4th August 2017, 09:32 AM
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| Cult Addict | | Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: Barrow-in-furness | |
Stendhal syndrome
Ana, a detective from Rome is investigating a serial rapist who has progressed to killing his victims. She travels to Florence and receives a tip-off that the killer will be at a local museum. While there she experiences the Stendhal syndrome and enters a painting. Left disoriented she ends up falling victim to the killer Alfredo Grossi (Thomas Kretschmann). She's raped but manages to escape and begins to track him. This leads to a cat and mouse game between the killer and Ana. At the hour mark Argento throws a curveball and Ana actually seems to kill Grossi, however Ana continues to be tormented by the killer.
With the new Blue underground release of Stendahl (which is great btw) there seems to be an attempt to 'redeem' the movie critically. It's not a bad movie, its certainly not as awful as Dracula 3D, as horribly underwhelming as mother of tears or as mediocre as Giallo. In fact it has some terrific scenes that come close to vintage Argento, the only limitation being the limited early CGI that doesn't look great. The fact that lead actress Asia Argento is his daughter gives an added creepiness to proceedings. However my main complaint with Standahl remains. It really runs out of steam about 80 minutes in, yet continues on for another 40 minutes that should be a Repulsion-esque descent into madness but feels flat and uninvolving. Its still watchable and I enjoy it more than I used to however its far from his best work.
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