Cinema has always been a fetishist's playground. Kubrick was a serial stalker, shadowing his characters with a Steadicam and zoom lens. Hitchcock liked to toy with brutalised blondes. As for David Cronenberg, arguably the most twisted puppy on the block, well, let's not even go there. In the pantheon of gifted sickos, Italian horror maestro Dario Argento stands tall: his ornate, voyeuristic chillers showcase a multitude of flesh-creeping fixations.
It began innocently enough. Argento, the Rome-born son of a movie producer, started out as a protΘgΘ of Sergio Leone, co-scripting Once Upon a Time in the West, Leone's sprawling 1969 paean to the American Dream. Constricted by the niceties of mainstream film-making, he decamped to Italy in his early 30s, crafting a string of rococo horrors that confirmed him as a master of style over substance. A penchant for casting buxom nymphets in grotesque male fantasies, usually doomed to a gory end, led to accusations of misogyny. Argento embraced controversy like a long-lost relative.
"I like women, especially beautiful ones. If they have a good face and figure, I would much prefer to watch them being murdered than an ugly girl or man. I certainly don't have to justify myself to anyone about this," he told one gobsmacked interviewer.
Argento had a thing about hands, always shooting murder scenes from the killer's point of view, using his own mitts in place of an actor's. His cinematography was theatrical and sadistic; he enjoyed focusing on the victim's eyes in the moments before death, the close-up accompanied by cacophonous wails and glass-shattering screams.
Thankfully, Argento's movies transcended his creepy affectations. Deep Red (1975), Suspiria (1977) and Inferno (1980) are milestones in European horror - measured, exquisite and disturbing. While Hollywood was developing a taste for thrill-a-minute slasher flicks that never got inside your head, Argento was making psychological dramas that stayed with you for days. The current batch of international screamers, most notably the "Japanese Ring" series, are his spiritual descendants.
Now nearly 60, Argento continues to produce deft splatter-fests, though he has lately reigned in his style somewhat to appease US audiences. The early 1990s saw him return to Tinseltown with the indifferent Trauma. He is currently putting the finishing touches to an English-language adaptation of last year's Non ho sonno (Sleepless), a minor hit at the Italian box office.
Although Argento's heyday has passed, his troubled visions continue to haunt our subconscious.
More on Dario Argento at www.darkdreams.org