Dario Argento: Master of Horror (1993)

February 20, 2025 8:24 AM

A documentary about the films of Italian horror director Dario Argento. Included are clips from many of his films and interviews with friends, actors and colleagues.

Put together by "Lewis Coates" aka longtime Argento collaborator Luigi Cozzi (Starcrash).

Available as an extra on Severin's recent "Argento Deep Cuts" set, though even there it's in SD/VHS quality.

You can also see it free on YT in six parts: One; Two; Three; Four; Five; Six. It's not in great quality here, but as noted above, that is the general state for this anywhere.

posted by DirtyOldTown (1 comment total)

This is fun, if you're very into Argento, because of the interviews with him and his collaborators and because of the behind-the-scenes bits explaining how certain really cool shots or effects were done.

But the quality of the clips is VHS-level, in any available version of this doc. And it's very much a Luigi Cozzi jam, which is to say it mixes moments of solid competency with stretches where he has lost his train of thought and is just showing you random cool shit. A fair amount of hero worship of his bud Dario, too, naturally.

I would not recommend this as an introduction to Argento and his work and in fact, would not recommend it to anyone who isn't a dyed-in-the-wool fan.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:28 AM on February 20