If there's one thing lacking in The Card Player, it's style. Style is what Argento is knowing for and what audiences rely on to carry them through the questionable gender politics and nonsensical plots. That is distinctly lacking here, although the novel premise certainly keeps things interesting. The Card Player is about a serial killer who abducts women and kills them live on webcam broadcast over the internet. It is a cold, unforgiving film and resembles a pretty routine police procedural. There is hardly any gore (save for one particular impalement), which is somewhat unusual for Argento, but there are one or two semi-decent set-pieces. Does The Card Player offer anything that giallo/horror fans haven't seen a thousand times before? No, it doesn't, but it's not out-and-out terrible like some people have claimed. Those awful internet graphics have aged the film terribly, mind.
