Profondo Rosso

                                                                   

 

               Flesh Ripped clean to the Bone... And the Blood runs Red...

 

The movie introduces is to music teacher Marcus Daly (Hemmings) as he investigates the violent murder of psychic medium Helga Ulmann (Macha Meril), which he witnesses in an apartment building. Other featured characters are also introduced, including Daly’s friend Carlo (Gabriele Lavia), Ulmann’s associate Dr. Giordani (Glauco Mauri) and reporter Gianna Brezzi, with whom Daly begins an affair.

In his failed attempt at rescuing the medium, Daly realises he could have seen the killer’s face among a group of portraits on the wall of the victim’s apartment but is unable to find or recognise it when the police arrive. Later in the film, he also initially overlooks another clue that leads him to discover a corpse walled up in a derelict house. One murder leads to a string of others as Daly’s obsession with this vital clue that he fails to understand puts his life and those of everyone he comes into contact with in danger.

It is the music within this movie that serves as the killers calling card. When Daly hears it in his own apartment shortly after becoming involved in the case he is able to foil his attacker. Later, he plays the tune to Giordani, a psychiatrist, who theorizes that the music is important because it probably played an integral part in a traumatic event in the killer's past. The doctor’s theory is of course correct, as the identity of the killer is finally revealed as Carlo’s insane mother Martha. When Carlo was still a child, he watched as she murdered her husband when he tried to have her committed, then entomb his body in a room of their house.

In the climax to the movie, Martha confronts Marcus and tries to kill him. Wielding a butchering knife, Martha chases him around the complex and into a room with an elevator. Marcus gets hit in the shoulder by the knife, and, in the process, he kicks Martha toward the elevator shaft. Her long necklace slips in through the crossed metal bars. She tries to pull herself away and, in doing so, the large pendant on the end of the necklace becomes lodged between two small metal bars. As Martha is desperately trying free the necklace, Marcus realizes she is caught and presses the button to activate the lift. It travels downward and the necklace starts choking her. However the elevator presents with so much force that she is eventually decapitated....

 

 

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Directed by Dario Argento
Produced by Salvatore Argento
Written by Dario Argento
Bernardino Zapponi
Starring David Hemmings
Daria Nicolodi
Gabriele Lavia
Macha Meril
Eros Pagni
Giuliana Calandra
Glauco Mauri
Clara Calamai
Piero Mazzinghi
Music by Goblin
Distributed by  
Release date(s) March 7, 1975
Running time 126 mins.
Language Italian
Budget

 

 

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