#that shard of glass was the contrarian

[artibirdi]

Quick doodles of my Contrarian and Narrator

The Narrator has no design past his face because he is just a shadow on the wall behind TLQ

[deepseamuse]

i love giving the voices bodies and will definitely do so, but consider: each of them represented by the shards of a broken mirror

[tapestryundone]

i have a crossover that appeals to me and me ALONE. have art of it that lacks any context because i just made art of it and left it at that and didnt feel like adding dialogue to almost any of it

elaboration under the cut

first img is an approximation at the long quiets mind :] its empty but i think there WOULD be more layers if you dug around. maybe if you walked further into it. but thats the main area! shards of glass bc of that one spectre line hehe. the center area is wood panelled but the resolution in the img makes it a tad hard to see at the size the img is.

in the main area the voices come up to the center area as needed! or just to talk. i think in the event that anyone ever entered tlqs mind they would become EXTREMELY talkative bc itll be their first time really being Perceived without unpleasant circumstances which is VERY exciting for them

most things in tlqs mind would be verrrry very similar to the spaces in between, mostly because thats the truest location hes ever truly known. i have been thinking about different layers that could contain the cabin, though. because the woods and the cabin were both very important locations for him, even if they sucked Majorly

second img is the inner version of tlq :D which like. technically theyre all parts of tlq. but also they can function as separate entities from tlq so i dont think itd be that out there that tlq exists somewhat separately from them all in his own mind. gotta think on some of the logistics more though

4, 5, and 6 are just interactions cus i think its fun. i think its ill advised for visitors to leave that little center area. going past it is putting oneself at risk to become lost in the unending walls of the (mental) long quiet. i dont imagine the voices knew that before so much as it is instinct. the "real" location wasnt something mortals were ever meant to really Be In, so it carries over and makes leaving the center instinctively feel like a very bad idea to just Let Someone Do That

the voice in 4 is hero and the voice in 5 is contrarian

last two are the most stand alone and self explanatory. second to last is the opportunist and paranoid, and last is quiet and opportunist :]

[slay-the-heroine]

The Narrator:

You take another step.

The Narrator:

The crack in the glass spreads further, the sound cutting through the air. The Heroine closes her eyes as if in pain.

"Why are you doing this?"

Voice of the Contrarian:

Is this... hurting her?

The Narrator:

And then, the glass... Breaks.

The Narrator:

Shattered pieces spray out in all directions. You shield your eyes, but find—

Voice of the Contrarian:

She's gone!

Voice of the Prince:

No... Look.

The Narrator:

The shards swim in the air. In the larger pieces, you catch glimpses of her. An eye, a mouth, a hand, another eye. Until the pieces build into a person-shaped amalgamation of glass parts.

The Narrator:

Four eyes, varying in levels of hate and accusation, glare at you. Three mouths speak.

"You couldn't just leave it alone."

Voice of the Prince:

What is that?

Voice of the Contrarian:

She's angry at us... What were we supposed to do?

The Narrator:

It's... Horrible.

Voice of the Prince:

That's unnecessarily rude. Do you have anything more productive to say?

Voice of the Contrarian:

... Is He finally shutting up?

"Do you hate me?"

Voice of the Contrarian:

H-huh?

Voice of the Prince:

No, we don't even know her.

Voice of the Contrarian:

I don't hate her...

"There's so much. But it's all so cold."

You don't get the chance to reassure her, and you never will. Something has taken her away, and left something else in her place. Memory returns.

Voice of the Contrarian:

What? What's going on? What was any of that? Are we alone?

Voice of the Prince:

She's gone, where did she go? And why is there that weird mirror?

>>>

[voiceofthebroken]

impulsively made designs for the voices! they're kind of more like concepts so they're likely to change if I get better ideas for them. I didn't want to make them too complex and give them pinterest outfits lol (I might do that another time though). notes for each voice under the cut!

