Original title: Il mondo dell’orrore di Dario Argento
For devotees and newcomers alike, this is a fun if rather lightweight resume of Italian horror director Dario Argento’s early career, up to and including the then still unseen Phenomena (1985), pretty much the most interesting part of his increasingly frustrating filmography. World of Horror features many expertly edited montages of il maestro’s finest moments, behind the scenes footage and original interviews all stirred into a heady cocktail by long-time collaborator Michele Soavi, who would go on to direct La chiesa/The Church (1989) and La setta/The Sect (1991) with Argento as producer. All of the highlights from Argento’s canon are present and correct and the often bizarre interviews (Argento describes Tenebre/Tenebrae (1982) as being like “a weird, multicoloured party”) add an almost surreal edge to the proceedings. Add to that an extremely rare chance to see the filming of and a few moments footage from the excised scene from Phenomena in which Jennifer Connelly takes off and flies around the room and you have a package that no Argentophile should be without.
If World of Horror has a flaw, it lies with its oddball structure – it opens with footage from Profondo rosso (1985), Argento’s fifth movie before moving on to some fascinating behind the scenes material of Argento and interviewee Luciano Tovoli on the set of Suspiria (1977). The film then proceeds through Inferno (1980), Tenebrae (1982) and Phenomena, referring to Argento’s first three horror films (L’uccello dalle piume di cristallo/The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1970), Il gatto a nove code/The Cat O’Nine Tails (1971) and the then extremely hard-to-find Quattro mosche di velluto grigio/Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1972)) only by way of a series of unconnected clips during a lengthy climactic montage. The title pretty much precludes any mention of the non-genre Le cinque giornate/Five Days of Milan (1973) though a few clips of a film which was, at the time, almost impossible to see would have been most welcome.
But that’s a minor quibble – overall, World of Horror is an essential compilation of some of the horror genre’s finest moments, spiced with those remarkable backstage clips that include footage of Argento, Tovoli and their crews staging that magnificent house-scaling sequence from Tenebrae. The all-too-brief interview extracts paint a portrait of Argento as a gifted eccentric – the most revealing moments find a morose Argento sitting in the Arco 2 warehouse on the eve of shooting Phenomena suffering a moment of angst as to whether he can pull the picture off or not (the jury is still out even now as to whether or not he succeeded) and the oddly amusing glimpse of Argento perched atop the crashed helicopter set from Demoni (1985) likening film-making to warfare.
In truth, there isn’t that much here that allows us close to the real Argento, despite throw away lines about wanting to make movies because he wants to be loved. Argento has always been a private man and he gives little away here, allowing us only a few cryptic insights that serve only to heighten his mystique – the film even fails to mention that Fiore Argento (featured prominently in the Phenomena and Demoni footage) is his daughter, preferring instead to concentrate on cataloguing his achievements to date with only the merest hint of a glimpse behind the emotional mask Argento chooses to wear in public.
So instead we get moments from all of Argento’s features to date as well as the projects to which he has leant his name as producer, Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Demoni. There’s sadly no room for his TV work but at the time it was an essential compilation for Argento fans everywhere. It was particularly valuable back in the 1980s at a time when many of Argento’s films were still hard to find, particularly in their original forms, as it offered brief and tantalising glimpses of material that was to prove elusive for many more years to come. Today, with all of Argento’s films available uncut and in decent transfers, it remains valuable if only for the briefest of insights into Argento’s working methods.
Two more semi-related documentaries followed from Luigi Cozzi (co-owner with Argento of the Rome based film memorabilia shop Profondo Rosso): Dario Argento: Master of Horror (1991) and Il mondo di Dario Argento 3: Il museo degli orrori di Dario Argento (1997) but the best to date remains Leon Ferguson’s Dario Argento: An Eye for Horror (2000).
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