Deep Red brought the theme of male sexual deviancy, hinted at in earlier
Argento films, to the fore. In Tenebrae male and female sexual deviancy are
central issues, and provide the motivation for the killings. The 'razor killer'
punishes those that he considers to be guilty of 'aberrant' behaviour. The
murders committed in Deep Red are initiated by the killer's fear of the discovery
of an earlier, repressed murder. Tenebrae's plot is more complex; again there
is an earlier repressed murder, but there are two killers operating separately.
Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa), an American crime writer, becomes involved
in a series of killings in Rome; they are influenced by his most recent book,
'Tenebrae'. When he discovers the identity of the 'razor killer' to be the
critic Christiano Berti (John Steiner), he devises a plan to murder his fiancée,
Jane McKerrow (Veronica Laria) and his agent, Bullmer (John Saxon), who are
having an affair. He kills Berti hoping that his death will appear to the
police to be just another victim in the same series of killings. The deaths
of Jane and Bullmer should then be attributed to some unknown serial killer,
still 'at large'. Neal's alibi would be that he was not in Rome when the first
razor murder was committed. He plans the perfect murder; the original killer
is already dead and included as a victim of his own series. However Neal is
insane; he has killed before and Argento provides us with hints to his earlier
crime through the use of flashbacks, and a recurring musical motif throughout
the film. Like Marta in Deep Red, his crime is repressed, he suffers from
nightmares in which the events of the past leak back into his conscious, but
he staves these off through the use of pills.
Tenebrae was released around the time when the American slasher films were
at the peak of their popularity. In Britain the popularity of these films
had led to many of them being placed on the Director of Public Prosecutions
banned list; these films became the infamous video nasties. Both Tenebrae
and Deep Red were to suffer this indignity. The American slasher films such
as Friday the 13th (USA, 1980, d. Sean Cunningham), The Burning (USA, 1982,
d. Tony Maylam), and Hell Night (USA, 1982, d. Tom de Simone) all share the
same narrative structure. Vera Dika divides the elements contained in this
structure into a past event and a present event. The past event occurred years
earlier when the killer was driven to madness because of an extreme trauma
perpetrated by members of a young community. In the second modern-day section,
an event commemorates the past action and the killer's destructive force is
reactivated. Members of the young community are stalked and killed until the
killer is stopped/castrated by the final girl. (1).
Carol Clover discusses the killer propelled by psychosexual fury; a male in
gender distress, a durable idea that has lasted since Psycho, and plays a
major role in Argento's gialli. The sleeve notes for the video release of
Tenebrae invite us to: "Take a bizarre voyage into the psychosexual…"
Clover also comments on the fact that the killer is often never clearly seen;
Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th) and Michael Myers (Halloween, USA, 1978,
d. John Carpenter) wear masks. In the giallo the killer wears a mask as in
Blood and Black Lace (Italy, 1964, d. Mario Bava), or hides his/her identity
and gender by merely allowing us glimpses of leather-gloved hands, or faces
obscured by hats and shadows. (2). The killers in the slasher films often
possess superhuman powers, they return from the dead and have to be killed
more than once. (3). This appears to be the case at the end of Tenebrae, when
Neal cuts his own throat. His body disappears like Michael Myers' at the end
of Halloween. But Neal has used a fake razor and false blood; there is no
supernatural force at work here, like much of what we see in the film, it
is illusion. Dario Argento has his own formula, his narratives are usually
set in the present (Although he claims that Tenebrae is set in the future)
with a traumatic event from the past being referred to through the use of
flashback sequences. 
Argento's male protagonists often suffer from impaired vision, they are frustrated
by a missing piece of a puzzle that is within their reach but still continues
to elude them. In Deep Red Marcus has actually seen the face of the killer
at the start of the film but he doesn't realise this, he thinks he saw a painting
that holds a vital clue. In The Cat O'Nine Tails (Italy, 1971), Franco Arno
(Karl Malden) is blind, and relies on a child, Lori (Cinzia de Carolis) to
see for him. When he overhears a conversation Lori has to describe the people
speaking to him. In The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (Italy, 1970), Sam Dalmas
(Tony Musante) thinks he has seen a man attempting to murder a woman. It isn't
until much later that he discovers the reverse situation is true; he was misled
by the man's traditional giallo attire. In Tenebrae Gianni (Christian Borromeo)
sees the 'razor killer' murdered just after he has confessed to being the
murderer, but he doesn't realise this until too late. His slowness in solving
the enigma leads his own death. Gianni's death results from him not seeing
enough, whilst Maria's (Lara Wendel) death is brought about by her seeing
too much. In all these cases the inadequacies of the male vision allow the
murderers to continue their killing sprees unhindered for quite some time.