Hero: I was kind of inspired when a friend said they'd picture that Hero would have similar armor to Artorias from Dark Souls, partially the reason I started drawing the voices

Contrarian: the first thought was to make him a jester, but I thought that's what people would usually imagine him as. so I gave him something more modern to stand apart from the rest of the voices where they're all medieval-ish. also the only voice with a completely round head and the only one without a lower eyelid. he looks silly too so bonus points for that. Contrarian can open his other eye, the diamond on his face is like a tattoo of sorts lol. The X on his chest is a reference to the Razor when he skewers himself (or ourself but same difference)

Stubborn: the first one I actually tried to design. I had the idea of giving a sharper, more prominent chin to the voices who seem more likely to resort to violence. the only idea I had for him was his arms so I had to google and this is the best I could come up with

Hunted: my first roadblock. I was clueless and even considered leaving him as just the base form, but a friend suggested giving him a bandana on his neck, so I did that. a little later I decided to make him fluffy instead of giving him clothes and it took a bit to figure out how to do that

Cold: I found an outfit while I was looking for ideas for Stubborn and I thought it was perfect for Cold. my original idea was just a scarf, but I really liked what I found. don't mind the bad posing by the way lmao, I had an idea for a separate art piece but executed that very poorly so now it's part of the design drawings

Smitten: I got some inspiration from Reverse 1999 for this one actually, but the idea was a little too similar to Hero so I mixed that in with something a bard might wear and gave him a funny feathery hat

Paranoid: I drew him before this post and nothing changed from there. the eye on his hood is one sided and there's nothing else underneath. I don't know how to fit all the details in a pose that would make sense so I'll make another post later lol

Broken: in the Tower route pledging yourself kind of was like becoming a priest for her or something so I gave him the first thing I saw on pinterest when I was looking for priest like clothes. there's a shard of glass connecting the cloak together. he also has stab wounds on his torso from the Tower route

Skeptic: so the last three I struggled to think of designs for so much. he has a scar on his neck from just before the Drowned Grey route where giving him the knife would get him to slit the player's throat. the outfit was inspired by something I found on pinterest and thought the chain going across could somewhat be like the chain going around the player's neck

Cheated: this took the longest to figure out and I gave up on thinking of something. I just gave him whatever outfit I could find on pinterest I thought that would fit him lmao. the only thing I managed to think of was putting bandages around his wrist. he has a scar under the bandages from the Razor

Opportunist: I don't know what I was thinking when I designed him or his clothes. I think he just kind of gave me merchant vibes so I tried going for that and gave him a silly hat. he's definitely not hiding a blade behind his back. the coin was just an extra thing I thought of adding. I ran out of paper space on the page and didn't want to put Opportunist on a different page all by himself so he's the only one without a full body drawing, but it wouldn't make much of a difference if it was a full body

[birdmitosis]

I am so glad you commented on the cracks on the contrarian :DD I’ve been drawing all the voices with cracks on them because of when spectre calls cold and hero broken glass! (Although for the drawings of hero and broken I sent in, I forgot to add the cracks)

Oooh, I REALLY like this detail!! I don't know how I didn't notice on some of the others... I love the "shards of broken glass" thing, it's such a cool design detail to lean into that :D

[pichlive]

Okay so, i just had a thought: Since the ending where you leave with the stabilized stranger has the Voices of the Hero and Contrarian staying behind to find the other Voices, what if all of the Voices are actually distinct entities in their own right?

Just... Since you get a new voice whenever you die and go to the next "loop", what if every "voice" is just the previous Loop's Hero, having broken off from the "main" Hero.

Granted, that doesn't explain how the Voice of the Hero works, unless he was somehow produced as a result of whatever "the Creator" did to trap the Long Quiet inside the Construct.

The Long Quiet is stasis, and thus, instead of being changed, little pieces break off, but internally. Thus why the Specter sees them as shards of broken glass, each one contains a small part of what the Hero was previously.

Again, doesn't explain the Voice of the Hero, but we never get a concrete explanation on what the Voices are, so...

