Critics reviews

This version of the true story that inspired Leonard Kastle's The Honeymoon Killers (1969) is set in Mexico in 1949. Black comedy informs both films, but where Kastle's was notable for its grim austerity, Ripstein opts for a sumptuous yet strangely detached variation on the traditional Mexican melodrama... Imagine late Fassbinder filtered through a Latin sensibility and you're only halfway there.

Arturo Ripstein's 1996 film Deep Crimson provides the perfect answer to Oliver Stone's 1994 feature Natural Born Killers. Leaving out the flash cuts, shamans, and Trent Reznor music, Deep Crimson depicts the life of lovers on the lam as dull and perilous.

This is a rare movie about a love that is at once true and all-powering... and hideous. Like The Honeymoon Killers, it treads a line between the freakish and the moving, getting past the characters' physical grotesquery’s to understand their genuine feelings... It's not a comfortable watch, but it is a compelling one.

While essentially a remake of Leonard Kastle's cult classic The Honeymoon Killers, this stylish updating is bereft of the grainy, early-Seventies style of filmmaking that to my mind plagued the original and instead drenches itself in washes of golden, sepia-toned light, making it one of the most gorgeously lit and shot thrillers I've ever seen.

"Deep Crimson" sinks easily into the swamp of human depravity... Ripstein leads us into this world with the seduction of deadpan black humor, and then pulls out the rug in the final scenes, which are truly horrific. As a study in abnormal psychology, "Deep Crimson" would make his master, Bunuel, proud.

Working from an expert script by Paz Alicia Garciadiego, director Ripstein conjures up an unblinkingly grotesque vision of love in a state of hysteria. From the carefully chosen muted colors to cinematographer Guillermo Granillo’s elegant compositions to the ironic counterpoint provided by composer David Mansfield’s neo-romantic score, everything combines to create a disturbing scenario we view in both horror and fascination.

''Deep Crimson'' is photographed in dark brownish shades that make everything the color of mud. The film's bleakly dirty color scheme precludes the tiniest hint of prettiness. Any frilly hearts-and-flowers notions you bring to the movie are best left at the door.

Arturo Ripstein confirms his status as the most accomplished contempo Mexican filmmaker with “Deep Crimson,” a unique love story with abundant touches of black humor that ranks as one of his finest achievements.