These male characters share the audience's frustration of being unable to
identify the killer.
Detective Giermani (Giuliano Gemma) admits to being unable to solve the crimes
in the novels by Agatha Christie, Ed McBain and Mickey Spillane, yet he discovers
the identity of the killer in Neal's book by page 30. This list of authors
is a reference to the source material for the Italian giallo. There are several
references to crime fiction within the film, especially the works of Arthur
Conan Doyle and his novel 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'. Maria is chased
to her death by a dog, in the same manner as the appearance of the hound heralded
the deaths of the male Baskervilles. Neal uses one of Sherlock Holmes' schemes
when he pretends to leave Rome for New York to provide himself with an alibi
for the final killings. This gives him time to tie up the loose ends; the
murders of Gianni, Jane and Bullmer. In The Hound of the Baskervilles Holmes
pretends to leave the moors for the city in order to lull the would-be murderers
into a false sense of security.
The first victim of the 'razor killer' is a shoplifter who has attempted to
steal Neal's new book 'Tenebrae'. The store detective checks her record and
discovers her to be a repeat offender. She offers him sexual favours in exchange
for him turning a blind eye. She asks him, "You're not gay are you?"
We can't tell if he was going to accept her offer, but once she has suggested
that he might be gay, (homosexuality here is equated with aberrant behaviour),
he takes up her offer in order to protect his masculinity. This scene has
set up the girl as a criminal who is also sexually promiscuous. Displays of
female sexuality within the horror genre are seen as a threat, for which the
girl must be punished. After leaving the store she walks home and is accosted
by a vagrant. She kicks him in the groin, and continues on her way, but he
pursues her into an apartment, shouting, "I'll kill you". He doesn't,
but Berti does; he fills her mouth with pages from 'Tenebrae', cuts her throat;
symbolically castrating her, and photographs the body for his personal collection.
In a similar way the lesbian critic Tilda (Mirella D'Angelo) and her bisexual
lover are labelled as aberrant by Berti, and marked for death, a fate shared
by sexually active teenagers in the American slashers.
Another potential victim is a prostitute whom he fails to attack due to the
loss of his keys. Berti is projecting his repressions onto other people, he
is attributing the area of his mind that contains ideas that he cannot live
with onto other people, and consequently they must be punished. His choice
of victim is sexually driven: "A person who is afraid of his own aggressive
and sexual impulses sustains some relief for his anxiety by attributing aggressiveness
and sexuality to other people. They are the ones who are aggressive and sexual,
not he. Likewise a person who is afraid of his own conscience consoles himself
with the thought that other people are responsible for bothering him, and
that it is not his conscience." (4). His other victim Maria is killed
because she poses a threat to his crusade against perversion. She is different
from the other victims because she is not guilty of 'aberrant' behaviour.
The only time we see her in the company of a potential sexual partner, Gianni,
she is arguing with him. Berti regrets having to kill her. Whilst conducting
an interview with Neal, Berti discusses the idea of deviant behaviour, in
relation to his strict Catholic upbringing. This conversation is the key to
Neal identifying Berti as the killer. Berti appears to be homosexual, and
repressing his sexuality due to his Catholicism. He has an effeminate voice
and is a loner; he stands apart from everybody at the press conference, whereas
Neal is constantly in the company of women. I am, of course, basing this assumption
about Berti's sexuality on what Robin Wood refers to as: "Popular (and
generally discredited) heterosexist mythology: one is probably gay if one
shows traces of effeminacy, had a close relationship with one's mother, or
hates and murders women". (5). However, in context with the rest of the
narrative, and the fact that this is a giallo by Argento, where finding out
the truth inevitably involves discovering a sexual secret, I feel that my
assumptions are justified.
