04-06-2019, 05:24 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-06-2019, 05:25 PM by TM2YC. Edited 1 time in total.)
Opera (1987)
Dario Argento apparently had a stage Opera project fall through, which he used as inspiration for a semi-autobiographical Giallo featuring an Italian Giallo Director mounting a stage production of Verdi's Opera 'Macbeth'. The setting is the perfect excuse to blend Argento's brand of heightened theatrical Horror with the heightened power of Opera music (plus the usual Prog Rock and some Metal too). The images of crazed Ravens and eyes abound, extreme close-ups of eyes, Ravens eating eyeballs, ravens clawing out eyes, people being shot in the eye and of course the central conceit of a girl having her eyes forced open by dressmaker's pins. The practical gore FX are on another level of realism and splatter. As usual, Argento is the master of leading the viewer "up the garden path" and had me theorising that virtually every character was the murderer at one point or the other
.
(^ I love that trailer voice!)
I've now seen all of Dario Argento's films up to this one, the reputed steep decline in quality after this point makes me wonder if I should watch any more and save being disappointed. I'd rate them something like this:
1. Deep Red
2. Suspiria
3. Tenebre
4. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
5. Phenomena
6. Opera
7. The Cat o' Nine Tails
8. Inferno
9. Four Flies on Grey Velvet
10. The Five Days of Milan
Dario Argento apparently had a stage Opera project fall through, which he used as inspiration for a semi-autobiographical Giallo featuring an Italian Giallo Director mounting a stage production of Verdi's Opera 'Macbeth'. The setting is the perfect excuse to blend Argento's brand of heightened theatrical Horror with the heightened power of Opera music (plus the usual Prog Rock and some Metal too). The images of crazed Ravens and eyes abound, extreme close-ups of eyes, Ravens eating eyeballs, ravens clawing out eyes, people being shot in the eye and of course the central conceit of a girl having her eyes forced open by dressmaker's pins. The practical gore FX are on another level of realism and splatter. As usual, Argento is the master of leading the viewer "up the garden path" and had me theorising that virtually every character was the murderer at one point or the other
.(^ I love that trailer voice!)
I've now seen all of Dario Argento's films up to this one, the reputed steep decline in quality after this point makes me wonder if I should watch any more and save being disappointed. I'd rate them something like this:
1. Deep Red
2. Suspiria
3. Tenebre
4. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
5. Phenomena
6. Opera
7. The Cat o' Nine Tails
8. Inferno
9. Four Flies on Grey Velvet
10. The Five Days of Milan
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