31 days, 31 faves: Halloween

You knew it would find its way to this list eventually, right? My last three movies are going to be rather unsurprising for anyone who knows me at all. Meaning, one could probably guess the final three. I mentioned at the beginning of the month that there was no specific order to this list, and for the most part that's true. Consequently, I've been watching these films each night to get a better grip on writing the reviews. Thus I knew which films I wanted my last few to be so that I could watch them closer to Halloween because indeed, they are my favorites, capish?

For many long years, I considered Halloween (1978) to be my favorite horror movie. Hell, my favorite movie in any genre! Even now, after I have a few more films that I like marginally better, I still come back to Haddonfield again and again for a trip down memory lane.

And let's just get this out there right now. Putting aside my one true love (Norman Bates of course) for the moment, I will say outright and proudly that I am a Michael Myers kind of gal. Much as I like the first few Friday the 13th movies and appreciate A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I will always be a Michael fan first and foremost. He's a force of nature - a man on a mission. I love his undying simplicity too. No getting up in my business or making wise cracks. No wielding a chainsaw either -he's just a machine. No emotion, no moral compass, no reasoning, no conscience. What's scarier than that, dammit?

In my life, I've seen my share of horror, without a doubt - but there is something about this film that still gives me a slight case of the willies. Michael, lumbering along with only one thing on his mind (for once, a man without sex as a top priority!), has always got my ghost, so to speak.
The film is just such a classic. Itself influenced by Psycho, it has been one of the most powerful inspirations to a whole generation of horror. One of the original "slasher" films (some say Black Christmas was the first, some - including yours truly - even claim Psycho as the basis), it has introduced an undeniable boatload of people to what horror is all about.

The idea of having the point of view of the killer is just simply awesome. It's really done best here, with an almost giallo-like mentality... the audience feels what it's like to be the killer, to see what he sees, to go where he goes. And it works, largely in part to its clever director, John Carpenter. He and partner Debra Hill wrote a straightforward film about a man in a mask terrorizing babysitters. Doesn't seem like it would be a ground-breaking film, does it? But oh how it was. And the fact that Carpenter wrote the eerie score - well, that just proves his brilliance. A few simple notes (akin to Jaws in that respect) make up the main theme, which is recognizable by even non-horror fans.

Subtle scares and little gore are key here, with only a few mild scenes with actual blood in them. It's so much more what you don't see here that scares the pants off of you. The very first time I saw it, I remember closing my eyes and seeing Michael Myers, his white mask burning into my brain. When we see Michael's face pop out from various locations, like behind the clothesline or the hedgerow on the sidewalk, it's moments like that that make this film what it is. Scary.

But really, what do we have to worry about?
After all, it's just a man in a white William Shatner mask, right?

*Spoilers ahead*

Haddonfield 1963. From outside, someone is watching a young couple getting their groove on in a quiet street in a normal neighborhood on Halloween evening. The lovers retreat upstairs to do the deed and the quiet observer watches as the lights go out in the upstairs bedroom. The peeping tom heads around the house and enters through the back door. Flipping on the kitchen lights (apparently not afraid of being discovered) a small hand reaches into a kitchen drawer and pulls out a Psycho-esque butcher knife, continuing to walk through the house. Waiting patiently, our mystery someone listens to the couple saying goodnight (after having the quickest bout of nookie known to man) and the satisfied boy leaves. The voyeur silently stalks up the stairs and enters the girl's bedroom as she's sitting nearly naked in front of her mirror brushing her hair. She turns, exclaims "Michael!" and ta-dah, Michael begins to stab her several times, with relentless determination. She falls to the floor, dead. The killer goes back downstairs just in time to meet his parents out in the front yard as they come home from where ever the hell they were. Dad also questions, "Michael?" and pulls off his mask. The camera then focuses on a young boy, somewhat catatonic and dressed as a clown, holding a bloody knife.

Could there be a more perfect opening for a horror film?

Dr. Samuel Loomis (Donald Pleasence) and Nurse Chambers (Nancy Stephens) are on their way to pick up a patient at the Smith's Grove Sanitarium on a dark, rainy night in late October. The infamous Michael Myers is being moved to another facility and Dr. Loomis has been his psychiatrist for the last fifteen years.

