Bleed Out

Related Content

• Film Showtimes for the week of October 27-November 2, 2010
  October 27, 2010
• The Following Preview Is Heartily Approved
  October 14, 2009
• "Black Swan": Natalie Portman goes batshit in a tutu
  December 1, 2010
• 10 Things To Do This Weekend For Under $10
  October 2, 2009
• The Mother of Tears
  June 18, 2008

More About

• Dario Argento
• Sergio Leone
• The Mother of Tears
• Suspiria (1977)
• Inferno (1980)

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Events Newsletter: What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

In much the same way that countryman Sergio Leone reinvigorated the all-American genre of the Western, Italian director Dario Argento infused “B” horror films with fresh blood. Employing a brazen palette of eye-popping colors and over-the-top soundtracks, Argento rescued psychological horror from the sealed tomb of politely repressed narratives. His other great innovation, exemplified by the “Three Mothers Trilogy,” was placing innocent women at the center of his otherworldly scenarios. In 1977’s classic Suspiria (screening Oct. 1), an aspiring New York dancer jets off to a Italian ballet school that turns out to be a grisly witches’ den. The director followed that triumph three years later with Inferno (Oct. 3), in which another Manhattan lass encounters a diary titled The Three Mothers, which portends apocalyptic evil. The curious 2007 capper, The Mother of Tears (Oct. 4), centers on a Roman archaeologist (the filmmaker’s daughter Asia) who unwittingly opens a Pandora’s urn. The plots, though, aren’t what give Argento’s movies their spiky kick. It’s his gorgeous, delirious, and often surreal imagery that haunts — and taunts — long after the lights come up.
Oct. 1-4, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m., 2009