Movie Review: Dark Glasses

Italian director Dario Argento burst onto the scene in 1970 with a trio of well-received “giallo” movies before taking a brief detour into historical fiction, only to then follow that up with perhaps one of the greatest runs by a horror director of all time: 1975’s Deep Red, 1977’s Suspiria, 1980’s Inferno (a sort-of sequel to the prior movie), 1982’s Tenebrae, 1985’s Phenomena, and 1987’s Opera. Nothing great can last forever though, and as his output slowed down, the quality of his work began to decline, with 2001’s Sleepless perhaps being the last movie he made that could qualify as good (though 2009’s Giallo had its moments). Still, I will always hope for one last imperfect masterpiece from the legendary director, and as such I was excited to learn that he was back again with Dark Glasses.

Rome’s prostitutes are being targeted by a psychopath who murders them with a cello rope. Three victims have been found so far when we meet Diana (Ilenia Pastorelli), a luxury escort leaving the hotel room of one of her regular clients. On the way back to her car she is attacked by the killer but manages to escape, leading him to pursue her in his van and ultimately causing her to crash into another vehicle, killing its occupants except for young son Chin (Andrea Zhang) and leaving Diana completely blind. She feels terrible about what happened to Chin’s family and so goes to visit him at an orphanage from which he follows her home and convinces her to let him stay. The orphanage is understandably displeased about this and sends the Police to look into the matter and so the pair sneak away from her home, all the while with the killer still out there looking to finish the job he started.

The opening sequences are well-staged and might make one think that Argento is back in full form once again, but from the moment Diana wakes up in the hospital things take a turn for the worse. The performances are mostly average at best, with only his daughter Asia Argento standing out as physical therapist Rita (and looking a lot like her late mother Daria Nicolodi in some of her father’s better films). There winds up being no real mystery this time either, with this instead being more of a cat-and-mouse chase story, which makes the ultimate reveal of the killer’s identity both somewhat out of left field and completely unsurprising at the same time. Many of the characters make stunningly poor choices throughout as well, at times almost seeming as if they want to be killed. Thankfully, the finale’s chase through the woods does manage to build up a decent amount of suspense, despite almost being derailed by several silly moments. There is virtually none of the over-the-top style that made the director’s best movies so memorable while nearly all of the problems with his earlier work remain or are amplified here. It’s hardly the worst movie anyone could watch this year, but it is another disappointment from someone capable of so much more. ★★