Shudder from 13 October

A blind woman and her young guide track down a dangerous killer through the darkness of Italy.

Full disclosure up front – I’m a HUGE Dario Argento fan. The sort of fan who travels to an exhibition in Turin and seeks out obscure filming locations from his movies. So you can imagine my excitement at the prospect of a new horror movie from the Italian master of horror, some 10 years after his rather poor Dracula.

The signs were good: a screenplay written by Argento and Franco Ferrini (Phenomena, Demons, Sleepless), a supporting role from his daughter Asia (The Stendhal Syndrome, Trauma) and filmed in his home city of Rome. Sadly, these elements could not provide the alchemy needed to deliver a classic Argento, or even a semi-decent one.

Dark Glasses is ultimately a very generic, low budget horror movie that sits indistinguishably alongside most of the output of the horror streaming channel Shudder. Apart from a couple of inventive (and gory) murders this is a regular Giallo whodunnit with such a limited number of possible suspects that you can’t help work it out way too early in the run. Deep Red it ain’t. The two positives are Ilenia Pastorelli as the blind sex worker (enough of this trope please) Diana and a vibrant trance-inducing score by Arnaud Rebotini.

Verdict: Maybe it was too much to expect a late career masterpiece from Argento, but it should have been better than this run-of-the-mill minor horror. 6/10

Nick Joy