Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I have a real love/ hate relationship with Argento's movies. I love the love the art of them. I love the beautiful, sublime imagery that he is able to obtain in his movies. The way that he thinks through shots and perspectives create a series of images that would work as art pieces captured frame by frame. His murder scenes are gorgeous and, typically, what draws me into these movies. I really want so much to enjoy his movies, but there is no much to hate as well. The dubbing is poorly done and ruins any of the craft of performing that his actors bring to the table. The dialog is typically bad, as well, and nobody talks like a normal person would in day to day conversation. Usually, the plot is nonsensical and just there so that Argento can hang these images out for the viewer to see.Most all of these things are true of OPERA, which many would tell you is Argento's last watchable movie before his career went completely off the rails. A young ingénue is an understudy in a performance of the opera Macbeth. When the leading lady suffers an accident, she is given her chance at stardom. Things aren't quite so great, though, as the cast and crew start getting murdered before her eyes (literally). In the end, these murder scenes are really the only thing worthwhile about this movie. I have seen it several times now and would argue that it is one of the more straight- forward films in Argento's catalog, meaning that the plot mostly makes sense and the viewer is able to follow the mystery of the movie without getting distracted by insane oddness.It's been said that the true judge of a horror movie is whether it would work without the violence. If you removed the murders, do you still have a good movie? If we're applying that to this one, the answer is most definitely "no". Without the gorgeous deaths, what we are left with is no better than a bad 70s detective TV show, albeit with some wonderfully artistic moments and camera shots. Even including the murders in your judgment, Argento continues his annoying 80s habit of using metal music in those scenes. It's jarring and completely dated and, for me, ruins any sense of terror in those moments. Instead, it becomes like a 17-year old's first home video movie, showcasing the poor choices that have always kept Argento from being more successful in his films.If you are a lover of Argento's movies, then there is a lot of his trademark style to love here, for sure. Those who worship at his altar will vehemently defend this movie. If you are a novice who is unfamiliar with his work, though, or maybe you've seen SUSPIRIA and thought you'd check out some others, then know that his work is very much an acquired taste. I have seen almost his entire catalog and even I find his movies to be a chore to get through, at times. If you like DEEP RED, then see TENEBRE and if you've enjoyed both of those, then most likely you will like this movie, but it is far from being his strongest work.

Usually I float over titles I see on this website and let it be as karma to the film, or whatever, but this one seems to have a bad rep that I intend on redeeming. This film is worth me putting my foot in the door and saying something, I can't physically change your mind, but I can try and push the bad reviewers out of sight (by finding out where they live, kidnapping them with 3 rolls of duct tape per body, some heavy duty garden rope, and dropping them off the shortest peak of Mt Everest.) Some reviews say it's just a film that panders to gore hounds, where others say the story makes not a blip of sense. I recently watched another Italian horror director's (Lucio Fulci)film "House By The Cemetery", and I realised something about the whole genre of Italian Horror, whether it be very grounded Giallo types, or the supernaturally dream like horrors that feel like a hallucination. They're films that go for a "definite feeling", how they get there at the end, however unorthodox or off the wall they are, they achieve dread through little quirks and symbols, artistic motifs, camera shots, music that is genuinely saddening and horrifying. But whatever criticisms you might have about the acting, the strange, unrealistic script, the gore... you get "there". It creeps up your skin. It goes for a densely packed experience, filled with all kinds of dreams, fashion, themes and nightmares. On a documentary about Italian Horror films, it said something very important about the cultural significance of them and it is something that Fulci said: "Violence is an Italian art". There's something about their overbearing, bloody, Roman past, and their highly emotional society, and how even today it is so constricted by religion and class orders, and how this is represented in their horror output as a kind of rebellion. Sure there is worthy Italian comedy, but it's the horror that is done artistically and poignantly, and always in anything gruesome, there is a sense of humour anyway. It seems what they want us to believe is that it comes naturally to them and we should understand that their understanding serves a purpose in the universe.With "Opera", the setting is that familiar scene of paparazzi, false love, real pain, celebrities, the fans, that cold world where talent, and love for what you do, takes you. Least of all, it's about Guiseppe Verdi's opera- "Macbeth". Actors at odds with their fans, A dark celebration of youth, life imitating art, it could be interpreted many ways, but ultimately I think what's clearest about it is its disdain for celebrity worshiping culture. It's fantastically cynical and has a seething hatred running through it. It's shot like a dream, which is not uncommon for Argento films, but a dream which turns sour for the unsuspecting protagonist who is unsure about the power of her singing talent, but coerced into taking the role of Lady Macbeth. The art direction in this is grey and futuristic looking, everything is the colour of granite, splashed with blue. Every element of the movie is densely layered, the cinematography, the music, the pacing is so tightly packed it's like watching someone get stuck in a black hole where no man has gone before. And that's my last point about this movie and why you should see it... it's a completely original film, an artistic accomplishment in its own right. It's a rebellious statement, it's brutal, it's seductive, it's confidently done, I just hope you read this review before the others and at least give it a chance. Saying it's rebellious has made me realise something: modern horror films are done for the enjoyment of watching them, it's like the makers enjoy it and that carries on, whereas the old films were made by men and women who were fighting in their own small ways, an oppressive society, who enjoyed fear above all else because the horror makes you think, they used their dream like horror as an intellectual and educational tool. This film is still a part of that "Old School". I don't know what to say, maybe my love for this movie is as irrational as the whole Italian horror canon, as the dream-like way in which they shot the films, but as far as going on pure feeling goes, my gut tells me to follow this one, and you should too. Get a creep under your skin, get a view of the world you've not seen, watch this!!

