Yuku free message boards

I'm just disagreeing with you. That crash of the mirror with the fire ending is pure Argento.
The horrible fake looking skeleton hands are not in keeping with Mario's wonderful costumes and effects in ALL his other films.

The superimposed floating blade at the end of Bava's SHOCK is pretty chintzy. The dead medium from the "Drop of Water" in BLACK SABBATH was excellent, but that was crafted by Mario's father who had died years before INFERNO. The skeleton chest from BLACK SUNDAY, which Bava hauled out of the mothballs for PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES, isn't really so great, but Bava had the sense to show it only in a flash.

Perhaps Argento simply simply allowed the camera to linger too long on the skeleton hands that bother you? In any case, the imagery has direct antecedents in Bava's work that the underwater hotel sequence does not - unless one really wants to stretch a point and cite the brief underwater footage in DANGER DIABOLIK (one of my favorite films).

I may be striking a strident tone (if so, sorry), but this is one of my pet peeves. Film, because of its collaborative nature, is open to interpreation regarding who is responsible for what. In the past, I've seen critics credit or not credit people with certain things, based not on any evidence of what actually happened but on whether or not they liked the results.

First time I noticed this was when, concidentally, newly struck prints of both DR. STRANGELOVE and EASY RIDER opened the same day in revival houses her in Los Angeles. Both give Terry Sothern co-credit, but a local critic here declared that Sothern obviously hadn't really written anything on EASY RIDER (which the critic did not like) but deserved almost all the credit for STRANGELOVE (which the critic loved). This was before anyone had got their hands on the original drafts of STRANGELOVE to know who did what.

The on-going rumors regarding the underwater sequence in INFERNO strikes the same bell for me. Bava's last directorial effort was the rather lethargic (IMHO) SHOCK back in 1977, which Lamberto himself has said his father was so ill and tired that he directed only "on paper" (meaning he did the pre-production planning), leaving Lamberto to execute the ideas on set.

Assuming Lamberto is not lying about his father, am I supposed to believe that, three years later (and shortly before his death), Mario suddenly was able to take over the reigns from Argento and ... what? Strap on an aqualung and direct the underwater footage?

Koukol 5 wrote:

---

On the DVD of INFERNO, Argento says that Bava had nothing to do with the underwater sequence but the crappy skeleton at the end was Bava's input...as I said before...I don't believe Argento. Mario is not here to defend himself.

Just put my DVD back in the player to check on this, and your account is inaccurate.

It is Lamberto Bava - not Argento - who credits Mario Bava with the doing the effect of the mirror breaking to reveal the skeleton at the end.

And regarding Lamberto...
Perhaps Lamberto hasn't seen the extra on the English R1 AB DVD. Maybe he doesn't know if Mario shot it.

Again, on the DVD bonus interview, Lamberto discusses the difficulty of shooting the underwater scene and never mentions any contribution from his father.

Schmilsson1969 wrote:

---

For me, I originally saw "Deep Red" on WOR in the early 1980's on a late Saturday night. It stayed with me long enough that I bought the Thorn\EMI VHS ("Deep Red Hatchet Murders") at a Woolworths in the late 80's. I then picked up a copy of the Japanese LD ("Suspiria 2"!) at a Convention and saw, for the first time, some extra footage (I also picked up the Japanese Souviner Book then). Around that time, I met Argento while in Pittsburgh filming "Two Evil Eyes" and I ased him about the possibility an uncut release of "Profundo Rosso". He said, "It's-a gonna happen. We gonna make you wait. (Laughs)". Then, a few short years later, the Anchor Bay DVD appeared.

With each viewing, I loved the movie even more and seeing each video incarnation with more and more footage was just facinating to me. It was like zooming out on a picture and seeing more and more. I agree the freeze frame over the end credits on the AB edition is a bit disappointing, but it's minor.

I went through a similar process: seeing the movie cut up on local television, renting the VHS, seeing an old theatrical prnt (titled "Hatchet Murders") at a revival screening, seeing the Japanese laserdisc, and finally the DVD.

I enjoye seeing more each time, and I did enjoy the longer cut on DVD, but several of the scenes just seem to go past their climax. The edited version found good places to cut where the scenes felt over. The bit with Hemmings exploring the haunted house, especially felt like it went past the point where it was no longer building to a climax but just dragging on.