbeat-esque, rhythmic tone in our heads whenever we go for a swim!

Spielberg very nearly walked away from production, fearing he would be typecast, largely due to the similarity between this and his amazing debut TV movie ‘Duel’ – ironically the reason his interest was piqued in the first place. He has shown time and time again how good he is at building tension, suspense and relentless momentum with an eye for the set piece. I still remember the first time I saw this film and the scene that scared me most was the two fishermen looking to catch the shark at the end of a jetty (above, right). His use of substitution is just incredible. The music and the broken jetty both double for the shark as sound and vision, the panic in the two men’s voices as the driftwood gets closer and the music gets louder. I found it almost unbearable as an 8 year old, it gave me nightmares, despite the adrenalin release and ending on a jocular “Can we go home now” just to ease the tension.

In a sense that scene sums up the entire movie which is very much split into two halves. The first half sets the scene by dangling out the Sunday Roast as we see a number of kids and holidaymakers as bait for the shark. Then the film moves away from the jetty for the second half of the film out at sea as our three ‘odd trio’ characters of world weary Flint (a scene stealing Robert Shaw), marine biologist Hooper (a brilliantly vulnerable and understated, almost comic performance from Richard Dreyfuss) and our hero Chief Brody (Roy Scheider going against type as a modestly competent police chief).

This dynamic in the second half perfectly complements the carnage of the first. On the beach the solution is obvious, don’t go in the water, and it would be all too easy (as we saw in Joe Dante’s surprisingly good pastiche ‘Piranha’) to keep the film at the shore for maximum shock effect. But what Spielberg and co-writers Carl Gottlieb and Benchley do is take it away from that and create a microcosm of suspense and tension between three characters who all have different motivation…Quint’s in it for the money and challenge, Hooper is in it for the research and Brody simply wants to keep people safe. It also hems them in. If you’re in the water, just get out…but where do you go if you’re already in the water and miles from shore? It all becomes ominously claustrophobic when you’ve overfaced yourself and Brody’s ad-libbed “We’re gonna need a bigger boat” is a classic moment in cinema when reacting to our first proper glimpse of ‘Bruce’.

But let’s just take one scene in particular out of context, I’m talking of course about Quint’s Indianapolis monologue. Shaw is an accomplished writer as well as an actor and re-wrote the monologue to deliver one of the standout pieces of dialogue in any film. For a brief moment we forget about the menace outside and witness one of the characters internalise a struggle with an inner demon that influences his actions right up to the end of the movie. I challenge anyone to start up a conversation or put a crisp in their mouth during this speech, you simply can’t let yourself be distracted as you’re pulled into his world, his experience which you absolutely believe has happened to him and shaped the persona that he brings to the screen. Apparently Shaw worked with a local fisherman who taught him to walk and talk like a man with sea legs; Spielberg gave him a small part in the film as Ben Gardner, the character whose head pops out of the boat in the infamous ‘jump scare’ (above, right).

So much has been said about all of the various aspects of the film, it works on almost every level but its biggest legacy is that it served as a blueprint for the archetypal summer blockbuster. One of the first ‘high concept’ movies which can be described in a single sentence, it marked a move away from historical epics and sweeping romances to action-based movies aimed at a mass market. Though the formula has become more cynical over time, recycling itself (‘Armageddon’ and ‘Deep Impact’, ‘Independence Day’ and ‘War of the Worlds’), the huge amount of money thrown at advertising and its release as a summer movie, in the US at least (it was released in the Winter outside of the US and Argentina), continues to this day.

And what about the bad?

It’s almost the perfect blockbuster but, have nit, will pick! There is one scene that has always bugged me and I’ve never found an explanation for it. When Hooper carries out the autopsy of the young girl, the scene seems to cut to a shot of Hooper picking up the severed arm whilst in mid flow and he says “So this is what happens” before it cuts back to him carrying on his frantic autopsy. I can only assume it’s down to sloppy editing which is surprising as the rest of the film is so expertly put together. If anyone out there knows why this scene plays out the way it does then I’d be more than happy to be enlightened!