Neal and Berti are constructed as doubles. Neal's life influences Berti, then
Neal eventually takes on the role of 'razor killer' in order to murder his
unfaithful fiancé and agent. However, Neal dispenses with the razor
in favour of the more powerful, and masculine axe, which Berti used to kill
Maria. Berti expresses regret at Maria's death, and Neal apologises in advance
for having to kill Gianni, when he appears to be very close to solving the
mystery. The misplacing of sets of keys heralds both of these deaths. Berti
aborts his attack on the prostitute as he has left his keys hanging in the
door of his house. When he returns home he discovers Maria, and kills her.
When Gianni returns to Berti's house to clear up the mystery, his car keys
are removed from the ignition by Neal's black-gloved hand. When Gianni tries
to find the keys he is garrotted by Neal. The use of the keys can be seen
as a reference to the difficulty in finding the key to the mystery at the
heart of Tenebrae.
The solution to the film's central mystery is contained within the prologue
and flashback sequences. At the start of the film, somebody is reading a passage
from Neal's book and burning pages from it. The scene is probably a preview
of the scene where Berti is destroying evidence at his home just prior to
his death. The passage in question, combined with the flashback sequences,
hold the solution to the psychosexual voyage in which we are engaged: "The
impulse had become irresistible. There was only one answer to the fury that
tortured him. And so he committed his first act of murder. He had broken the
most deep-rooted taboo and found not guilt, not anxiety or fear, but freedom.
Every humiliation which stood in his way could be swept away by the simple
act of annihilation: murder." One flashback sequence shows us a girl
on a beach behaving seductively before a gang of youths. Another shows the
death of this girl as she is stabbed. We witness her murder from the point
of view of the killer. The girl (Eva Robbins, whom I will refer to as Eva
during this chapter as she has no character name) is a transsexual; Argento
is once again playing around with our expectations of gender. In an interview
Argento referred to Eva Robbins as a hermaphrodite. (6). In Greek legend Hermaphroditus
merged with the nymph Salamis and became neither man nor woman. (7). His use
of a transsexual isn't obvious at first, but she does look a little odd, indeed
the whole sequence looks odd. "Eva is just a dream, an illusion…she's
a strange girl with a hard smile who fits into the dreamy mise-en-scene. In
the same way, Carlo's lover in Deep Red is played by a woman. Over and over,
false appearances…life is an illusion, a trap, and the cinema must be
its image." (8) 
Argento's mise-en-scene has a distinctly European feel, and an unusual atmosphere
that is unique to films made in coastal locations. The sequence has parallels
in at least two other films made in similar settings. At the low end of the
scale is the infamous Island of Death (Greece, 1975, d. Nikos Mastorakis).
Also known as Island of Perversion, the film is set on the Greek island of
Mykonos, where the protagonist, Chris (Bob Belling) thinks he has a God-given
right to punish perversion. Like Berti, his idea of perversion is sexual promiscuity
in women, and homosexuality. The only real perversion emanates from Chris
himself who, during the course of the film, indulges in acts of sadism, bestiality,
and incest. The other film is an adaptation of a Tennessee Williams play,
Suddenly Last Summer (USA, 1959, d. Joseph L. Mankiewicz). Whilst on holiday
in Spain, Catherine Holly (Elizabeth Taylor) is used by her cousin Sebastian
Venable to attract young men in order to satisfy his homosexual needs. She
represses the events of the holiday after the murder and cannibalisation of
Sebastian at the hands of the enraged local men. As in Tenebrae we learn about
Sebastian's fate through the use of flashback, and Catherine's conversation
with a psychologist, Dr Cukrowicz (Montgomery Clift). Just what is it about
this flashback sequence that is so important to Neal. Did he write about the
punishment of perversion in his novel 'Tenebrae' as an act of catharsis; an
attempt to stop the bad dreams? According to Berti, Neal's book deals with
the punishment of deviant behaviour. It is possible that this last novel of
his is autobiographical and based on his experiences as a youth on Rhode Island.
There are three possible reasons for Neal's actions on Rhode Island and the
subsequent repression that he undergoes:
a) Heterosexual jealousy, he doesn't know that Eva is a transsexual, he's
just jealous of her flirtations with other men. He feels threatened by her
sexuality. His masculine pride is injured when she cavorts on the beach and
meets other men so he kills her in a fit of jealous rage.
b) Homophobic rage, he had been involved with Eva for some time before discovering
her trans-sexuality. He then felt betrayed and disgusted by her, equating
transsexuality with perversion, and because of this she had to die.
c) Fear of being identified as homosexual/bisexual. He knew she was transsexual
but other people did not. When she began hanging around with other men the
risk of discovery became a possibility. She had to be killed before his secret
was discovered because his association with her would cast doubt upon his
own masculinity.
