Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa) is a best-selling novelist who becomes involved in real life murder mystery when the victims of a razor-wielding killer are found with pages from his latest book stuffed in their mouths. Like many Italian murder mysteries, the story takes some swallowing, but if you can accept the convoluted plot, there's plenty of fun to be had. With its leather-gloved killer, amazing score, spectacular and innovative camera-work, and wonderfully gory murders, Tenebre delivers everything you could ask for in a giallo. It's a bit hammy at times and uninspired at others, but it's entertaining enough for what it is and it has a few stand out set-pieces, too (its final scene is clearly its highlight). In the end, though, this is a generally enjoyable Giallo experience. Another issue with the piece is its odd choice of techno-pop music, which makes you want to dance far more than it does hide behind your couch. This leads to a few somewhat dull sections and undeniably makes the affair less interesting than it perhaps could have been with a stronger grip on how to explore its solid concept. It serves as a way to get from kill scene to kill scene but isn't all that compelling, really. For the most part, though, the narrative is a tad run-of-the-mill. The movie's black-gloved killer isn't shown until right at the very end, with each murder either obscuring their face or remaining confined to their POV (another of the director's trademarks), which leads to some suspenseful sequences that see our victims essentially stalked by an invisible threat it's almost otherworldly, at times.

This includes a couple of bizarre, near contextless dream sequences/ flashbacks that don't make much sense until the plot has wrapped itself up but are intriguing enough to hold your attention. Though it's perhaps surprisingly straightforward when compared to his other work, Argento still manages to infuse the flick with his own unmistakable style. It's a mixture between a slasher and a whodunnit, although its ultimate 'answer' seems somewhat perfunctory and doesn't really provide anything other than a logical end for the moody bloodshed (and, indeed, the picture itself). Working alongside his secretary and his agent's apprentice, the writer attempts to unravel the mystery surrounding these deaths before the killer comes for him. This Giallo horror directed by genre icon Dario Argento focuses on an author who finds himself in the centre of a series of killings which link themselves to his latest work, the eponymous 'Tenebrae'.

The Killing Bone by Peter Saxon