An American writer living in Rome witnesses an attempted murder that is connected to an ongoing killing spree in the city, and conducts his own investigation despite himself and his girlfriend being targeted by the killer.
Its scares are on a much more basic level than in, say, a thriller by Hitchcock. It works mostly by exploiting our fear of the dark.
– Roger Ebert,
Chicago Sun-Times,
23 Oct 2004
fresh:
[It] has the energy to support its elaborateness and the decency to display its devices with style. Something from each of its better models has stuck, and it is pleasant to rediscover old horrors in such handsome new decor.
– Vincent Canby,
New York Times,
9 May 2005
fresh:
Now king of the spaghetti slasher, Argento made his directorial debut with this tightly constructed thriller.
– David Thompson,
Time Out,
24 Jun 2006
rotten:
Dario Argento's undistinguished Italian thriller was an unexpected hit in 1969, thanks largely, one suspects, to some violent scenes that were unusually graphic for their time.