Halloween is just two days away so I figured I’d throw up a rarity from the master of the macabre: Dario Argento’s Door Into Darkness! These four one-hour long episodes were Argento’s foray into Italian television in 1973, and was directly inspired by Alfred Hitchcock Presents, with the thin faced ghoulish director introducing each segment. While producer to all four films, Argento only directed 1 (and a half) of the episodes. More giallo than straight up horror, they are still a fun obscure Halloween treat. Let’s sink our teeth into it!
The Quick Gist
Door Into Darkness features four episodes: “The Neighbor,” “The Tram,” “The Doll,” and “Eyewitness.” All were made for the Italian television channel RAI TV in 1973.
The Neighbor
In the first installment of Door Into Darkness, a young married couple are in the process of moving into a secluded house with their newborn child. Little do they know, the neighbor above them has just murdered his wife. And when they do find out, they’re unable to escape due to a classic little mishap with their car. Ain’t that the way it goes. With no electricity, no functioning car, they wait out the night hoping the murderer doesn’t discover that they know the truth about his sadistic proclivities.
Directed by Luigi Cozzi (Paganini Horror, 1988), this is one of the two eps out of the whole series that has more of a horror vibe. In fact, it seemed to cause quite an uproar in Italy at the time. Here’s an excerpt from Argento’s autobiography Fear:
Letters of protest arrived form everywhere. In the newspaper La Stampa, they even published an article stating that many workers…that had watched the episode when it was broadcast, hadn’t gone to work the next day… The episode had terrorised the workers so much that they wouldn’t leave their houses — they wanted to be with their respective families…
Suffice to say, the following three are a little less tame when it comes to their onscreen violence. Which isn’t saying a lot, because this one isn’t really so intense. Also, bonus points to the husband who is obsessed with watching Frankenstein on his battery powered TV.
The Tram
In “The Tram,” a woman is murdered on public transit and later found stuffed under her seat. And to the inspector’s surprise, there’s not a single witness to the killing. Now can that be??? It’s up to the inspector to piece together this mysterious puzzle.
This one’s directed by the man himself. Though, you might not even realize it. The segment lacks many of his stylistic flourishes. But to be fair, a lot of that coms a little later with his follow up flicks. At least it features a maniac with a trench coat and leather gloves! Still, it feels a bit underwhelming as a follow up to “The Neighbor.” C’mon Dario, we want to be disturbed!
Well, that’s what you get from Italian TV in 1973. Censors were a real thorn in Argento’s side. Argento again, when discussing his pitch to RAI TV:
The Violence in the scenarios was so extreme that they told me to get a grip: it was unheard of to show such scenes on television in the evenings. As always, censorship reared its ugly head.
Guess you make do with that you got! But there’s still fun to be had with this one.
The Doll
This is by far the most middling of the bunch. Directed by Mario Foglietti (co-writer of Argento’s Four Flies on Grey Velvet), in “The Doll,” the police are on the hunt for an escaped mental patient. Throw in a random young woman and an obviously-too-suspicious-to-actually-be-the-psycho man, toss in some latent trauma, and you’ve got yourself the snooze-fest of the series. Not much else to say about this one!
Eyewitness
The finale of the four brings back some quality to the series, joining “The Neighbor” as the only other one that feels like it has some real suspense and horror. And as it happens, Argento pretty much directed this one too, even though he wasn’t slated to. His assistant director was supposed to take on the closing episode, but got too overwhelmed, handing it over to his dear friend Dario.
In “Eyewitness,” a young woman witnesses a murder while driving home at night, complete with a gloved killer in a trench coat. But to her surprise, when the police arrive, there is no crime scene. She swears she’s not crazy, but we all know how that goes. No one believes her, even though it becomes increasingly clear that the killer is on her trail ready to tie up loose ends.
And that does it! One of the silliest things about all these episodes is the final few minutes is always spent with the characters summarizing how everything went down. In case we all were bored to sleep in the previous 45 minutes.
Overall, Dario’s dip into TV isn’t really must-see stuff, but it’s definitely fun if you’re a fan of giallos and his work in general. It’s worth a watch if you’re a Dario Argento completist. At least the two episodes he directed. And also just to see a young Dario awkwardly address his captive TV audience. Enjoy!
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