Any themes?

The book plays heavily on the class divide and, although this is largely excised, key elements remain. Quint is the tough, working class man with a chip on his shoulder, holding Hooper’s hands and telling him “You’ve been counting money all your life” whilst Hooper is the privileged, educated gentleman who has inherited his fortune and uses technology as his tools, replying to Quint “Hey, I don’t have to put up with this working class hero crap”. Brody, essentially classless in his role as police chief, acts as mediator between the two which means it must fall on him to destroy the shark to show the failing of the class system and its ultimate reliance on authority figures.

It’s also a classic horror about nature fighting back against humanity in the form of a giant and monstrous creature, a theme we’d seen many times before with the likes of ‘King Kong’. This runs alongside his own TV movie ‘Duel’ which pits an everyman against an unstoppable assailant, this time on dry land with a truck instead of at sea with a shark. Both films play on the primal fear of being hunted, reversing man’s natural role as the predator and showing up our own vulnerabilities, foreshadowed in the shot of the three men leaving on their quest with the boat framed in the jawbone of a long dead shark. The sound effect at the end of ‘Jaws’, as the remains of the shark sink to the bottom of the ocean, is an altered version of the noise the truck makes at the end of ‘Duel’ as it drives over the cliff top.

Release history

Other than the usual edits for language and gore to allow TV channels to show the film in the early evening (although even then it’s frequently shown without cuts), there has been very little censorship of the film. There are extended TV versions to allow US networks to pad out the running time to three hours with adverts but these simply reinserted deleted scenes that can be found on DVD.

However, the 30th anniversary edition does have one very odd cut for language. Close to the end, as Brody squeezes the trigger to kill the shark, his final line is shorted to “Smile you son of a…”. Very odd given that the film retains all other bad language and gore. The special edition VHS released in the UK in the early 90s was briefly withdrawn and recertified from a ‘PG’ to a ’12’. This is down to the documentary that followed the film which features the ‘F’ word and presumably wasn’t spotted…naughty BBFC!

Cultural impact

Massive in that, as mentioned earlier, it spawned the modern blockbuster. It also spawned a whole host of imitations, parodies and pastiches. It was most likely responsible for the shark vs zombie tussle in Lucio Fulci’s ‘Zombie Flesh Eaters’, such was the propensity for Italian horror movies to shoehorn in anything that had gone down well in the US! Movies including ‘Piranha’, ‘Tremors’, ‘Alligator’ and ‘Orca the Killer Whale’ to name a few owe a huge debt of gratitude to ‘Jaws’.

One unpleasant result of the film is the public perception of sharks, particularly ‘Great Whites’, as man eaters when in fact most attacks, not that they’re common, are cases of mistaken identity. The creatures, which are incredible examples of evolution, have been demonised to the point of being listed as a vulnerable species. This decline in numbers has happened since the 70s which may be a coincidence but these beautiful, fearsome creatures only has two natural predators…killer whales and man.

Final thoughts

Despite being a family film, there is no doubting this features most of the tropes you would associate with a horror film so could conceivably be regarded as one of, if not THE most successful horror film of all time in terms of box office. It’s also a perfect example of relentless tension and taut direction to deliver appropriate scares and suspense levels approaching critical. In today’s era of CGI and mega bucks stars it sometimes takes a reflective look at where the modern blockbuster started to see that the best of them all had neither of those, now key, elements. They might not quite make them like that anymore but ‘Jaws’ is still essential viewing and remains as effective now as it was then BECAUSE of that fact.

Memorable Quotes

Brody: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

Quint: “Here’s to swimming with bow legged women.”

Quint: “This shark, will swallow you whole.”

Quint: “Ten thousand dollars for me by myself…for that you get the head, the tail, the whole damned thing.”

