Dario Argento hasn’t directed a film in a decade; how long it has been since he directed a decent film is a topic for broader discussion. Which is fine—the man is eighty-two years old and has produced some of the most remarkable horror films in the world. He could, in fact, just rest on his laurels. But his return to directing with Dark Glasses, on Shudder this October, is shocking for a number of reasons—not the least how very good it is.
A vicious serial killer is stalking Rome, murdering prostitutes in the bloodiest of ways. After a bad interaction with a client, escort Diana (Ilenia Pastorelli) runs afoul of the killer in his white van. He chases her down, causing a car crash with a family that kills the parents, leaving Chin (Xinyu Zhang) alive and Diana blind. Guilt-ridden after the crash, Diana takes in Chin and learns to navigate her blindness, with the help of homecare worker Rita (Asia Argento) and very good dog Nerea. But the killer is still at large, and Diana suspects that he’s closing in.
Dark Glasses plays as a conventional thriller when compared with the flights of aesthetic violence in films like Suspiria or Tenebrae, or even the batshit weirdness of Phenomena. This is a comparatively quieter, introspective film, with long sections more interested in building Diana’s character and her relationship with Chin than in showcasing the bloody activities of the killer. There are indeed some extreme flourishes we’d expect from Argento—the murders are blood-spattered, there’s a bizarre sequence involving water snakes, and the entire story opens with Diana watching an eclipse through sunglasses. There are red herrings that go nowhere, and an upending of narrative expectations without entirely breaking the mold. Argento’s use of POV shots here is compelling, eschewing the usual “perspective of the killer” and actually placing the audience in the position of Diana’s clients—a breaking of the more typical giallo mold of directly implicating the audience in the murders. In fact, Argento doesn’t seem to be interested in the killer much at all; this is not an investigation of pathology, but a giallo-adjacent character study.
Dark Glasses reminded me of nothing so much as The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, the assured, enjoyable slasher that was Argento’s directorial debut in 1970. Like that film, there’s some bagginess and incoherence to the narrative, with twists that nevertheless push us towards a somewhat predictable climax. Pastorelli and Zhang are standouts here; Diana is a likable protagonist, and the script and Pastorelli’s performance lends her a depth and sympathy in an interesting step away from some of the more questionable sexual politics of Argento’s work.
I don’t know if Dark Glasses will mark the finale of Argento’s career, and surely this film made by anyone else would be considered a minor thriller. But there’s something delightful in a horror master returning to a comparatively simple, enjoyable horror milieu. At base, Dark Glasses is a damn good thriller, well-paced and well-acted, with a slow-building dread and a clear interaction between many of the thematics that run throughout Argento’s films. I hope this isn’t the end, but if it is, it’s a hell of a way to go out.
Dark Glasses streams on Shudder and AMC+ starting October 13.