I can believe that they're pieces of tlq broken off! Although I also think that they're parts of the narrator broken off as well (given tlq is probably in some respect also made from aspects of nary)-- but more in the same way the narrator made tlq

Given the hero is always there and one of the first... well i think the simplest explanation is to look at the first chapter

it's always the hero and the princess

it's likely he spawned because the story needs a hero, and hero will always act as a hero 'should'

ergo-- usually wanting to save the princess unless something proves she really is 'dangerous'

(and also is a huge trooper who supports whatever choice you do. my man)

[bubblybloob]

Makes me wonder how much they are like separate people and how much they are like thoughts. What’s their actual, general nature?

They don’t give off that “this is your thought process” vibe that Disco Elysium’s skills do. They are instead referred to as “shards of broken glass” by Spectre. Are they pieces broken off of us then? We get kinda stretched thin in Razor and are given less and less options for moving forward the more they all appear, until we finally snap and just get rid of them all. They’re also capable of doing things we don’t want like picking up the blade or stabbing ourselves when we say no.

There is another thing that happens in Razor though. We clear our mind and suddenly they all just poof. Gone. How and why? Are they as dismissible as mastering your impulsive thoughts? Or did we just Thanos snap eleven little guys in our brain (twelve counting the Narrator who gets erased separately)?

Where do we draw the line between person and thought? They can’t be echoes like the Narrator after all. They’re able to change as shown by Contrarian in Stranger, something Salty pointed out, and it is something the Narrator, an echo, is incapable of doing.

It honestly confirms for me that they are pretty much separate people that have all formed in one body and are all going through the same traumatic experiences, but then why can they be snapped into oblivion so easily? What gives us power over them that they don’t always have over us?

I have a feeling, and bear with me here, that each of the voices’ own chapters are where they’re their worst selves.

Think about it. Hunted plays right in the Beast’s hands, yet he is incredibly useful in dodging Razor and kind of acts like a predator instead of prey in Eye of the Needle. Skeptic overanalyzes every minute detail that he can in Prisoner and his encouragement ends in us getting a shackle around our neck, but in Den and Eye of the Needle he is an integral part of the plan to lure the princess out.

This is why it’s hard to tell what’s really up with some voices, for example let’s look at Broken. Broken is actively working against us in Tower, yet is rather gentle in Wild. I believe the only other two instances he appears in is in the two “Everyone is here” chapters where he is overshadowed and is literally called by Opportunist the worst of the bunch in Clarity, which isn’t necessarily inaccurate but it only serves to worsen his reputation when he doesn’t seem all that bad when he’s our secondary voice to show up in Wild. Though again, Wild is our only example of him being like this, and all voices brought into the Wild seem a little too passive. I wonder if there was another chapter where he was our secondary voice and with no huge “everyone is here” event, he’d act differently.

Paranoid is a toss up because he spends most of Nightmare being unable to speak up, he’s too busy trying to keep you alive, and when he does speak he usually says something generally useful, like getting the narrator to shut up or theorizing His control over their situation. Though to be fair his whole existence as a voice of paranoia in our head gets dampened by the absolute insane situation we’re forced into in every route, so most of what he says ends up sounding relatively reasonable despite what his title implies. I’m pretty sure anyone would be paranoid if they kept coming back to life and are forced to kill the same woman who continues evolving in how she looks and behaves.

Cheated is like if Broken’s problems and Paranoids problems were mixed together. His own string of chapters is a big “everyone is here” adventure, so obviously attention gets diverted away from him to make room for the others. Even then, this is where he’s at his worst, so what about where he’s at his best? Sadly, he is actually a little hard to get given the situations you have to enact that most players won’t follow on. I myself have never gotten him outside of Razor. I wonder how much we’re all actually aware of what he’s like at his best instead of his worst.

I do remember Black Tabby Games saying something along the lines of them wanting voices to be more useful outside of their own chapters, so I wonder if that contributed to this feeling I’ve been getting from them.

