Tenebrae (1982) Synapse 4K Ultra HD / Blu-ray Review

Plot:

Murders swirl around Rome when a famous horror novelist visits the city on a book tour.

Review:

Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa) is a famous horror novelist whose specialty seems to be slashers where women are brutally killed by psycho killers, and when his new book Tenebrae is released, he goes to Rome for the first time on a book tour. Before he gets there, detectives find a young woman slashed to death with a razor, and her mouth is stuffed with the pages of Tenebrae. While at the hotel the police question him, but he’s just as shocked and surprised as the media is, but it’s great publicity for his new book. The killer begins leaving Peter creepy notes with the little glued letters with threatening messages, and then several other murders of young women occur in the style of Neal’s writings. Neal is cavalier about it until a teenage girl he’d just met the day before is found mauled and hacked to death, and then the detectives on the case fall a few steps behind when Neal’s own agent (played by John Saxon) is killed in broad daylight. With the killer – or killers – amping up the body count, the plot thickens when the culprit becomes bolder and less concerned about being caught when the motive coagulates.

From Dario Argento, the master of the giallo, Tenebrae is one of his best pictures with wildly outrageous kills and gore, and with a compelling mystery to boot. His signature style is on full display, with a great score by Simonetti-Pignatelli-Morante, and the movie is sexy too. There’s really nothing for me to complain about here, and fans of slashers, giallos, and of Argento will love it. It features Argento at the peak of his powers.

Synapse has just released an outstanding 4K Ultra HD / Blu-ray combo pack of Tenebrae, and it’s the definitive edition, bar none, of the film ever released on home video. With superb clarity and perfect sound, the 2-disc edition is a must-have for collectors. I also watched the feature-length documentary on the rise and fall of the giallo that featured interviews with some of the great filmmakers of the genre, and it’s worth the price of the set alone.

Bonus Materials

• 4K UHD (2160p) & Blu-ray (1080p) Combo Pack
• 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray™ presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible) in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio
• Original Italian and English front and end titles and insert shots
• Restored original DTS-HD MA lossless mono Italian and English soundtracks
• English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack
• Audio commentary by authors and critics Alan Jones and Kim Newman
• Audio commentary by Argento expert Thomas Rostock
• Audio commentary by Maitland McDonagh, author of Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento
• Yellow Fever: The Rise and Fall of the Giallo, a feature-length documentary charting the genre from its beginnings to its influence on the modern slasher film, featuring interviews with Dario Argento, Umberto Lenzi, Luigi Cozzi and more
• Being the Villain, a newly edited archival interview with actor John Steiner
• Out of the Shadows, an archival interview with Maitland McDonagh
• Voices of the Unsane, an archival featurette containing interviews with writer/director Dario Argento, actresses Daria Nicolodi and Eva Robins, cinematographer Luciano Tovoli, composer Claudio Simonetti and assistant director Lamberto Bava
• Screaming Queen, an archival interview with Daria Nicolodi
• The Unsane World of Tenebrae, an archival interview with Dario Argento
• A Composition for Carnage, an archival interview with Claudio Simonetti
• Archival introduction by Daria Nicolodi
• International theatrical trailer
• Japanese “Shadow” theatrical trailer
• Alternate opening credits sequence
• “Unsane” end credits sequence
• Image galleries