You’ll like this if you enjoyed…

‘Alligator’, ‘Piranha’, ‘Deep Blue Sea’, ‘Tremors’, ‘Arachnophobia’

Five of the Best: Dario Argento Films

Dario Argento has been terrorising, entertaining and surprising audiences for almost 50 years and, though his best years are far behind him, his legacy is one that any horror director would be more than proud of. His early work in particular is astounding in its consistency, how many filmmakers can boast a debut as assured as ‘The Bird with the Crystal Plumage’? Few can argue that his finest work lies between that astounding opening statement to the world of cinema and ‘The Stendhal Syndrome’ which, to me, is his last truly memorable film (although ‘Sleepless’ had its moments, particularly the superb opening set piece). We all have our favourites so I’ll share my ‘Five of the Best’ Dario Argento films, in no particular order…

Suspiria (1977)

I doubt there’s an Argento fan amongst us who wouldn’t include this in their top five! Dripping with style and oozing colour from every frame it resembles a waking nightmare at times. Entire scenes are inexplicably bathed in primary colours as characters are engulfed, surrounded and saturated by the nightmares those colours betray. Like an adult fairy tale, characters and creatures are consumed by the Mother of Sighs’ will to do her bidding and even the geography of buildings appear altered, most notably in the opening scene where our eventual victim, Pat, is chased along walls and into crawlspaces that they couldn’t possibly access.

Argento wrote the film with the main characters as children, changing them to adults to avoid censorship but retaining the same innocence and clumsy dialogue of the characters. This does much to add to the fairytale analogy, in fact the story was inspired by an old folk tale Daria Nicolodi’s Grandmother used to tell her as a child. The almost complete lack of plot isn’t to everyone’s taste and marked a shift in Argento’s work away from more conventional storytelling to the supernatural.

Most ‘Argento’ moment? The scene where Sara is chased through the dance academy by a razor wielding assailant. She thinks she has found salvation through a small, window sized door yet, despite looking, jumps straight into a room, bathed in the glow of electric blue lighting and filled with barbed wire coils. As she struggles to escape the room, our killer toys with her by agonising over opening the lock, lifting it slowly and deliberately with the razor. We’re then confronted by that most nightmarish of concepts…being chased but unable to escape. Unbearable tension and the dreamlike absence of cause and effect combine to create one of Argento’s most memorable set pieces.

Opera (1987)

One of Argento’s most commercially successful films, it also provided us with one of his most iconic singular images…needles taped under the eyes to force our heroine to watch the bloody mayhem. Argento invented this device after becoming frustrated that audiences would close or cover their eyes during his carefully staged set pieces. By forcing Betty to watch the bloodshed, we feel compelled to do the same…Argento is punishing the one we identify with, therefore punishing us for not paying attention.

The film itself has a number of flaws but Argento outdoes himself with the stylised nature of his camerawork and the sheer audacity of what he throws at us. He built a giant rig to simulate the flight of the ravens, he cuts open a stagehand’s throat post mortem because she accidentally swallows a vital clue, there are flashbacks and the visualised ramblings of an insane madman, even going so far as to show his own pulsating brain. It’s almost as if he set out purposely to outdo himself in every respect and for most part he succeeds in what could well be the most insane and ballsy giallo ever to come out of Italy.

Most 'Argento' moment? Daria Nicolodi’s Mira questions the identity of a policeman at the door as she stares him down through the peephole. The ‘cop’ pulls out a gun and pulls the trigger as we follow the bullet in slow motion down the chamber through the glass of the peephole, through Mira’s eye, out the back of her head and into the telephone at the back of the room. Only Argento can make something as barbaric and formulaic look as breathtakingly beautiful and original as this. A remarkable moment.

Deep Red (1975)

This was the film that cemented Argento’s growing reputation as a genuine talent and reportedly gained the attention of Alfred Hitchcock who remarked ‘This Italian fellow is starting to worry me’! Scripted by Argento from his original story, this is proof that Argento wasn’t all style over substance, coming up with a very coherent and well written giallo. With a twist that doesn’t cheat (just watch the opening murder again), it’s Argento’s most satisfying film, purely from a story perspective. It’s also the first time we see him play with the supernatural by introducing us to the psychic Helga, a theme he would revisit with a larger slice of horror in ‘Phenomena’.