[pink-ink-goblin]

The Divide

(Did anybody order some sads?)

Pairings: None

Warnings: Angst, Mild Horror

It had started slow, like an unbound, trickling wound. They could all feel it; their power, their very souls, fading away like evaporating water. Talking hadn’t helped, bargaining even less so, and Mark outright refused to respond at all to anger and threats. Not that they could follow through on any of them anyway. Not when his own life was so wholly connected to theirs. 

It had seemed like such a hopeless time. Wilford watching as his friends simply withered away. That was the problem with not only being an energy being, but a quantum one as well. Everything died around him, because that was what it always came to. That was the life he had come to know now and, in his own way, he had come to accept it. But this? He found his tolerances for it wearing away much faster than his already short patience. This time he couldn’t stand to just watch. Not when he had finally found others he could actually call friends, family even, method of creation be damned. 

So he did what no one else could do, and shared the power he had. It wasn’t perfect, and it had its hiccups and flaws, but for the most part it worked, and life continued for them as best it could. Luxuries had to be given up; hobbies pushed to the side. All energy had to be used only to remain alive and nothing more, but it worked, even as the pastel ego slowly suffered for it. 

He lay now upon the couch he used for his interviews, absently looking up at the lit spotlights above shone directly over where he sat, the only point of light in the entire room. He was, for the first time in his long life, exhausted. Never had he ever spent so much energy for so long, and his body could barely keep up with the use. He was burning up slowly, and if they didn’t find a solution soon, he wasn’t sure if he could keep up the supply to meet the desperate demand. 

The light within those lamps seemed to swirl inside like water, swimming and blurring his vision, burning bright imprints behind his eyelids every time he blinked. He swallowed thickly, slowly wiping a hand across his forehead and found the back damp with sweat. He looked almost sickly, not only pale, but as if his entire bright form was slowly bleeding into grey. Maintaining his form was becoming more and more difficult, and the results of his temporary loss of control could be seen in the bullet holes, broken glass, and overturned chairs that now littered the room.

He had just about as much of an idea of when it happened as he did about how he ended up on the couch, but he no longer had enough presence of mind to contemplate either. Simply existing was tasking enough, and so he dedicated no further thought to it. He could be content to lay there, just a little while longer.

Of course, he was soon reminded that no such peace lasted long amongst them when suddenly a bitter voice rang out in his head with all the ferocity of a foghorn and an air raid siren all at once.

“Wilford, get down here! Now!” On a normal day, Wilford would have scoffed and ignored the source of the voice until it was angry with him, but right now, it sounded just a hoarse and desperate as he did, and he suddenly remembered that he wasn’t the only one this was affecting. With all the effort of an elderly human, Wilford managed to stand, take a deep steadying breath, and disappear in a lackluster flash of whitish-pink, smokey light. 

When he reappeared, he found himself standing upon the desk of their resident doctor, unable to properly guide himself in his haze. Instead of getting down straight away, he lowered himself to sit on its edge, taking in the room before him with a weary look. 

Three of the room’s gurneys were currently occupied, taken by the egos whose power, even with Wilford’s boost, was only just barely enough to keep them alive. They were unconscious, their forms going comatose in a last ditch effort to save what energy they had left. 

A crash, a shout, and a wave of cold pulled his vision to the opposite side of the room where Wilford could see his summoner writhing in a hospital bed while the resident doctor did what he could to try and calm the storm surrounding him. Although, in the doctor’s case, Wilford supposed being angry back was not helping much, but honestly he couldn’t be blamed. Dark’s aura was corruptive in the best of times, especially to the demon himself in the worst. 

As he hopped off the desk and wandered over, snaking a lollipop out of the doctor’s pen cup, he saw a tendril of black whip forward to knock the doctor back, throwing him directly into Wilford’s path and allowing the being to catch him as the he stumbled. Wilford righted the ego, gave his shoulder a casual and inappropriately comedic dusting off, and moved around him to stand next to the swirling chaos that didn’t seem to yet register that he was there, completely unconcerned about the potential danger being so close held. 