As they approach the hospital, it looks like a scene from Night of the Living Dead, with all the inpatients turned into outpatients - roaming around the rainy grounds in their white hospital gowns like demented homeless people.

The nurse stops the car so Dr. Loomis can check to see what the hell is going on and while gone, Michael jumps up onto the car and breaks the window, scaring the nurse into exiting the car. Michael steals the car and drives away. (And the age old question remains: how in the world was Michael able to drive a car?)

Alas, we return to Haddonfield, where Dr. Loomis is certain that Michael will return to. Turns out, he was right.

Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis ) is our virginal heroine, and probably one of the most beloved (if not the most famous) scream queens in horror. She's on her way to school and meets up with Tommy Doyle (Brian Andrews), a young boy she frequently babysits. They have a run-down of the intended evening activities (pumpkin carving, popcorn, and monster movies) when Laurie stops at the now neglected and abandoned Myers house. Tommy warns her not to go near, that it's haunted- and Laurie brushes him off, running up the steps and leaving a key under the mat. Her dad is a real estate agent and is attempting to sell the old house. As Laurie stands on the porch, we realize Michael is standing right behind the door, his trademark heavy breathing (for all the wrong reasons) the only sound you hear. Well, until you hear John Carpenter's score break into the scene loudly.

At Smith's Grove, Dr. Loomis is having an absolute conniption with fellow doctor about the fact that Michael Myers has gotten loose and drove away from the hospital with no problem whatsoever. He swears up and down that Myers is headed for his old hometown, Haddonfield.
Naturally, that thought is met with disbelief and Loomis storms off.

During school, Laurie sees what looks like a man in a mask, standing near a station wagon outside the school when she is in English class. It unnerves her, but she puts it out of her mind.
A discussion of fate during class is ironic yet completely relevant.

After school, Laurie is walking home with her two friends, Lynda (P.J. Soles) and Annie (Nancy Kyes). The popular twosome are less than chaste friends who pretty much have only one thing on their minds: getting laid. On their way home from school they chat about things like school dances, cheerleading, and getting thrown in the boy's locker room. Laurie's social awkwardness comes to the forefront here, and she doesn't have much to add.

As they walk, a car speeds down the road past them and Annie yells out a derogatory comment. The car stops a moment but then takes off. As the audience, we know it is the car from the Smith's Grove Sanitarium, more than likely with Michael behind the wheel. Laurie recognizes it as the car outside the school window during class.

A few minutes later, when Laurie looks up at the sidewalk in front of her, she sees someone in a white mask peeking out around the hedges. But when she tries to get her friends' attention, the shape (see what I did there?) is gone.

Visibly shaken, Laurie finally gets home and is in the comfort of her own room when she gets a phone call from Annie, who is babysitting at the house across the street from the Doyle's and is hoping to talk Laurie into taking her ward as well while she heads off to get lucky with her boyfriend Paul. Laurie reluctantly agrees and as she talks to Annie she looks out her window to see the same masked man behind the clothesline in the backyard. These are the subtle, effective moments that I am talking about.

Loomis, arriving in Haddonfield, heads to the cemetery where Judith Myers is buried. Not surprisingly to Loomis, the headstone for Judith is missing, making him more certain than ever that Michael has come home. That evening, he finds the sheriff (Annie's dad) and explains the situation to him but finds the local law enforcement less than eager to accept this assumption. Sheriff Brackett (Charles Cyphers), however, does accompany him to the Myers house, where they find evidence that Michael has been squatting there. Loomis goes over the details of Judith Myers death and Michael's situation and warns Brackett that his men should be on alert for Michael as they aren't sure just where he'll strike, or why. "Death has come to your little town, Sheriff."

Annie drives Laurie over to the Doyle's and Laurie and Tommy get down to carving a pumpkin, soon settling in with the 1951 version of The Thing (shades of things to come perhaps - pun intended).

Annie calls and asks to bring Lindsey Wallace (Kyle Richards) over so she can go pick up Paul. As she gets ready, Michael stands outside, biding his time until the right moment can come along. It does of course, and Annie gets strangled and stabbed to death in her car.

