Retrospective Film Review

Deep Red (1975) • 50 Years Later — superbly crafted mystery and suspense

An English pianist in Rome witnesses the bloody murder of a psychic and then tries to track down the killer with the help of a newspaper reporter.

Critics, cinema buffs, and cult film fans still aren’t entirely in accord with what defines a giallo, but most would agree that Dario Argento’s Deep Red / Profondo rosso is a definitive example and among the finest. For Argento aficionados, Deep Red and Profondo Rosso are two different movies, with the Italian theatrical cut running an additional 20 minutes or so, resulting in the two versions having a very different spirit. For this review, I am referring to the Italian print known as Profondo rosso, rather than the international edit released as Deep Red.

Following the explosion in popularity of Italian Westerns in the late-1960s, the giallo dominated Italian cinema through the early-1970s when the term encompassed general thrillers and murder mysteries. Only in hindsight did it become associated with a specific sub-genre…