Dark almost seemed to move in time with the raging aura around him, hands - claws? - gripping the metal bars along the sides that would have made his knuckles show white from strain if he wasn’t already as pale as a corpse. Or if he had any blood or proper tissue to do so anyway. His form only barely held together as wisps of black smoke and dichromatic light bled from him like a poorly capped fog machine, swirling about him like a miniature storm. 

Slowly, painfully, Dark finally turned to look at him, his eyes almost entirely black while a snarl pulled his lips apart like an angry animal. Cracks ran up and down every inch of his exposed skin, and whenever he moved, it sounded like ceramic shards scraping together. And when the demon said his name, spoken in a slow hiss through his teeth, it sounded oddly distant, like a grainy recorded echo combined with a terrible sounding growl. He was on the edge of breaking, and Wilford, pulling the sucker from his mouth, sighed at him tiredly. 

“You overdid it,” The faded pink ego stated, giving the demon a world weary glare as if he had seen it all before. Mostly because he had, and it was very much something he never wanted to see again. 

“I need…” The demon didn’t even finish, writhing again as his aura threatened to break apart what little control he had left. It was obvious what he wanted. It was probably why Dark thought he could get to this point and get away with it. 

“You know I can’t,” Wilford countered almost crossly, a wife chastising her husband for working himself into exhaustion despite nagging him otherwise. Dark made a warning sound at him; a strange mixture of a hollow growl, a breathy hiss, and a rapid clicking, but Wilford remained unfazed. “I’m stretched thin enough as it is just keeping us all alive.” 

Dark’s hand - definitely clawed - suddenly lashed out and gripped Wilford by his suspenders, nearly pulling him into the swirling smoke and blackness around him. It radiated cold like an open freezer door. “Damn them all! I’ve known you the longest, and you will give me what I need!”

“You don’t mean that,” Wilford chastised, laying his hands on the guardrail for balance. “You’ve just stretched yourself too thin trying to help. Now look at you.”

While nobody would believe that was true, Wilford was probably the only one who knew that the demon actually was, in his own special way, trying to help. And succeeding, considering no other ego was yet unaccounted for. What exactly he was up to was beyond Wilford, but it was working, and while the pink ego was extremely grateful, what it was doing to Dark was just not worth it.

Especially if it led to the same events as their previous dimension. 

Dark, however, did not seem to share this train of thought and gave Wilford a terrible snarl. “Everything I’ve done has only been for the good of us!”

Tired, irritated, and unwilling to play Dark’s game, Wilford leaned in further, face pressing into the barely controlled black chaos without fear, the swirling smoke lashing out and leaving onyx-colored cuts across his face that disappeared just as quickly as they were made. And he did not stop until he was barely inches from Dark’s face.  

“But at what cost?” He almost whispered, the words escaping his tired lips like a plea. Dark narrowed his eyes like he wanted to argue, like he wanted nothing more than to gut him and simply take what he wanted, but just maintaining what he barely clung to now was tasking enough, and Wilford could certainly sympathize. 

After a moment or two, it seemed Wilford’s words actually managed to break through, and the demon’s face softened, if only barely. The pink being could see so much in that small relent, so many little emotions that neither of them would admit to, and Wilford would only be lying to himself if it wasn’t like looking into a color-deprived mirror. 

“It hurts,” Dark wheezed, releasing Wilford to gently pull in on himself, grimacing as his agony was finally laid bare. 

“I know,” Wilford replied softly, moving to sit up on the guardrail wearily.

“I hate him.” 

“I know.” 

“They’re going to die.” The words came quiet, rough, a truth shining through the sea of lies the demon had helped spin to actually instill hope amongst the lessers, and they were every bit as bitter and disgusting as Wilford had expected them to be.

He felt the innate desire within him to be contrarian, the need in every fiber of his being to be the optimist and tell Dark he was wrong, but the urge faded quick as a dying echo because even he knew, deep down, that the very real possibility was this.

