Arrow Video, with domestic sales and distribution support provided by MVD Entertainment Group, has a new double-disc 4K Ultra HD edition of Dario Argento’s 1975 (1976 for the domestic market) giallo/horror tale, Deep Red, ready for delivery to genre fans on Oct. 26.
Arrow has gone the extra mile with this package. Not only is the original 127-minute Italian language version getting a new 4K film restoration (from the film’s original camera negative), but the English-dubbed “export” edition (US theatrical release) is also getting the same 4K treatment.
David Hemmings (Blow-Up, Some People, Camelot, Barbarella, etc.) stars as Marcus Daly, a musician, who is a witness to a murder that takes place in a nearby apartment … he is too late to help the victim.
What is interesting in the way that Argento structured the lead up to this pivotal point, is that he has an extended sequence to open the film where the murder victim, Helga Ulmann (Macha Méril — Belle de Jour, Last Stop on the Night Train), is introduced during a symposium on parapsychology. She is a psychic, who suddenly has a very disturbing “vision” and can’t continue.
The first reaction is that you “think” the story is going to be about her and the visions she is having, but she’s hacked to death in the apartment wwith a meat cleaver and the story’s focus shifts to the witness, Marcus.
At Helga’s funeral Marcus meets Professor Giordani (Glauco Mauri), who was chairing the parapsychology event. Later, Marcus describes an odd encounter and the professor is able to connect the dots, which sets Marcus on the path of being an amateur sleuth.
Joining him is the reporter, Gianna Brezzi (Daria Nicolodi — Shock, Inferno, Tenebrae), who snapped a photograph of Marcus at Helga’s apartment and in doing so put a public face (and target) to the witness of the murder. More murders follow, Gianna is attacked and her attacker, the suspected killer, dies a horrible death (hit by a truck) … but there’s a twist. Of course, there’s a twist!!
Bonus features, in addition to having both viewing options, are two commentary tracks on the Italian-language presentation of Deep Red — one is a vintage commentary with Thomas Rostock, an Argent expert, and the second is newly-minted featuring critics Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson.
Also included on the disc featuring the Italian-language presentation of the film are “nearly three hours” worth of newly prepared video sessions with members of the cast and crew.
On the companion disc, featuring the domestic English-dubbed version of the film, are director Michael Mackenzie’s film, Profondo Giallo, and a series of vintage video sessions with Dario Argento, Daria Nicolodi, Claudio Simonetti and Luigi Cozzi.
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