4. Tenebrae (1982)
Peter Neal is an American writer of violent horror books. He is in Rome to promote his new book and he is accompanied by his assistant Anne and his literary agent Bullmer. His bitter ex-wife Jane is following him, but he is not aware of this. There is a murder in which a beautiful shoplifter is slashed to death by an unknown assailant who sends Peter a message saying that he was inspired by his books. Two detectives are put on the case. The killings continue and Peter notices that a TV reporter is taking an unusually close interest in the case. Peter and his second assistant Gianni go to the reporter's house. While Peter goes to get a better view, Gianni watches in horror as the reporter is hacked to death by a masked assailant. The detectives find out that the reporter was obsessed with Peter's books. They expect the killings to stop. However, Bullmer, who is having an affair with Jane, is killed whilst he waits for her in a secret rendez vous. Gianni is tormented that he saw some detail in the reporter's house that was crucial to the murders. He goes back to the house and remembers he heard the television reporter say to his attacker "I killed them all". Before he can impart this information, he is strangled to death in the car. Through a series of events, it is revealed that Peter is actually the murderer. This plot twist is a little bit dopey. When Peter learned of the TV reporter's spree, it bought back memories of a time when he was sexually humiliated by a young lady when he was a lad in Rhode Island. This has inflamed his latent insanity and fuelled the murders of Jane, Gianni and Bullmer. There is a final showdown between Peter and the police which ends with Peter being impaled on a metal statue. The current Mrs Silvio Berlusconi gets her arm chopped off in a murder scene whose violence and intensity is typical of all of the killings in the movie. Definitely one of Argento's bloodiest pictures, I didn't quite get my head around the revelation that Peter is killing people, but despite this need for suspension of disbelief, the film is intensely watchable and absorbing. The climax is very exciting and harrowing with the final image of Anne screaming in the rain - the only possible response to what she just witnessed. Argento's camera work and cinematography are up there with his best work and apparently he based the film on his own experience of a crazed fan phoning him up and threatening to kill him. A very worthy entry into Argento's canon.