Meanwhile, the incessantly giggly Lynda (who I have always wanted to stab through the eye with a sharp object!) and her equally as annoying boyfriend Bob arrive at the Wallace's. When they realize Annie isn't there, they get down to business (in someone else's house for heaven's sake!) In an eerie moment, we see Michael standing in the doorway, watching. Even more creepy, he stands right by the bed doing the heavy breathing, which Lynda & Bob never hear because they are having some damn noisy sex.

Naturally, Michael is waiting nearby and when Bob goes down to get a beer, he kills him, impaling him on the wall (quite implausibly) with the knife. Michael then appears back in the bedroom wearing a bed sheet completed with Bob's glasses. When he doesn't answer Lynda, she gets pissed and picks up the phone to call Laurie, subsequently getting strangled with the phone cord. (*secret cheer*)



When Laurie doesn't hear from anyone in awhile, she makes a phone call which ends up being Michael doing his heavy breathing act. Nervous, she heads over to the Wallace house, where she finds not only the Myers tombstone, but the bodies of her three friends. Michael then attacks Laurie and she falls down the steps. Struggling, Laurie runs out the door and back over to the Doyles, screaming the entire time. (I do realize it's Halloween, and trick-or-treat time and all that jazz, but seriously - if someone was screaming 'help me' as loudly and as desperately as Laurie is, there's no way I wouldn't hear her and/or wouldn't think something pretty awful was happening!)

After finally waking Tommy up, she's able to get back in the house but Michael makes his way in as well. Surprising him with a knitting needle to the neck, she thinks she's killed him and runs upstairs to tell the kids to run and get help.

Just when she thinks she's safe, Michael appears again and chases her into a closet, where she ends up poking him in the eye with a coat hanger (love that part!). Once again falling prey to the age old first no-no of horror (never assume the killer is actually dead), she is shocked to discover Michael is indeed NOT dead, though poking him in the eye does make him drop his weapon. Laurie picks it up and stabs Mikey in the stomach, causing him to go down like a lead balloon.

Wandering the streets, Loomis sees the kids running wild on the street and makes his way to the Doyle house as well. He reaches Laurie just in time and shoots Michael six times, causing him to fall from an upper floor window outside to the ground below. Dr. Loomis comforts Laurie, but then upon looking out the window at the body, he discovers it's not there.

And that, my friends, is how it's done.

31 days, 31 faves: The Dark (2005)

One of my very favorite movies is an obscure, little known film called The Dark (2005). It has had such mixed reviews over the last few years - a lot of them not great, saying it's a convoluted mess - but I have a soft spot in my heart for it for more reasons than just looking at Sean Bean for 93 minutes. Though that's quite nice as well, truth be told.

At once an dark, ominous film, The Dark deals with vague Welsh mythology and the mystery of Annwyn, a Pagan afterlife or purgatory. It tells the story of Adele (Maria Bello), who with her daughter Sarah (Sophie Stuckey) travels to Wales to try to reconnect with her estranged husband James (Sean Bean).

What happens instead is that Sarah goes missing after falling into the sea and a strange girl named Ebril comes into their lives, seeking the love and redemption she has been unable to get from her own family. The nature of Ebril's appearance at the same time Sarah vanishes is the central enigma, but the cinematography is the real star, wonderfully capturing the beauty of the Welsh countryside (in actuality I believe it was the Isle of Man standing in). I absolutely want to live there, abattoir or not.

So I leave you with my review here (because I already reviewed it earlier this year) and some screen shots that sum up the foreboding atmosphere the film just reeks from every pore.

31 days, 31 faves: Shaun of the Dead

Shaun has a problem. He woke up one morning and the world had been ravaged by zombies. Not your ordinary day, no doubt.

And so begins Shaun of the Dead (2004), a British horror (romantic) comedy directed by Edgar Wright and written by the film's two leads, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
My love for this film is near endless. The first time I saw it I knew it was going to be a horror staple at the Hadden home. Anytime I'm feeling melancholy, I throw this baby in the DVD player and presto! Instant happiness!

