I got my hands on a copy on Tenebre. Unfortunately, it was in Italian and lacked subtitles. It supposedly had an English language track, but my player didn’t want to allow me to switch. Luckily Amazon had available a copy of Unsane, the edited widely panned American release of the film. It’s a full 10 minutes shorter than the director’s cut of the film, and 20 minutes shorter than the original.
Peter Neal is an author, and he’s touring with his new book. Upon arriving in Italy, he is contact by police concerning a murder. A woman was killed in a manner similar to a murder in his latest book, plus she had pages of the book stuffed in her mouth – but we already knew this as we got to see her killed. We get to see everyone killed, often from the point of view of the killer. Anyway, lots of people die, and there are buckets of blood, and the author is trying to track down the killer, and eventually we find out who the killer is, and the movie comes to an end.
In certain circles, Dario Argento, writer and director of Tenebre, is spoken of with great reverence. But I don’t know. I liked Suspiria and Inferno well enough I guess, and his episodes of Masters of Horror, but of his other films I’ve seen, I could really take them or leave them. Tenebre wasn’t a bad film, though perhaps I’ve just seen too many, because I figured out what was going on early in the film. Maybe the missing 10 minutes, or 20 minutes depending on the version, makes the movie better.
Be sure to keep an eye on Final Girl and the rest of SHOCKtober.
UPDATE: Check out other participants – Life Between Frames, Blog @ Rotten Cotton, Money and a Half
