It’s hard for horror filmmakers—or filmmakers of any genre, for that matter—to sustain their greatness. Changes in how movies are made, decreasing budgets, even just the passage of time impacts the quality of their output as the years go by, to the point that sometimes the work they’re doing near the end of their respective careers is unidentifiable as their work.
An argument could be made that this is true of Dario Argento, the Italian master of horror who started out making some of the best movies the genre has ever seen and most recently made the 3D Dracula movie with the giant CG mantis. This isn’t to say his latest output is without value—it no doubt has its fans—but it hardly looks like the work of the same man who gave us Suspiria and Deep Red. His 1996 effort, The Stendhal Syndrome, which recently received a three-disc special edition Blu-ray re-release from Blue Underground, finds Argento on the downslide but still retains some of what made him great. It may not be Tenebrae—it’s not even Opera—but at least there’s not a CG mantis in sight.
Originally set up as an American film to star Bridget Fonda, this incarnation of The Stendhal Syndrome stars Argento’s daughter (and regular leading lady) Asia in a challenging role as detective Anna Manni, who has traveled to Florence on the hunt for a serial killer. She visits a museum and is overcome by Stendhal Syndrome, a real psychological condition that causes those who suffer from it to become dizzy or even faint while viewing works of art. Alfredo, the killer she is hunting, takes advantage of Anna’s condition, kidnapping and assaulting her. She escapes, only to experience the cycle again. The second time, however, Anna manages to turn the tables on Alfredo and leaves him for dead during her escape. As she puts her life back together and begins a romance with an art student (Julien Lambroschini), Anna becomes haunted by clues that Alfredo survived and is coming after her again, leaving a trail of dead bodies in his wake.
As a character piece, The Stendhal Syndrome is fairly captivating: Asia’s character and her motivations don’t always make sense, but the mystery of what she’s going through and the performance are enough to carry us through. Argento still knows how to craft a set piece, too, and his camera still moves with great fluidity and purpose. His screenplay, based on psychiatrist Graziella Magherini’s book La Sindrome di Stendha, leans so heavily into the connection between murder, psychosexual trauma, and art that it transforms the subtext of every giallo movie that precedes it into actual text. While it can be fascinating to watch Argento work through some of his pet themes so explicitly (like Brian De Palma making Femme Fatale), the story he tells to explore said themes is so far-fetched at times and the logical leaps so great that it’s difficult to sustain the narrative. That’s okay in many cases, as narrative hasn’t necessarily been Argento’s primary concern; unfortunately, Stendhal lacks the abstract visual beauty and dreamlike impact to make up the difference.
There is a moment early on in the film in which Asia’s character takes some pills, and Argento indulges in some of the extreme closeup photography that made something like the peephole shooting in Opera one of his most memorable sequences. The moment in Stendhal is undone, however, with the use of CG effects that just aren’t up to the task yet; what’s worse is that there’s simply no reason for it. In Opera, the famous peephole shot was there because it heightened the moment of death for a supporting character, slowing it down to an agonizing crawl for just a few seconds and really making the audience feel the impact of what was happening. In Stendhal, Argento seems to use the trick photography just because he can. The difference between these two scenes, separated by about 10 years’ worth of Argento’s work, helps illuminate where the maestro’s career had gotten to in the late ’90s. The Stendhal Syndrome feels like the work of a great filmmaker attempting to recapture some of the old magic, but he can no longer wrap his arms around it anymore.
Though they had previously released the film in high def, Blue Underground has now re-issued The Stendhal Syndrome in a deluxe three-disc special edition with a bunch of extras and a new 2K transfer. The film’s handsome photography is well served in high def; though complaints about some compression issues have led Blue Underground to offer replacement discs, it wasn’t anything that got in the way of my appreciation of the film. The first disc includes the feature film on Blu-ray and an informative commentary track by author and giallo expert Troy Howarth, as well as new interviews with star Asia Argento (in Italian, subtitled), co-writer Franco Ferrini, and makeup artist Franco Casagni. There’s also the original trailer and a gallery of production and promotional stills. A second disc contains the movie on standard definition DVD, while a third disc includes a number of archival interviews on Blu-ray, most of which appear in standard definition. Interview participants include Dario Argento, assistant director Luigi Cozzi, effects designer Sergio Stivaletti, production designer Massimo Geleng, and Graziella Magherini, who wrote the psychology book on which the screenplay is based and who served as a consultant on the film.
There’s a lot to recommend about The Stendhal Syndrome, from Asia Argento’s bold performance to the gorgeous Italian locations to the score by the great Ennio Morricone. While it represents a comeback of sorts after a handful of creative stumbles, it still finds Argento past his creative peak. Blue Underground’s limited collector’s edition is certainly the one to own for Argento completists, but it’s a movie that’s almost more interesting as an entry in the director’s filmography than it is a satisfying experience in its own right. Dario Argento has certainly made movies worse than this one, but The Stendhal Syndrome serves as a reminder that he’s also made better.
Movie Score: 2.5/5, Disc Score: 3.5/5
Patrick lives in Chicago, where he has been writing about film since 2004. A member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Online Film Critics Society, Patrick's writing also appears on About.com, DVDVerdict.com and fthismovie.net, the site he runs and hosts a weekly podcast.
He has been an obsessive fan of horror and genre films his entire life, watching, re-watching and studying everything from the Universal Monsters of the '30s and '40s to the modern explosion of indie horror. Some of his favorites include Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1931), Dawn of the Dead (1978), John Carpenter's The Thing and The Funhouse. He is a lover of Tobe Hooper and his favorite Halloween film is part 4. He knows how you feel about that. He has a great wife and two cool kids, who he hopes to raise as horror nerds.
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