Shaun (Pegg) is a lackadaisical slacker salesman at Foree Electric. (Love that... Foree!) He's got no future in the dead-end position, but truth be told seems to like it that way.
He lives in an apartment (excuse me, flat) with his best mate, Ed (Frost), who is a big gob of goo with even less desire to have success in life than Shaun. His idea of fun is playing video games on the couch all day, farting, and making fun of their third roommate Pete (Peter Serafinowicz), the only stable one of the bunch who's had more than enough of Ed not pulling his weight.

Shaun does have something going for him, a sexy girlfriend, Liz (Kate Ashfield). Only trouble is, Liz is damn sick of hanging out at the local pub every night. When she asks Shaun to shake things up a bit instead of dragging her out to the Winchester all the time, he tells her he'll make reservations at an upscale restaurant and then promptly forgets to do so.

After having a fairly awful day at work listening to his younger co-workers make fun of him, Shaun gets a call from Liz, reminding him of their date. He immediately recalls the supposed restaurant reservations and calls to try to get a table. When they are full-up, he has to break it to Liz and suggests, once again, the Winchester.
Liz dumps his ass without hesitation, stating she needs to get on with her life but it's not going to be with him, obviously.

Shaun and Ed stay late into the night at the pub, commiserating over Shaun's breakup. Once back at the flat, they start playing hip-hop records ("It's Electro!) waaay to loud, waking up Pete who has a shouting fit, during which he mentions that he got mugged and the assailant bit him. He screams at Shaun to sort his life out and Shaun makes a pledge to do so.

Hungover the next morning, Shaun hobbles to the local store to get some soda and doesn't even notice no one is tending the store or the bloody hand prints on the cooler doors. He trudges home amidst a zombie outbreak without even realizing his neighbors have all turned into the undead.

He and Ed sit and watch television when they hear a news warning about people coming back from the dead and eating their friends and neighbors. Stressing that the public needs to keep all their doors and windows locked, Shaun and Ed gaze at each other, then the door, which they perpetually leave open. Getting a clue, they are shocked to see a girl wandering around in the garden. When they finally get her attention, she struggles with Shaun until he pushes her through a pipe sticking up out of the ground. Thinking he killed her (because obviously she has a huge hole through her gut now) they realize she's a zombie when she gets up like nothing happened. Another one shows up and the two guys try to stop them by tossing record albums at the zombie's heads (you really needed to be there, it's hilarious).

With no clue what to do, Shaun and Ed decide to head to the Winchester, agreeing that it may be the safest place to be. Shaun is determined to not only get Liz back, but to go to his mom's (Penelope Wilton) and pick her and hubby (Shaun's step-father) Phillip (Bill Nighy) up as well. Talking to his mom on the phone, he finds out zombies have bitten Phillip and it's possible they may have to kill him. Shaun goes over several incarnations of a plan before finally deciding to leave. They attempt to alert Pete, and at first they can't find him. But soon, zombie Pete makes himself known and the guys run out of the house and steal Pete's car.

Rushing over to his mom's, Shaun sees that Phillip has indeed been the victim of a zombie attack but he can't bring himself to off his step-dad. They drag him and Barbara (yep, they're coming to get you, Barbara!) with them in the car, Phillip struggling with painful injuries.
At Liz's flat, Shaun tries to beg Liz to come with him, but she is reluctant to do so and says she won't leave without her friends Dianne and David (Lucy Davis and Dylan Moran). After some convincing they all decide to go and all seven people shove into Phillip's Jaguar.


On the way, Phillip dies of his injuries and morphs into a zombie. Instead of just kicking him out of the car, the rest of the group gets out and leaves him there.

Now on foot and tramping through people's backyards (sorry, gardens) to get to the Winchester, they meet up with an old school mate of Shaun's and her motley crew, who in a hysterical sequence end up looking like the doppelgangers of Shaun's party. They all exchange greetings and start back on their way, hopping fences and darting through yards. In the craziness of the moment, Barbara thinks she notices a friend's house and gets momentarily left behind. Soon enough Shaun discovers her missing and they head back for her. (Shaun doesn't know yet, but she's been bitten and has decided to hide it).

Finally making it to the pub, the crowd of zombies is too ridiculously large to get through, so they all try their hand at making zombie moans and groans and start to lumber into the vicinity.
That works fine until Ed and Shaun get into an argument which attracts attention to the fact they are not dead. The zombies surround them and David panics, throwing a trash can through one of the windows. Shaun distracts the zombies on his own while the others sneak inside.
After several long minutes, Shaun reappears inside, telling them he was able to get by them without their noticing.

