Severin is releasing this to retail on November 26, 2024. Until now, it has only been available on their site.
At the peak of his cinematic triumphs, horror legend Dario Argento created projects for RAI TV that broadcast his singular vision of terror into millions of Italian homes: Door Into Darkness was the top-rated 1973 anthology series produced and hosted by Argento. This set has three of the four episodes sourced for the first time from the original 16mm negatives. Argento’s popular 1987 variety/talk show Giallo has stories directed by Argento, Luigi Cozzi and Lamberto Bava, as well as behind-the-scenes tours from Tenebrae, Phenomena and Opera, and guests that include Anthony Perkins, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Fiore Argento newly digitized from broadcast masters.
This Severin set also has over 8 hours of new and archival special features, including commentary by Nathaniel Thompson and Troy Howarth, Dario Argento: My Cinema, Dario Argento: Master of Horror and interviews with Argento, Cozzi, Bava, Dardano Sacchetti and Antonella Vitale.
You can order this from Severin.
Here’s an overview of what you’ll find:
In 1973, Dario Argento was invited to RAI television and delivered Door Into Darkness, a show that he would host and even guide some of the episodes. Argento says, at the start of one of the episodes (translated into English) “As for Door Into Darkness, which is the title of the series, you will wonder what it means. Well, it means many things: opening a door to the unknown, to what we don’t know and which therefore disturbs us, scares us. But for me it also means other things. It can happen, and it has happened once, even just once in a person’s life, to close a door behind them and find themselves in a dark room… looking for the light switch and not finding it… trying to open the door and not being able to Do. And having to stay there, in the dark… alone… forever. Well, some of the protagonists of our stories have closed this fatal door behind them.”
The first episode, Il vicino de casa (The Neighbor) was the second directing job for Luigi Cozzi, who had debuted with Il tunnel sotto il mondo (The Tunnel Under the World). It’s the tale of a young couple by the names of Luca (Aldo Reggiani) and Stefania (Laura Belli). They arrive at their new home late at night with their infant child and barely meet anyone, other than knowing they have a neighbor (Mimmo Palmara) but otherwise, they live in a very isolated neighborhood.
On one of the first evenings they are there, as they watch Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, they start to see a stain in the corner of the ceiling that starts to leak from upstairs. What is it? And should they tell the neighbor they have never met? When they go up there, no one is home. However, they soon find the dead body of their neighbor’s wife just in time for him to come back and tie them up.
This story was also written by Cozzi and it has plenty of tension, such as the couple hiding in the dark and then realizing that the husband has dropped his lighter in the killer’s room. It also has a dark non-ending that doesn’t give you much hope, as well as an Argento cameo as a hitchhiker.
For the second episode of Doorway to Darkness, Dario Argento himself would direct and write. Il Tram (The Train) under the name Sirio Bernadotte (thanks to the incredible Italo Cinema).
A young woman is murdered on a train in the seconds that the lights go out and before they return. The murder baffles everyone except for Commisario Giordani (Enzo Cerusico) who seeks to solve it. He thinks that it has to be ticket taker Roberto Magli (Pierluigi Aprà), except that he’s never satisfied. It seems too simple. That’s when he brings his girlfriend Giulia (Paola Tedesco) to ride the train and try to lure out the true murderer.
A very Hitchcock-influenced story, this moment was originally going to be part of The Bird With the Crystal Plumage but it took away from the story. Argento would return to the dark mystery of a train and how frightening it can be in probably the best sequence of his post-Opera films in Sleepless. This may not have the insane energy and madness of his usual style, but the story is well-told and I loved how the hero must overcome his own shortcomings — he’s too cocky, which may be because of his youth — if he wants to save his lover and solve the mystery.
There’s also a striking scene where the killer chases Giulia through the train and into a station and down an immense hallway, all POV, all with her staring back at us. It’s incredible.
The third episode of Doorway to Darkness was directed by Mario Foglietti (who wrote the original story for Four Flies On Grey Velvet) and Luigi Cozzi and was written by Foglietti and Marcella Elsberger.
Argento informs us, in his introduction, that someone has escaped from a sanitarium, saying “…a sick mind wandering a small town, apparently normal, in matter of fact incandescent… Its aim: to kill.” That sick mind may be Robert Hoffman, who has checked into a hotel with an attache case before wandering the streets. One redhead is already killed when he meets Daniela Moreschi (Mara Venier) and follows her back home.
This feels like ten minutes of story shoved into an hour and sadly doesn’t work. But hey — Erika Blanc is in it and if the worst thing you do is watch a giallo with her in it, your day isn’t all that bad. Foglietti gets the look of Argento but doesn’t have the same ability to make art out of a flawed script.
Directed by Roberto Pariante (who was the assistant director for Argento on The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, The Cat o’Nine Tails and Four Flies On Grey Velvet) and Dario Argento, who wrote the script with Luigi Cozzi, Testimone oculare is my favor episode of Doorway to Darkness. It’s so simple and yet succeeds as an example of giallo.