Though we had seen flashes of style and directorial flourishes before, ‘Deep Red’ was where we witnessed Argento come of age as a director of considerable visual talent. Right from the opening flashback, the whipping open of the curtains to reveal the psychic demonstration and the Goblin scored, dreamlike moment where the camera pours over items representing our killer’s madness we know we’re in for a different type of giallo. Subtle foreshadowing and doubling, intricate character development, uncovered images that blur the distinction between Marc Daly’s current reality and our killer’s past trauma add up to a surprisingly complex and well thought out film.

Most 'Argento' moment? There can be only one! As psychiatrist Giordani begins to piece together the puzzle he hears a sound from the corner of his room. Thinking nothing more of it, a door flies open and a creepy mechanical doll bursts out, walking towards him laughing. Stabbing the doll, Giordani realises too late that it’s a warning as the killer delivers a blow to his head, smashes his teeth into the fireplace, than again onto the corner of a table before laying him down and impaling him onto the table as the camera follows the blade up and then down into his neck.

The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1970)

This was where it all started with a loose adaptation of Fredric Brown’s pulp 40s novel ‘The Screaming Mimi. An incredibly assured debut, the film was both an international hit and responsible for re-igniting popularity for the Italian Giallo, a style of thriller with a whodunit element, elaborate, stylistic set piece murders and demented plot twists. It introduced us to a number of Argento’s signature moves, including the black gloved killer, protagonist associated with the arts, witness as stalked victim and an eye for the unusual character.

What Argento achieves is an almost constant level of tension, the plot moving along at a breathless pace with plenty of twists and turns. Through reputation we also find Argento’s frustration with actors, regarding them more as part of the scenery than people with lines to say. That said, Argento displays a real talent as a screenwriter, something that frequently gets overlooked over his directorial flourishes and eye for the fantastic. This is a film that both looks AND sounds good as well as being one if his most coherent movies in terms of plot and character development.

Most 'Argento' Moment? Without a doubt the scene where Sam’s girlfriend, Julia, is stalked and terrorised in her apartment. The killer threatens and goads her through the locked door, trying to gain entry as she tries desperately to escape, all the while knowing that Sam can’t be far away but will he get there in time. It’s a scene he repeats in other films, including to Marc Daly in ‘Deep Red’, Betty in ‘Opera’, Sara in ‘Suspiria’ and Anna in ‘The Stendhal Syndrome’.

Tenebrae (1982)

Reinventing the Giallo for the second time, this time creating the neo-giallo, Argento disregards the primary colours of ‘Suspiria’ and ‘Inferno’ for a more washed out, traditional look. He also removes any and all references to the supernatural, effectively going back to basics to relay the story of a murder mystery writer, Peter Neal who finds himself right in the middle of a situation that he could well have written himself. The idea came from a very real experience he suffered with an obsessive fan that took a sinister turn when he began to blame Argento for his own life problems.

Another technically and stylistically brilliant film which introduces us, admittedly not for the first time in Italian horror history, to the notion of the dual killer. Doubling and rhyming scenes play significant roles, particularly in the climax where a potential victim is crucially misidentified and an incredible shot where the Inspector kneels down to reveal the killer standing directly behind him. Taught pacing, some wonderfully ‘of the time’ disco music from Goblin and further proof of Argento’s eye for the set piece, he gave us another landmark Giallo.

Most 'Argento' moment? The infamous crane shot where Argento’s fluid camera thoroughly explores the outside of a building for nearly two minutes to the backdrop of Goblin’s pounding score. The camera then enters the building as the soundtrack is discovered to be a record being played by one of the women who lives there. She then struggles with her clothes before the razor wielding maniac perfectly frames her face through a tear in her t-shirt, blood spurting onto her terrified face - another victim claimed.