After a few hours of sheer boredom, Ed is playing a video game and makes enough noise to attract the zombies yet again.
Suddenly the old man that owns the pub shows up, a zombie himself, and Shaun, Ed, and Liz attack him with pool cues while the Queen song 'Don't Stop Me Now' plays in the background.

(Again, I really can't stress enough how effing hilarious this film is. You have to see it for yourself, you really do. My husband isn't crazy about horror, but he thoroughly loves this film, and with good reason!)


Anyway, the trio take out the pub owner but just as they do so, Barbara starts going downhill fast from her zombie bite. Miserable, Shaun makes a plea for her not to die, but alas...she succumbs. When David grabs the only gun (the one that is above the bar, natch!) to put Barbara down like a lame horse, both Shaun and Ed fight with him over wanting to do so. And even though Shaun ends up shooting his mother when she reanimates, he's furious with David and the two argue to the point that David loses all his senses and attempts to climb through the zombie riddled window. He's pulled apart limb by limb and organ by organ (just as in Day of the Dead) and Dianne is killed as well, trying to save him. During her death, the door is breached and the zombies break in.

Shaun, Liz, and Ed are left to fend for themselves, and though they attempt to light the bar on fire to scare the zombies away, they only succeed in slowing them down. Realizing their fate is at hand, Ed remembers a trap door to the basement and insists Shaun and Liz escape through it, because it has a door that leads to the street. Just as Shaun and Liz ponder their chances in a street full of zombies, the military arrives, as well as Shaun's school mate, who leads them away. Shaun and Liz go with her, hand in hand.

Six months later we are seeing a news report on "Z" day and the progress they have made trying to make the captured zombies useful to society.
We observe Liz and Shaun, now living at Shaun's flat, discussing what to so for the day - have some tea, watch some telly, and head to the Winchester (!) when Shaun tells her he's going to pop out to the garden for a bit. She warns him not to be too long, and when we see him open the shed door, we see Ed, zombified yet chained up, playing a video game. Shaun enters the game with him. Roll credits.

Chock full of fantastic one-liners you'll be quoting endlessly, Shaun of the Dead is a roller-coaster of satire and great horror movie homages. And it's one of the funniest movies I've ever had the pleasure of seeing.

31 days, 31 faves: Tenebrae

So it's a back to back dose of Argento, what can I say?
Get ready, because it's possible I could shock you. Tenebrae (1982) is actually my favorite Argento film, because I believe it is an excellent example of the giallo sub-genre. It's somewhat overlooked by casual fans, who are more interested in his popular works like Suspiria and Deep Red. In fact, I've heard a fair share of negativity about it, truth be told.
So I'm here to defend it for what it is.

Sometimes more mystery than horror, more procedural than thriller, Tenebrae boasts a (mostly) coherent script, and the central mystery is relatively easy to follow (unlike so many of Argento's films), but it has enough twists and turns and a spectacularly blood-soaked ending to make it enjoyable for even the most discerning gore-hound.

My only minor complaint is the music. As much as I enjoy Goblin and their association with the films of Dario Argento, I've never been a huge fan of Tenebrae's score, honestly. It really kind of seems like a bad 70's porno. And it always seems so loud in comparison to the dialogue. Just when you turn up the volume to hear the voices speaking, you get a blast of Goblin that blows out your eardrums.

But I think Tenebrae is one of Argento's best - a fine piece of film making and an intriguing mystery! Onward...

Peter Neal is an American horror novelist (with total 80's eyeglasses) who is on his way to Rome to promote his latest work, aptly named - Tenebrae! He's at the airport, ready to board the plane when he gets a phone call. It's his ex-wife, Jane, and after a few heated words, he tells her he'll call her later.
Unawares, his ex watches his plane take off from the terminal. Bit creepy, that.