After everything they had been through, they were going to be alone again.

Wilford watched the demon writhe in general silence as the soul crushing reality spun through his head like a tornado and ravaged his already poor mood. It was unavoidable, and he should have realized by now that there would be no escaping it. It was always this way. He had come to the conclusion some time ago that both of them were cursed, and that in the end, it would always be them, one way or another. This one time, he dared to hope it could be different, even forgot what their fates had always been condemned to be.

But everything that actually meant something was collapsing all around him, either stuck in place or withering away where they hid. And there would be no stopping it. Just like before.

And it was with this he decided.

With a soft breath through his nose, he flicked away the stick of the lollipop, and reached up to unclip his faded bow tie, before making short work of the buttons trailing down his shirt. 

Dark had stopped to watch him work with wide eyes, the visage of a hungry vampire surprised with a willing victim, which was just about the same way he operated too. Except Wilford had no blood, and Dark had no desire for the organic life source.

“We’ll get through this,” Wilford muttered softly, offering a hand to help the demon sit up. Dark didn’t see fit to respond as he slowly took it. He didn’t need too, for the knowledge was mutual. No matter how many universes they traversed. No matter how many schemes they blew through. No matter how many friends they made along the way. In the end, it would always and forever just be… Them.

And somehow they would make it enough.

[pawprintsandthumbnails-blog]

I Am Incurious: Giallo

Well, giallo....

For the uninitiated: a category within Italian horror movies, giallo films are primarily taken up with the synthesizing of the horror and crime genres, and are named for the practice by Mondadori, Italy's largest publishing house, of marketing mystery and thriller paperbacks in bright yellow covers (giallo being Italian for yellow). Officially beginning with Mario Bava's 1963 La ragazza che sapeva troppo (aka The Girl Who Knew Too Much and The Evil Eye), the onscreen gialli in general employ a number of tropes that are pervasive within the subgenres's visione del mondo. They include phallic knives and blood-smeared razors, black leather gloves and trenchcoats, eyes that follow intended victims with fixated fascination, and a multitude of corpses resembling nubile starlets. Though its adherents are among the most genuflecting of genre enthusiasts, giallo, I have to confess, is a branch of the horror thicket that produces little curiosity or enticement in me. The films are nothing if not exploitative, offer little in the way of vigor, pace, and individuality, and are almost impatiently indifferent to storytelling clarity. (Italy's horror films are not unlike its operas; the narrative is nothing, the set pieces--the murders, usually, and the gaudier the better--are all.)

However. If Bava can be credited with bringing a certain level of art to the combination of pulp, paranoia, and pasta, then Dario Argento, that overstimulated madman, has taken the giallo approach over the top, kicked it down the other side, and smashed it to bloody, derivative bits. It's often stated that he hit his filmmaking peak with the 1977 Suspiria, an occult thriller that its long-ago viewers sometimes mention with an almost ghostly sense of recall, the way many of us remember old, puzzling dreams. But it's Argento's 1970 directorial debut, L'ucello dale plume di cristallo (aka The Bird With the Crystal Plumage), that interests me (in shards, at least). More than most gialli, this one is directly rooted in crime novels--it's an uncredited adaptation of the 1949 pageturner The Screaming Mimi by Frederick Brown, a highly entertaining paperback author whose specialties include detective thrillers, science fiction, and casually derogatory dialogue that's terse, smart, and chewy. The Screaming Mimi was first filmed by Gerd Oswald under Brown's title in 1958, to no great advantage. That version's few distinctions: the blonde, vavoomish female lead, Anita Ekberg, is terrorized in a shower a mere two years before Hitchcock staged the same scene for all time with another, better blonde, Janet Leigh; it was shot in uncostly circumstances by a resourceful cinematographer, Burnett Guffey; and is enlivened by an intense performance from Harry Townes who plays a shifty psychiatrist and seems to be occupying a far more astringent production than the one his costars are struggling through.  

