Rish Outfield's reviews
I think tyranist will agree that in many cases while maintaining this website, even more than the actual viewing of the film, the real pleasure comes in tallying up the Skulls afterward. Dario Argento's Inferno is definitely one of those. I feel that this film, more than any other, is the perfect example of a What The Hell? earning movie.
I have no idea what I just saw. Since I'm a dumb guy, I've been prone to take notes on movies lately, to keep things straight (and to have something to say when I finally review it, weeks later). My notes for Inferno are covered with huge question marks. At ten minutes, I didn't have a clue what was happening. At thirty minutes, I was just as lost. But it was all so artfully done, I couldn't turn it off. It was filled with bright, stylish colours and trippy psychadelic opera-type music. Everything was too dark and surrealistically lit for me to know what I was seeing from time to time. Perhaps that was the fault of the copy I was watching, and perhaps it was intended. Judging by the rest of the film, it's hard to say. The story dealt with several horrible, colourful death scenes that seemed unrelated to one another. Characters were introduced, then killed, with very little explanation as to who they were. Argento had a scene with ants again (in my notes, of course, I wrote "ANTS!". Lamberto Bava was the Assistant Director. One hour, thirty-five minutes, and fifty-four seconds into it, I realised I still didn't know what was going on. I hope you understand what I'm trying to say here. There was certainly style at work here, but the substance must have been viciously murdered during the shoot.
There are people who really like this movie, and that confuses me. Apparently the version I saw was cut by about twenty-five minutes from the original, and that may have made all the difference (one can only hope).