Meanwhile in Rome, a sexy shoplifter grabs one of Neal's books in a store and pretends to be reading a copy while she slides another one in her bag. As she steals the book, someone else is doing a little heavy breathing on the other side of the store, watching her every move. In true giallo form, we don't see the actual perpetrator, we see his point of view. As the woman gets busted by the storekeeper, she fights him all the way, arguing that she was going to pay for it. A likely story.
She ends up in the store owner's office, going over her many other convictions while she tries to seduce her way out of it. It works, and she leaves after passing off her address to the guy.

Walking up to her apartment, she's accosted by a bum on the street who she promptly knees in the family jewels and makes it home. Unfortunately, someone is waiting for her at her apartment. As she strips down to just a shirt and undies (because you can't possibly be killed while wearing pants), she gazes out the window to see the bum standing there. Backing up to turn and run, she's grabbed from behind by a black gloved assailant who holds a razor to her neck while he shoves pages from the Tenebrae book into her mouth. He then slits her throat.

Cue John Saxon! Yay! As Peter's agent, Bullmer (Saxon in the world's sexiest, most secure hat, ha!) has set him up to entertain the press, talk about his writing process, etc.

When one of the reporters, Tilde (Mirella D’Angelo), accuses him of writing sexist novels, basically calling him a misogynist (which is pretty ironic considering Argento has gotten that very accusation on many occasions). Naturally he denies the accusations, but Bullmer steps in and says the interviews are over. When everyone leaves, Peter finally meets up with Anne (Daria Nicolodi), his assistant, as well as another helper, Gianni (Christiano Borromeo).


At his hotel, he's met by Detective Giermani (Giuliano Gemma) and Inspector Altieri (Carola Stagnaro), who inform him about the shoplifters death. Obviously they want to know if he knows the girl who died, since she had pages from the book in her mouth. They hand him a letter that they found, which turns out to be from the killer, who has decided to use Neal's book as a guide to his own murder spree. Peter agrees to help the police just as he gets a phone call from the killer. The voice tells them they can see him (he's standing by the window) so the detectives rush outside as Neal tries to keep them on the phone.


Just then, a flashback episode has a man (most likely our killer-?) on the beach with a few other men and a beautiful woman who proceed to humiliate him - including holding him down while she kicks him and sticks her three inch red pump heels into his mouth.
Okaaaaay....

So, it turns out our beautiful reporter Tilde is actually a lesbian, and we meet her and her lover in a restaurant, arguing because her lover has decided it's raining men, and wants to shake things up for herself - just for an hour or so. Tilde reluctantly agrees, making it obvious that she doesn't want to bend both ways. She watches as her lover goes off with one, or maybe even two, men. It's no wonder she has no trouble finding a bed mate - her breast is quite literally hanging out of her shirt. What ever happened to no shoes no shirt no service? Ahhh!

Tilde returns home later and listens to her lover tell her how terrific her male companion was. Pissed, she tells her to stay the hell away from her and retreats to the living room while the girlfriend stays upstairs.
In one of Argento's finest film sequences, we then see all the action from the viewpoint of the killer. He's stalking outside the women's house, and we watch as the camera moves over roof lines and looks through windows, watching everything each woman does. The girlfriend has the music blaring loudly (thank you, Goblin) and Tilde yells for her to turn it down. Just as she is changing her blouse, the gloved killer grabs her and uses the razor on her, with fabulous bloodspray to boot. By this time, Tilde's lover knows something is wrong and heads down the steps, only to be sliced and diced on the steps. More brilliant scarlet colors on white walls. If it wasn't so wrong, it'd be so right.

At Peter's hotel, the owner's daughter Maria makes an appearance to do a little handyman act (a seventeen year old fixes the water heater? As if!) and quickly leaves. Anne shows up and after only a few moments, another letter is delivered. Peter rushes outside, thinking he can see who left it, but to no avail.

Later, a television reporter named Christiano Berti (John Steiner) takes a particular interest in Peter Neal, in general - not just in the book. He asks some fairly inappropriate questions about the murder case but Neal rebuffs him.

As he is leaving, Peter thinks he sees his ex-wife in a car on the street. He tries to call her in New York but she doesn't answer. He discusses with Anne the possibility of Jane being in Rome, and worries that she may have something to do with what is going on.