Argento's remounting isn't very much better overall, but it has two points of intense interest. The first is a sequence in which the hero, an American writer (Tony Musante) living in Rome, witnesses a murder attempt taking place in an art gallery, and tries to assist the victim (Eva Renzi) who is stabbed and left for dead by her attacker. While entering the  building, Musante becomes confined in its foyer between two sets of glass doors, both locked. With no way of reaching Renzi, who has collapsed and is bleeding copiously, he keeps an anxious eye on her and monitors the street for passers-by, hoping someone will appear and summon the law. Until then he can only wait and watch as Renzi, shedding blood, cries out for help. A promising scenario for suspense, yes, but the most significant aspect deals with the dimensions of the setting. The gallery's interior is rectangular and its walls are white--it resembles a movie screen, and the various pieces of statuary within it (contorted, grotesque figures, a gigantic set of bird claws) are like visions from a horror film. With either much conscious cunning or obsessive, unwitting creative drive, Argento has given us his own distillation of the moviegoing experience, and has constructed his striking tableau around the premise that watching films is a helpless, hypnotic undertaking, as well as its own form of entrapment. The entire setup is one of the few superbly inventive components of the movie, and truly Hitchcockian, evoking the dilemma faced by James Stewart in the 1954 Rear Window: while snooping on his neighbours, Stewart uncovers a homicidal situation in the apartment across the courtyard, but is unable to prove it. He, like Musante, is watchful but powerless, and caught up in his own private movie, one that’s come to life. (Especially redolent of Hitchcock's technique is the way in which Argento's art gallery episode secretes its own compound character.) L'ucello dale plume di cristallo, with its preponderance of spying, staring, and the dangers of observation, appears to be all about viewing horror movies. (Its other predominant subject, an uninvitingly tutorial one, seems to be How To Kill Pretty Girls, but movies, especially those with horror subjects, are incorrigible about mixing their gems with their garbage.)

My remaining complimentary remarks are for composer Ennio Morricone, whose score has moments of cold, airborne eeriness, and particularly for the cinematographer, Vittorio Storaro, who gives the film its only other great highlight: a nocturnal chase scene, smartly shot and edited. At the core of it are Musante, who has been investigating the murders on his own, and his paramour, Suzy Kendall, both of whom are being chased by a hired assassin. (Why the killer, who has no difficulty in dispatching each female victim, would risk engaging a sidekick to dispose of the hero and his girl isn't explained, but neither is a good deal else.) Though Argento, for the most part, doesn't give the film much oxygen, Storaro provides plenty of welcome atmosphere. Under his touch, Rome becomes a contrarian spectacle in which urban decay becomes vividly decorative. A shot of a timeworn building has a ruined, eye-catching splendor; the harsh street light and discoloured old stone create a sly, almost painterly effect (the stains creeping down the walls might have been borrowed from a handsomely debauched watercolour). In some images the dark appears to have condensed into a rarefied, burnished blackness, and Storaro's fog looks both gauzy and murky, as if it drifted in from two different sources. His tony treatment of the locations in this segment catches up with the lead performers too as Musante, an actor too good for the nonsense at hand, and Kendall, one of the most poised British starlets of the day, acquire an intent, headlong snap as they dash across the cobblestones and prowl through the gloom. They become more fun to watch (and somehow more licentious) while sprinting for their skins than when grinning fondly as they nuzzle in bed.

Otherwise? All else in this movie is done for either sheer effect or unconcerned sequential necessity, and the director's eroticization of the murders is too stupid and rebarbative to be worth discussing. Having said this, I should perhaps admit to a grudging fondness for Argento's 1993 Trauma, which is more or less a comedy about decapitation, though I can't actually defend it. 

And, possibly, of some minor incidental value: in 1992, I interviewed Argento for a now-defunct video magazine, and was unsurprised to find him a most pleasant man. Every professional Hyde requires a serving of social Jeykyll to call upon, surely...?

(Posted: 08/04/2017)