Capital Celluloid 2022 — Day 309: Wed Nov 9

Inferno (Argento, 1980): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 8.40pm


This film, also screening on November 26th, is part of the 'In Dreams Are Monsters' season at BFI Southbank. Full details here.

Horror expert Kim Newman hailed Inferno oin his seminal Nightmare Movies book as Dario Argento's greatest work, his "masterpiece".

Empire review:
Defiantly refusing to make narrative sense, this revolves around two evil houses - one in Rome, one in New York - and the witch-like goddesses who haunt them. A succession of unfortunate mortals become intrigued by the mysteries surrounding the houses, and mainly come to bad ends in sequences staged by Argento with all the imaginative flair of Busby Berkeley dance routines. Argento goes overboard with the vivid camera work, and anyone expecting a story is doomed to extreme frustration. There is, surprisingly, an unusual degree of cynical humour to the proceedings and the requisite collection of blankly beautiful actresses. The kind of film that starts off with a climax and builds to a plateau of surrealist delirium that, one way or another, will have you shrieking.
Kim Newman

Here (and above) is a trailer.

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