Reseñas de la crítica

Tenebrae is all at once a twist-heavy giallo and a sophisticated meta-giallo... Instead of confronting his own critics head-on with the falsehoods of their claims about his unsavoury, woman-hating character, writer/director Argento entertains the idea that everything his critics say is absolutely true, and follows that notion through to its logical conclusion with shrill abandon.

Reflexive, cerebral, bloodletting: Argento created Tenebre during one of his most inspired, distressing periods, returning to giallo after veering into supernatural horror with Suspiria and Inferno. Indeed, his homecoming seems to have many of the echoing thoughts that come with revisiting a familiar place—minus the body count.

Coming after two somber but frenetic supernatural pictures—the aforementioned "Suspiria" and 1980's "Inferno"—it has an unusual to-hell-with-it quality... The finale is an orgy of kill-'em-all nihilism (that sounds like a spoiler, but it's not) that's blood-chillingly terrifying in spite of the thoroughly unconvincing characters. It's a thrilling, vexing film, a kind of ode to aberrance, teeming with preoccupations and fetishes that exist only for their own delectation.

It does confirm Argento's dedication to the technicalities of constructing images - Grand Guignol for L'Uomo Vogue, perhaps - but you'll still end up feeling you've left some vital digestive organs back in the seat.

Freudian psychology, sexual deviancy, repressed trauma, voyeurism/spectatorship and the sexualisation/fetishisation of violence and death are all on bold display throughout this twisted story which is also pierced with a slew of heavily stylised murder set-pieces, the likes of which are usually associated with the director’s cinema.

Sadistically beautiful and viciously exciting, welcome to true terror with Dario Argento's shockingly relentless "Tenebrae".

Franciosa and John Saxon (as his agent) turn in amusing performances, and Argento makes some points about the intersection of art, reality, and personality, but the director's stunning trademark setpieces, presented here in a fully restored version, provide the real reason to watch.

As a labyrinthine study of “wrong man” theory, Tenebre may owe plenty to North by Northwest but it’s far superior to Hitchcock’s pop classic. Though more user-friendly than Tenebre, Northwest never involves or implicates the spectator in its on-screen mayhem.

Focusing on a bizarre series of horrific murders, and arguably Argentoís finest film, Tenebrae is also the source of the seminal image that has graced the cover of more horror books than Bela Lugosi: the wide-eyed girl staring in terror through the slit in her ripped T-shirt.

Although the mystery itself is nothing special, Argento uses the narrative structure as a jumping-off point for his virtuoso murder sequences, which are incredibly well orchestrated and inventive.