The latter two possibilities assume that Neal is homophobic. Robin Wood writes
about the homophobic nature of some of Hitchcock's films. This is relevant
here, as some critics drawing a comparison between the two directors have
referred to Argento on several occasions as the 'Italian Hitchcock'. "In
every homophobe, the repressed homosexual tendencies are dangerously close
to the surface of the unconscious, yet their existence must never be acknowledged.
The homophobe's fear and hatred of homosexuals is essentially a projection
outward of his fear and hatred of tendencies within himself of which he dare
not permit himself to become aware". (9). If Neal is driven by homophobic
tendencies, then he has a great deal in common with Berti. The events that
he experienced on Rhode Island provide inspiration for Berti who kills and
quotes from 'Tenebrae'.
Barbara Creed disagrees with Freud's theory of the castrated woman. Freud
states that men fear her because she reminds them of their own vulnerability.
Creed argues that it is the fact that the woman is not castrated, and that
she is whole that is the source of male anguish. If the man were castrated
he would not be whole. Whilst Creed's argument is useful for discussing many
films it is presented with a problem regarding the beach scene in Tenebrae.
Argento's choice of a transsexual actress provides the unique instance of
a woman who really has been castrated. This castrated woman also has the power
to castrate; after chasing Neal across the beach and wrestling him to the
ground, the youths hold him down whilst Eva forces the heel of her shoe into
Neal's mouth. The phallic heel can be seen as symbolic of the power she holds
over Neal. "Slasher films present us with a world in which male and female
are at desperate odds but in which, at the same time, masculinity and femininity
are more states of mind than body." (10). 
The bright red shiny shoes worn by Eva are fetish objects; according to Freud,
they disavow Neal's fear of castration. When he stabs Eva to death he removes
her shoes and keeps them. Prior to killing Jane, he anonymously sends the
shoes to her. In equipping Jane with the shoes he is rendering her powerless
by removing the fear of castration. Jane's death begins with a graphic arm-chopping
scene, symbolic of castration; a punishment for her sexuality. She attempts
to defend herself with a gun, but the gun has no place within the giallo or
slasher film, it is no match for Neal's axe. Sharp objects, knives, hammers,
pitchforks, razors and axes offer closeness and tactility. Knives like teeth
are personal extensions of the body that bring the attacker and the attacked
into a primitive animalistic embrace. (11). As we have seen, Tenebrae shares
certain themes with the American slasher films, but Argento lays more emphasis
on the sexual make-up of his characters; sexual deviancy provides the driving
force behind both killers. Neal's actions aren't really explained, he was
suspected of a murder on Rhode Island, but nothing is said about Eva. Argento
leaves her open to interpretation. In retrospect she can be seen as representing
a turning point for Argento. His earlier films featured male protagonists,
after Tenebrae his central characters were mainly female.
Paul Flanagan Winter 1999/2000
NOTES
1. Dika, Vera. Games of Terror: Halloween, Friday the 13th, and the films
of the stalker cycle. Associated University Presses. 1990. p. 59.
2. Clover, Carol. Men, Women and Chainsaws. Gender in the modern horror film.
Princeton University Press. USA. 1992. pp. 27-30.
3. Ibid., p. 30.
4. Freud, Sigmund, quoted in Hall, Calvin, S. A Primer of Freudian Psychology.
George Allen & Unwin Ltd. 1962. p. 92.
5. Wood, Robin. Hitchcock's Films Revisited. Faber and Faber Ltd. 1991. p.
336.
6. McDonagh, Maitland. Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The dark dreams of Dario
Argento. Sun Tavern Fields. 1991. p. 181.
7. Rodowick, D. N. The Difficulty of Difference. Psychoanalysis, sexual difference
and film theory. Routledge. 1991. p. 66.
8. Argento, Dario, interviewed in McDonagh, op cit., p. 181.
9. Wood, Robin, op cit., p. 339.
10. Clover, Carol, op cit., p. 22.
11. Ibid., pp. 31-32.