Said by some to be the best giallo ever made, and considered to be one of, if not the best films of director Dario Argento's career, there is very little argument that Profondo Rosso (aka Deep Red and The Hatchet Murders) is indeed a superb film.
A shadowy murder set to a child's music box tune (that reappears several times throughout the film, just to add to the creepiness and tension) starts the film off (interrupting the opening credits to do so), after which we are introduced to a psychic making some sort of presentation in a large conference hall. The psychic picks up on the thoughts of the killer from the opening credits but cannot pinpoint them exactly; later that night the killer brutally murders the psychic in her apartment. An American jazz musician and teacher, Marcus, witnesses some of the murder and, convinced he saw a vital clue to the killer's identity, starts to investigate the murder himself along with the help of a female reporter. It then becomes a race between him and the killer, as Marcus tries to uncover the truth while the killer seeks to kill him and anyone else who might come close to exposing them.
Profondo Rosso has many of director Argento's signatures - the protagonist as a foreigner living in a strange country who finds themselves at the centre of a murder investigation; the key to the killer's identity lies in a vital but overlooked clue that the protagonist must recall; and not to forgewt the black-gloved hands of the killer (those hands being played by Argento himself). It does also have some of the same plot twists that have become quite common in Argento's films over the years, so if you're familiar with his work you might spot where the film is going before it actually gets there - but this was also one of his earliest films and so this can be forgiven as it was, after all, new and original then. The film is also notable for being the first time that Argento worked with the prog rock band Goblin, a partnership that continued for several more of Argento's films after that.
It's not all perfect, however, despite all the kudos it has (rightfully) received over the years. The biggest problem I personally have with the film is the relationship between Marcus and Gianna, the reporter helping him investigate the murder. The majority of their scenes consist either of attempts at humour (Gianna's car apparently being held together with duct tape and twine and periodically trapping Marcus, for example) or their ongoing argument about Gianna's feminism (that goes on even when they're in bed together or escaping from a burning building), and they tend to stick out rather painfully against the rest of the film's tense and creepy atmosphere. Some versions of the film remove most of these scenes - however they also remove some of the plot and quite a bit of the murder scenes, so in the end it's more rewarding to sit through those scenes for the "complete" experience.
So, if you're looking for one of the best giallos made in the last 40 years, or one of Dario Argento's best works - or even better, both together, then Profondo Rosso is the way to go.
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