Once again, Arrow Video gives the Criterion treatment to a highly-regarded genre classic. This time, it's Italian director Dario Argento's art/giallo classic,"Deep Red", and Arrow does a fine job upgrading the film's original elements with a brand new 4K restoration, along with a much-improved soundtrack. Also provided in this deluxe edition are bonus features such as interviews, critical analysis and a visit to Argento's shop in Rome (Profondo Rosso, which I managed to visit back in 2012), as well as a booklet featuring articles and thoughts on the film by author, Mikel J. Koven, and critic, Alan Jones. The images in the newly revamped film are (as expected) brighter and clearer than in the previous version I own, particularly in the haunted villa scenes, which are much less murky (but no less creepy), and the score by Goblin is even more jarringly effective now that the soundtrack has been cleaned up."Deep Red" (or "Profondo Rosso") is, justifiably, one of Dario Argento's most lauded films. Made in 1975, it starts out as a fairly standard murder mystery and then rather quickly morphs into a many-headed hydra, incorporating elements of the supernatural, romantic comedy, thriller and horror show as its bloody, convoluted narrative unfolds. Like the movie "Blow-Up" (my favorite 60's film), "Deep Red" features David Hemmings as the protagonist who witnesses a murder and then attempts to investigate it. Over the course of "Blow-Up" his character (a photographer) begins to doubt that the event he thinks he saw ever occurred: there's no body so maybe things weren't exactly how they appeared in his photographs. In "Deep Red", although there's a body, the Hemmings character (Marcus, a musician) quickly realizes that something doesn't quite add up in his recollection of the events. It's a skillfully rendered mystery that plays out masterfully in Argento's hands and, despite the initial similarities to Antonioni's iconic 60's film, "Deep Red" takes a much darker, gorier and, ultimately, grim turn.Actress Macha Meril, an occasional denizen of Italian horror films of the period, plays a psychic and starts off the film in Grand Guignol fashion: after reading the thoughts of an unknown psychopath in the audience at a parapsychology conference, she is stalked and brutally hacked to death in her apartment by a black-gloved intruder. Meanwhile, Marcus, having finished rehearsal with his band, is guzzling booze across the square with his gay best friend, Carlo (Gabriele Lavia). They hear a scream and Marcus looks up to see a bloodied woman being slammed against her window. Realizing that the woman lives in the apartment directly above his, he hurries up to her place and finds her dead. Recounting this tale to the (as usual, ineffectual) police, he immediately senses that something is missing from his story. But what? It takes the remainder of the film and a number of grotesque murders for him to finally piece things together, and by then, he's in mortal danger.The acting in "Deep Red" is very good across the board, which isn't always the case in many giallo films. Hemmings is a much more likable protagonist here than he was in "Blow-Up". He gives Marcus an air of vulnerability and confidence, without ever coming off as arrogant: he has a lived-in quality that makes him more relaxed and open. Marcus' scenes with his romantic interest, reporter Gianna Brezzi have a breezy, screwball quality that should throw off the movie's momentum, but somehow don't. As Brezzi, actress Daria Nicolodi shows off her skill as a deft comedienne, and she and Hemmings have a nice chemistry together, especially when he's playing straight man during her comedic antics; Nicolodi is, I think, at her best playing flighty, slightly daft characters (she was also great in "Opera"). Of course, this being an Argento movie, these humorous moments are only brief respites from the deadly business at the dark heart of this mystery. There are several elaborate death scenes that are trademark Argento. The most notorious involves Professor Giordani (well-played by Glauco Mauri) being confronted in his study by a mechanical doll that presages the eerily similar one in the "Saw" movies. The ensuing scene is both sadistic and squirm-inducing, although I found the later death-by-scalding of another character even more difficult to watch. By the end of the movie almost everyone is dead but all the actors have their moment to shine, however briefly. Gabriele Lavia, as Carlo, has the unenviable task of playing a self-loathing homosexual who is also an alcoholic (gays were still a few years away from being portrayed in a positive light, even by gay-friendly directors like Argento), but he's got even worse problems than that. Interestingly, Argento is known to play with gender. In "Deep Red", he has a woman playing Carlo's male lover; in "Tenebrae" Argento cast a transgender actor to play the femme fatale who psychically damaged the killer as an adolescent. In other roles, Giuliana Calandra fares well as a writer who knows more than she should , and Clara Calamai, a former screen siren of Italian cinema, is excellent as Carlo's glamorous mother.If you're paying close attention, the denouement will probably not be a great surprise but I think the key to the mystery is easily missed, as much by the casual viewer as by the character, Marcus. In the end, "Deep Red" is a really good mystery that gets a little messy and needlessly confusing but pulls itself together to provide a scary and gruesome (if abrupt) conclusion. A great giallo and a must for anyone's film collection.