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Directed by Simone Scafidi.
The golden age of Dario Argento may be long past, but that doesn’t mean he’s not one of the most important horror directors of all time. Scratch that. THE most important horror director of all time.
Certainly the horror universe has its Mount Rushmore of horror directors, including: Tobe Hooper, George Romero, and John Carpenter. But, it’s fair to say that none of them are as mercurial and mystical as the great Dario Argento.
The film takes a rather routine chronological approach to himself and his films. Unfolding as exactly as you’d expect. Focusing largely on Suspiria and Tenebre and his somewhat peculiar relationship with his favorite muse — his daughter Asia.
If you’re a student of Argento and the brilliance of things like Four Flies on Grey Velvet, this new Argento exploration, Panico, will leave you wanting. It does contain some fascinating nuggets about what makes him tick, but does little to get at the core of his decline over the last several decades.
Maybe the most fascinating focal point of Panico is the lingering imprint that his mother and father (Salvatore Argento) made on Dario. Both a part of the film business, it was his mother and her photographic approach to women that intrigued young Dario. He closely studied and watch his mother as she framed, molded, and shaped female actresses. Clearly this impression played out through the golden era of the 1970s and 80s and continues to do so today.
The film does get around to a partially convoluted answer about the decline of products coming from Dario Argento and weirdly pins it on Italian TV and the early 1990s rise of VHS output. Several Argento friends and experts discuss the declining support of Italian TV studios and the need to branch out to cheaper American pastures.
While he would go on to produce some incredible fare in the 1990s with the Stendhal Syndrome and Trauma, most his later output was deeply uninspired and certainly not in line with the incredibly high standards that he set for himself in the 1970s.
Maybe the most problematic part of Panico is the items that they didn’t cover. Left on the table were some of the incredible soundtracks and music choices from Keith Emerson and Ennio Morricone to Brian Eno and the Rolling Stones’ Bill Wyman. Argento’s clear-headed approach to including prog rock in horror films is still deeply warbling and reverberating today.
Also, weirdly missing is Argento’s relationship to George Romero and his specific involvement in the soundtrack, writing, and counsel for Dawn of the Dead. In addition to helping Romero secure funding for Dawn of the Dead, Argento was also a critical element to the screenplay. While it’s not Argento’s film, his paws are all over the production.
Also lacking in the film was any serious discussion of giallo, what makes a giallo film, and which of his films were giallo in nature and which weren’t. The films does give a passing mention to the subgenre that Argento helped to define, but it’s almost assumed that the audience would come to the table with a full understanding of the stabbiest of all genres.
The film does employ an interesting device where it pulls from old interviews and contrasts them with the similar questions laid before the octogenarian. At one point, it even recasts an absurd interview where the film crew had Argento dump his pocket contents on a table, and the present day film crew has him do the same.
Dario Argento is the greatest horror director of all time. That’s really beside the point. What’s up for grabs is his inspiration and the dueling psychological egos battling in his brain. One side is the the picture perfect embodiment of fatherhood and dedication to his craft and the other is roiled in the darkest most vile terror the brain could ever imagine. If you didn’t know that already you need to go watch Deep Red — right now!