Roberta Leoni (Marilù Tolo, Las trompetas del apocalipsis) is driving on a dark and rainy night when she sees a woman dive in front of her. She doesn’t hit her, but does find her dead body. She’s been shot in the back. That’s when she sees the glint of a gun and runs through the storm to a diner where she breaks down. The police, led by Inspector Rocchi (Glauco Onorato), take her back to the crime scene but there’s no body and no blood.
Everyone treats Roberta like a hysterical woman, including her husband Guido (Riccardo Salvino), even after someone breaks into their house while they’re out for their anniversary and the next day when someone tries to shove his wife into traffic. Then the phone calls start and never seem to stop.
One night, while all alone, the killer calls and says that they will finally kill Roberta. Guido comes home just in time and says that instead of leaving — the killer cut the phone line — they are going to wait for them and he will shoot whoever is after her. As you can imagine, this isn’t the way things end up happening.
Sometimes, a simply told mystery is exactly what you need. That’s what this episode gave me. Supposedly Argento disliked the work that Pariante did and went back and filmed a lot of this himself — the tracking of the killer by footsteps is definitely him — and then not putting his name on it.
Gli incubi di Dario Argento (Dario Argento’s Nightmares) was a TV series created and directed by Dario Argento that was part of the RAI TV show Giallo by Enzo Tortora. He’s probably most famous for the show Portabello that had viewers call in to buy or sell things, present ideas or try and look for love. And if they could get the parrot who was the show’s namesake to say his name, they would win a prize. He was also arrested in 1983 and jailed for 7 months as it was thought he was a member of an organized crime family, the Nuova Camorra Organizzata. It was a case of mistaken identity and he got out of ten years in jail thanks to the Radical Party. They offered him a candidacy to the European Parliament, which he won in a landslide. He was cleared of all charges the year this show ran and brought this show — on which he discussed unsolved murder cases — and Portabella to RAI.
The main draw of these episodes are nine new mini-movies made by Argento. They’re three-minute shorts shot on 35mm that show off some wild effects but one of them, Nostalgia Punk, so upset viewers that it has rarely been shown since. The stories are:
La finestra sul cortile (The Window on the Court): This is Argento’s tribute to Alfred Hitchcock and Rear Window. After watching the film, a man named Massimo watches his neighbors fight. He runs down with a knife to stop them, but falls on his own weapon and is blamed by the police for killing the woman. If you recognize the music, it’s part of the Simon Boswell score from Phenomena.
Riti notturni (Night Rituals): This is also missing from some online versions of the film, but has a maid conspire with a voodoo coven to murder and devour the couple that she works for.
Il Verme (The Worm): A woman who goes by the name of Bettina is reading Dylan Dog (the comic book that Cemetery Man comes from) when she overhears a story about parasites that go from cats to humans. As she explores her nearly nude body in a mirror, she notices a worm has grown out of her eye, which she stabs out.
Amare e morire (Loving and Dying): Set to Michael Jackson’s “Bad,” this story has Gloria assaulted and left for dead. As she recovers, she believes that the man who raped her is one of three neighbors. She sleeps with each in an attempt to learn who it is and get her bloody revenge.
Nostalgia punk: The most controversial segment, this has a woman’s water become poisoned. She begins to vomit multicolored liquids and then parts of her body before she finally tears her own body to pieces and her organs rain out of her destroyed carcass. It got so many complaints that Argento was told to settle down in future segments.
La Strega (The witch): Using Morricone’s score from The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, this has Cinzia’s party guests playing a game called “The Witch” that ends with children screaming and holding a bloody head.
Addormentarsi (Falling asleep): A man is possessed by a demon just before he falls asleep and then devours his dog. This uses “Anarchy in the UK” by the Sex Pistols.
Sammy: Sammy is a young girl who is frightened when Santa enters her room. Then Santa removes his face and reveals a monster. It’s simple but it really works.
L’incubo di chi voleva interpretare l’incubo di Dario Argento (The Nightmare of the One Who Wished to Explain Dario Argento’s Nightmare): A young man comes to REI to be part of this series and when he stays at a hotel, he soon learns he’s in a room with foreigners who steal everything he has and then threaten to kill him. It turns out that it’s all a set-up by Argento.
At the beginning of every episode, Argento appears, often with Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni (Demons 2, Il Bosco 1, Opera) all gothed out and acting as his starry-eyed assistant.
Argento also created another segment for Giallo, Turno di notte (Night Shift), which was about what happens to cab drivers at night. Episodes were also directed by Lamberto Bava and Luigi Cozzi. He also shared how he filmed several big moments in his most famous movies, such as the Loma camera sequence in Tenebrae; the bird attack in Opera, the transformation scenes in Demons 2 and how he directed Goblin to create the score for Suspiria. These scenes are worth watching and also appear in the Luigi Cozzi-directed Dario Argento: Master of Horror.
While this is by no means necessary watching for those with a passing interest in Italian horror, for devotees of the form and Argento, it is required viewing. It’s the chance to basically get nine new stories even if they are very short.
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