The Grim Cellar

1980, Italy, Directed by Dario Argento

Colour, Running Time: 106 minutes

DVD, Region 1, Anchor Bay, Video: Anamorphic 1.85:1, Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1

Not many people liked Inferno when it first appeared, or for a few years after that if I recall, and that seemed to be the first signs of a trend’s beginning for the director, something that would become an integral part of audience reaction to each work throughout the later 80s and 90s onwards. It took years for this film to become appreciated, not just on a larger scale but for myself personally also. Inferno’s inherently nonsensical nature can put many people off and understandably so given the cinematic conventions which people have generally become comfortably accustomed to. Of course there was always the possibility that the film was just a complete turd and its artistic pretensions were exactly that: pretensions. As the story opens there seems to be something sinister going on simultaneously in Rome and New York where the discovery of an ambiguous text authored by a medieval alchemist links in with a number of increasingly inexplicable supernatural occurrences, usually resulting in the death of someone who has become involuntarily involved in the awakening of forces beyond understanding.

To delve into the specifics of the ‘plot’ for the purpose of establishing a synopsis designed to entice viewers seems to be a futile exercise and therefore shall remain as brief as what I’ve outlined above. The delineated plot to the uninitiated might ramble and seemingly lead nowhere, ultimately failing to arouse people to what’s really going on in this film. The main characters are introduced into the story with no real background on their lives and wayward motives preventing us understanding them or the world that they inhabit. An example of the dysfunctional logic appears here: a man takes a bag of cats out to the lake to drown them (don’t ask why), at which point there is an eclipse occurring. He’s attacked by hundreds of rats and amidst the screams the cook of a nearby hotdog stand comes running over, to his aid you might believe. But then the anonymous cook brings up his meat cleaver and butchers the man to death before walking calmly away. There are lots of nice touches that construct the supernatural domain around us, as when a girl discovers an indistinct cloaked alchemist working away beneath the library - as he notices that she’s carrying a book of great significance (The Three Mothers) we catch a very brief glimpse of his hand, something that’s not human, possibly demonic. This subtlety is lost at the film’s conclusion to an extent, however. My favourite sequence falls very early in the film when Rose, after having read that a key lies in an old cellar, is enticed enough to go investigating underground. She comes across a subterranean pool but has to jump in after dropping something valuable in the water, only to find a flooded room with corpses floating within. The whole showpiece is incredibly atmospheric and spooky, and is the first real event that draws you into Inferno’s uncanny dimension. The film is technically a sequel to Suspiria but follows none of the characters (although Alida Valli - Ms Tanner in the 1977 film - makes a reappearance albeit as a different character). It is related only through the core concept of these three mothers we hear so much about, though there are some similarities in visual style with heavy cinematographic emphasis on artificially sourced primary colours such as red and blue. Whereas Goblin provided the infamous score for Suspiria fans of ELP may be surprised to know that Keith Emerson provided the score for Inferno and, whilst it’s not as emphatically insane as the former movie, it does underscore the dark world that Argento has developed here. There are occasions where the music is merely average, but sometimes it rises way beyond that - the film’s final act is driven by one stunning choral-rock track that remains one of my personal favourite musical arrangements among movies. Suspiria was notably easier to follow as far as the narrative was concerned so fan disappointment may originally have emanated from that fact, but Inferno supplies its own mysterious vision of a rising Hell that’s quite unique in cinema and this is where repeat viewings really help - I’ve seen it around seven times personally and find that it still presents a puzzle that I like to attempt deconstruction of whilst simultaneously revelling in the dripping atmosphere of the unknown. Inferno is a nightmare incarnate, a seemingly illogical meandering into an apocalyptic universe. Argento did here what few others might have been equipped for: he brought to audiences a nonsensical film that is inexplicably enjoyable.

It’s worth pointing out that there is a small amount of animal cruelty in Inferno, and this gave the BBFC cause for concern here in the UK during its original 20th Century Fox (distributors at the time) cinema and video releases - notably a cat devouring a mouse that’s clearly still alive. It’s certainly nothing on the scale of what we find in Italian cannibal films but some sensitive viewers may find it a little disconcerting. Cats are also thrown at one of the actors at one point too (reminding me of Tippi Hedren’s assault in The Birds) though I’m not sure if it’s the cats or the human that received the nastier treatment here. The easiest uncut version to go for currently is the disc from Blue Underground, though this is simply a port of the old Anchor Bay disc (the latter providing the source for this review) and features a widescreen transfer that looked amazing when it originally came out but now only passes as reasonable, being very soft and perhaps overly chromatic. It could do with a complete remaster but along with a limited but satisfying 5.1 track (with standard matrixed surround option available) this is still a great way to see Inferno. However Fox themselves also released a disc in Italy a while ago that is sharper (therefore grainier) and less saturated giving a very different appearance to the movie itself - it’s amazing how different a film can look between DVDs. The Fox disc also contains an inferior Italian track in mono (English is there too though only as a matrixed surround option) and these factors make it quite collectable. Either way, for the cinematic equivalent of a vivid and sadistic but ultimately pleasurable nightmare check out Argento’s Inferno.