At the same time, young Maria has an argument with her boyfriend and he leaves her off his motorcycle right on the street. In a familiar plot detail, a dog chases Maria down the dark streets and through a park. At one point he even jumps a fence to continue chasing her. She tries to enter a house she comes across, and is able to flee into its basement. There, safe from the dog, she discovers an array of photographs and damning evidence against our killer. She's taken refuge in the murderer's house. She shoves some of the evidence in her skirt and tries to find another way out - because the dog is waiting for her by the door. Inside the house now, she wanders around the killer finally enters the room. He grabs an ax and chases her outside, where we all know she has no chance of survival. And no, she doesn't.

As Peter, Anne, and Gianni put together the pieces of the puzzle, Peter becomes suspicious of the television reporter Berti because of his incessant questioning and extreme interest in Peter's latest novel. He decides to take things into his own hands and try to discover the killer's identity himself.
And once again, Anne thinks she sees Jane, and when she tries to call her she gets her machine.


Peter and Gianni take off for Berti's house, and sneak up to his back door. They watch him inside his house, then the two of them split up to try to catch him doing something abnormal. As Gianni watches, Berti discovers someone in his house, and quicker than you can say ax wound, someone lands an ax right in his head, killing him. Gianni rushes to the other side of the lawn and finds Peter on the ground, knocked out and bleeding. They rush off, with Peter unable to explain what happened. Gianni can't remember any major details, only that Berti seemed to know his killer.

Anne tends to Peter's head wound, and he asks her to spend the night - just as friends! (Um, yeah. Is that what they're still calling it?) After Gianni leaves though, Anne and Peter can't resist the call of the wild, and swear they won't talk about it in the morning.

It's flashback time again, and this time we see the killer watching the woman in the same red heels as before, only this time, he's got a knife and he stabs her dead. That'll show her for making a fool of him.

And the plot thickens. Peter's agent Bullmer opens his hotel room door and in walks Jane, Peter's ex-wife. The embrace and kiss, and he tells her not to worry, that things will all be over soon. They agree to meet for lunch as usual. Hm...

At Berti's house, the detectives call Peter there to go over some evidence. They find that the supposed killer has a serious interest in Peter's work. Peter feels like he just can't remember what he needs to to help them solve the case. Detective Giermani thinks the murders will stop now that Berti is dead, but Peter isn't so certain.

In the town plaza where Bullmer waits for Jane, he is murdered in plain sight, with a woman in high heeled red shoes walking by right after.

Gianni decides he wants to go back to the Berti crime scene to see if he can remember the important piece of evidence he's forgotten. As it was, he does indeed remember hearing Berti telling his attacker "I killed them all!" Which puzzles Gianni, because if Berti was the murderer, then who murdered the murderer? Sadly he doesn't get a chance to find out, as he is strangled in his car.

Jane calls Anne, trying to make amends and explain everything. Anne agrees to meet with her and quickly leaves. We see Jane, awaiting Anne's arrival - wearing those signature red shoes.
But before Anne can get there, Jane is also brutally murdered in her rental home, with the killer first chopping off her arm violently and then hacking her up with an ax.

**SPOILER ALERT!!**

Just then Inspector Altieri arrives and the murderer kills her as well.
When Detective Giermani and Anne arrive, we see that it is Peter who is the killer. He's the humiliated man from the flashbacks who killed the girl in the red shoes. He's had a hard time living it down and has now taken his revenge, killing Berti and the others after him. Living with the embarrassment for years, it's haunted him to the point of no return, and while writing his novels has been cathartic, it finally came to the end game when Berti started killing the other women after reading his books.

Without warning, Peter runs a straight razor over his throat, killing himself.
When Detective Giermani ushers Anne into his car and goes over the details, he explains Peter's motive, then goes back inside the house, leaving Anne in the car.

Straightaway he notices Peter is missing. Glancing around, he finds the razor and sees it is a trick razor, able to spurt blood at the flick of a button. Just as he stands up and looks around, Peter appears behind him and thrusts the ax through the detective's back. Anne hears a ruckus and goes back inside to find Peter standing at the door ready to attack her. The door knocks over a bizarre metal statue, impaling Peter with a huge piece of it, killing him.
And if you think Jamie Lee Curtis is the premier scream queen, you've never heard Daria Nicolodi at the end of Tenebrae.

And really, there's just nothing left to say. The film speaks for itself.