Dario Argento's "Terror at the Opera" stars Cristina Marsillach as Betty, a young opera singer who is menaced by a mysterious serial killer. The killer forces Betty to witness various murders – literally pinning her eyes open in some sequences – a routine which he enacts out of "love". We later learn that the killer once performed the same routines for Betty's mother, also an opera singer. The film ends with Betty and her director fleeing to the countryside, where she proposes marriage to the killer prior to slaying him before prying eyes. By the film's end, "Terror" has a become a giant metaphor for Argento's own filmography, the director spilling blood out of love for both audience and art.Unlike Argento's best films, which tend to be minimalistic and which tend to rely primarily on a fusion of images and music, "Terror" is cluttered. It's an overly busy, overly verbose film, and most of its sets are gaudy or ugly. Compare, for example, with the clean lines of Argento's "Deep Red", or the sleekness of Hitchcock and De Palma, Argento's chief influences.Like most of Argento's later works (in particular, "Tenebre"), "Terror" is heavily self-reflexive. Pinned eyes allude to an audience Argento himself holds captive, giant opera stages recall Argento's own blood operas, and the film is filled with loopy tunnels and corridors, which coil in the shadows like the brain stems of poor little Betty.Incidentally, the opera Betty performs is an avant-garde rendition of Giuseppe Verdi's Macbeth, historically renowned for bringing bad luck to its casts. The "bad luck" in "Terror" mostly consists of gory murder sequences, primarily designed for gore-hounds and fans of splatter horror.5/10 – See "Rear Window" and "Body Double", better films which implicate audiences and artisans. Worth one viewing.

Being both a Dario Argento fan and a Phantom of the Opera fan, I was dying to see his first take on the story, before the so-bad-it's-good "Dario Argento's Phantom of the Opera". The film is just terrific, even the plot, which here is one of Argento's best at a coherent story. The way he turns a classic romance story into a creepy slasher is just terrific. The film has a very nightmarish feel, which helps on keeping you on the edge of your seat. The colors have never been better in an Argento film since the jaw-dropping "Suspiria". The murders are clever and gory, all done in Argento's trademark style. The thing with the eyes in this film is just unsettling, and done some much better than in Fulci's splatter. The acting is so-so, but once you seen the movie more times you understand the characters' motivations better, and you get used to it. My two biggest complains about it is the use of rock music. I think it was a clever idea to mix beautiful opera fragments with heavy-metal, but it's not executed very well here. The ending is VERY disappointing, which is the worst thing about the movie, seeming to echo Argento's previous "Phenomena", but done terribly, it just didn't need to end that way. The same thing happened in the director's cut of "The Exorcist". I wished they kept the original ending. But still it's a fantastic motion picture and really a must-see, if only for Daria Nicolodi's memorable murder sequence.