Blu-ray Movie Reviews

When beautiful police detective Anna Manni follows the bloody trail of a sophisticated serial murderer/rapist through the streets of Italy, the young woman falls victim to the bizarre "Stendhal Syndrome" - a hallucinatory phenomenon which causes her to lose her mind and memory in the presence of powerful works of art. Trapped in this twilight realm, Anna plunges deeper and deeper into sexual psychosis, until she comes to know the killer's madness more intimately than she ever imagined.

While Dario Argento has long been considered one of the masters of cult horror cinema I’ve always been a bit hit or miss with his works. This film was released in the mid-nineties but was censored outside of Italy. Looking at it now I’m surprised there was any real issue with the themes or visuals as the violence wasn’t any more shocking than most of the slasher films of the 70’s and 80’s. Dario’s daughter Asia takes the lead in this one and does an okay job with the material. The film deals with some psychological themes and has an interesting twist but overall I didn’t find the film nearly frightening enough.

The HD transfer is made from a new master struck from the original 35mm interpositive. The results are quite good but some may find it a bit too grainy. The presentation does look a bit sharpened from time to time but detail is about average overall. Fine detail doesn’t shine through nearly as much as newer films but I never found the image objectionably soft or filtered. Colors are a bit subdued but add to the mood of the film.

The soundtrack is in English and you can choose between a 7.1 Dolby TrueHD mix or a 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio mix. Despite having two lossless tracks to choose from the overall effort is a bit disappointing. The film’s original language is English but it looks like all the dialogue was dubbed in during post production so the voice work doesn’t match the tonal balance of the rest of the track very well. The voice work also sounds thin and doesn’t synch up quite as well as I would have liked. The rest of the track has a nice open quality to it and I was impressed with the clarity of the main soundstage. Some of the sound effects come off dated and a bit cheesy but this is more of a limitation of the production and not the presentation.

Extras include a look at the director along with some interesting features on the psychology of the film and the special effects. The trailer is also included.

Overall this one was a bit disappointing. I was hoping for a bit more giving the director’s reputation in the horror world. The video presentation was solid but the audio was disappointing. I would recommend a rental for fans of Argento’s other works.