Argento's Homage To Hitchcock A Deathnail?

No, PHANTOM OF THE OPERA was the "deathnail". A friend of mine recently defended THE CARD DEALER as being "fun in a Bruno Mattei kind of way" and that about sums up where Argento is right now. He has arrived at complete and utter creative bankruptcy and for some reason he keeps on making one insultingly bad film after the other instead of quitting years ago when he still had a shred of dignity left. Instead he tarnishes his own past efforts by pumping out self-plagiarizing crap.

Yes, I am bitter.

And where the heck did this HITCHCOCK nonsense come from anyway? I thought he was gonna rape his Three Mother Trilogy next with this THE THIRD MOTHER that was announced a year ago? Well, whatever, we're probably better off without him pissing all over the glory of SUSPIRIA and INFERNO.

Gosh, you'd think the man who gave us "Suspiria," "Phenomena," "Deep Red," "Opera," and some great giallos wouldn't get so much hate.

I haven't seen "The Card Dealer" (though I had a chance but just didn't say to see it--"Sleepless" was bad enough for me.) But I kinda hope that if Argento did go back and do the third movie in the mothers trilogy that maybe that would jumpstart his creative juices a bit and we'd get another classic along the lines of Suspiria and Inferno (my 2 fave Argento films.) Maybe it's not a realistic hope judging by some of his output lately, but I hope none-the-less.

Before Dario is slapped around anymore, let's just take a look at where he stands in comparison to his horror peers:

John Carpenter - Rationalize with the "fun, popcorn movie" theory all you want, but this guy has put out utter shit for the past 15-20 years ...

George Romero - Worse ( if possible ) than Carpenter ... BRUISER was actually embarrassing ...

Wes Craven - Never was in Argento's class anyway, and his name hasn't meant anything in 20 years ...

Tobe Hooper - ugggh


While I concur that PHANTON OF THE OPERA was awful, and SLEEPLESS was disappointing, I still get excited hearing about Dario's involvement in anything .... In no way should he be written off, everything I read about the 3 Mothers finale was inspiring ... and to me, the Hitchcock thing doesn't seem as bad as everyone is making out to be .....

I never really understood the repeated comparisons to Hitch anyway .... Sure, BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE was marketed as such, and in the early days you could see an influence, however, their approch and style were so completely different from one another ... What drove a Hitchcock film and what drove an Argento film were totally different engines ...

Brian DePalma was obviously influenced by Hitchcock, however, in BLOW OUT, there are scenes that are so obviously Argento it's as if Dario were there on the set himself ..... and at no point in any Argento film have I ever thought "That looks like Hitch was there ..... Anyways, DePalma seems to be the bridge between Hitch and Argento, but obviously having more of the approch and execution of Alfred Hitchcock .....

Nobody, regardless of genre, has made films like Dario, and for me, his place as a filmmaker is above and beyond that Carpenter, Romero, etc etc ......

His best film might be behind him, but I still look forward to whatever he does .... He hasn't abandoned the genre like Carpenter has, so at least give him credit for something ....

Good to hear that someone else holds STENDHAL SYNDROME in high regard. For some reason I don't understand at all that film gets a lot of hate from Argento's fans, to the extent that some claim it was the start of his decline.

I agree. DePalma actually lifted the scene where the killer is revealed to be standing right behind someone in TENEBRE for his own film RAISING CAIN.

I'm still reeling from Wetbone's "fun in a Bruno mattei kind of way" remark (good stuff, BTW):

EVERY movie should aspire to that.

But Carpenter was never a straight horror director anyway. He was certainly a genre director, but when you look at the scope of his films, he's never really been a strictly horror guy.