The last Dario Argento movie where the good outweighs the bad, Inferno plays like a creepy fever dream. For forty minutes or so, the Italian director, with his visual talent and gift for atmosphere, seems ready to deliver a supernatural thriller which, if not on par with his magnificent Suspiria, at least appears to come reasonably close.
Alas, the script is a mess, and weak storytelling drags the movie down in the second half. Inferno bounces between different potential protagonists, only to settle on the least interesting one; stuff happens "just 'cause"; the last thirty minutes are a string of killings with no narrative tissue holding them together - and, without a well-paced story or compelling characters, even effective set-pieces fall flat.
An interesting failure, but one worth watching for fans of the first Argento, as it's his last work showing sparks of true brilliance - a mysterious submerged room, an animal attack homaging Hitchcock's The Birds but with cats, doomed protagonists lost in dark, labyrinthine corridors.
6/10
Alas, the script is a mess, and weak storytelling drags the movie down in the second half. Inferno bounces between different potential protagonists, only to settle on the least interesting one; stuff happens "just 'cause"; the last thirty minutes are a string of killings with no narrative tissue holding them together - and, without a well-paced story or compelling characters, even effective set-pieces fall flat.
An interesting failure, but one worth watching for fans of the first Argento, as it's his last work showing sparks of true brilliance - a mysterious submerged room, an animal attack homaging Hitchcock's The Birds but with cats, doomed protagonists lost in dark, labyrinthine corridors.
6/10