Sex, murder, and rock and roll: Dario Argento presents "Four Flies on Grey Velvet"!!

Bold blanket statement time - this is the most detailed review of Four Flies on Grey Velvet that you will find...anywhere on the internet. Or at least the most detailed of anything that you'll be able to find by typing "Four Flies on Grey Velvet review" into Google and looking for about five minutes like I did. Until something bigger is on the first three search pages, I'm declaring myself the champion.

For those of you who have followed my reviews for an extended period of time (all three of you), you're likely aware that I hold filmmaker Dario Argento in a pretty high regard, to the point where I've reviewed more than a few of his more well-known flicks and bored everyone who will listen about the awesomeness that is "the Italian Alfred Hitchcock" (media nickname, not mine). The dog-and-pony show that we're looking at today is Argento's third film as a director, having been released in 1971 during the height of the "giallo" genre's popularity.

It's also one of the rarest movies in his catalogue; a few years back when I went on my Argento buying splurge, I was able to find most of his films for somewhere between $4-$6 a pop. This one cost me 17 cool ones for the cheapest copy they had on Amazon. According to the ever-accurate Wikipedia, this flick didn't even GET a DVD release until 2009 for whatever reason - made all the more odd since the two movies that precede it in Argento's career (Bird With the Crystal Plumage and Cat O' Nine Tails, which make up a series of nonconnected giallos known as the "Animals trilogy" - clever, I know) are readily buyable.

Finally, before we get this show on the road, BOOO-URNS to Mya Communication for being LAZY BASTARDS and not doing subtitles for this DVD, forcing my hard-of-hearing ass to crank the volume up to 100 just to barely make out what the actors are saying. It's made all the more ridiculous that the DVD contains subs for the "director's cut" scenes (which total about thirty freakin' seconds). So why couldn't they do it for the rest of the movie? Who knows. At any rate, the Horror Nerd's hearing ain't the greatest anymore, and any DVD without subs is a major annoyance.

That bit of bitching aside...THE MOVIE!!!

The movie starts out with an extended (maybe a bit too extended) opening title sequence that introduces us to our main character, Roberto (Michael Brandon, who all things considered is pretty bland in this role). Roberto, like a lot of early Argento protagonists, is kind of a surrogate for the director himself, and is a drummer in a groovy early '70s rock band as we're treated to one of their jams throughout the credits. In fact, this opening sequence kind of plays out like Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me" music video, as it shows Roberto constantly being hounded and shadowed by a mysterious man wearing all black.

Moving RIGHT ALONG...apparently this has been going on for quite some time, since Roberto is quite annoyed by this dude's presence at his band's rehearsal. He follows him away from the studio space, eventually winding up at a dark, shadowy (lots of shadowy things in this movie) old theatre. After the usual bit of "why are you following me?" merryment, the dark man pulls out a knife, and in a dodgily choreographed fight scene Roberto winds up accidentally killing his would-be stalker. While all of this is going on, there's yet ANOTHER mysterious guy present...

Most of Argento's non-supernatural films follow a pretty cut-and-dried formula - everyman hero with a somewhat artistic job finds himself wrapped up in a murder investigation while badass killer wearing either (a) mask, or (b) black gloves, goes about murdering the holy hell out of people. And...yeah. Take it from Dario Argento, kids - all-white puppet masks are creepy. At any rate, this guy just happens to be hanging out in the loft of the theatre and witnesses the murder, conveniently snapping several photos of the incident, as well. This is the lynchpin event that sets your movie in motion.

Roberto goes home to his wife Nina (Mimsy Farmer), who constantly seems to have a revolving door of random partygoers floating through their house. After kicking all of these random miscriants out (and believe me, they're pretty random - two of them are writers/journalists - not sure which - who constantly blather on about which one has the more sickening war atrocity story; nice, light party talk, ya know), Roberto is randomly attacked by the blackmailer, who kindly informs him that he won't kill him yet before departing. The next morning, we get our heartwrenching scene where Roberto reveals to his wife that he has killed a man.

Soon enough, photographs begin showing up at Roberto's abode, and three guesses as to just what they contain. Yup, it seems that the kid-masked killer is now hell-bent on fucking up Roberto's shit, and a noticeably freaked Roberto and Nina head outside the big city for some all-star backup. Said cleanup hitter is a private investigator friend named Godfrey (Bud Spenser), and it's thanks to this character that we get one of the most downright strange dialogue exchanges in movie history. I'm not going to describe the whole thing, but first Godfrey derides that his name isn't God Almighty, then proceeds to introduce his friends to his pet parakeet named Jerkoff. I swear I'm not making this up. The point of this scene is so that Godfrey can recommend them to ANOTHER private investigator, pointing them in the direction of a man named Arrosio.

Meanwhile, while all of this (fascinating, I'm sure) exposition is going on, the blackmailer has already begun going to work, sending some sort of incriminating evidence to the helpful maid (Jesus - from what we ever see of him, Roberto is just some low-level musician, and he has a MAID?? I'm in the wrong field). This sets up a park murder scene that is actually very skillfully laid out. Everybody has to give it up for Argento in this regard - when it's time for money scenes, this guy knows how to get it done, and the shrieking soundtrack by Ennio Morricone (a frequent Argento collaborator) really sets the dreadful mood well. A+++ for this sequence, even though it involves a character who was given a grand total of 54 seconds of screen time before being involved in this murder scene.

Roberto finds his way to the office of Arrosio, a flamingly gay investigator played by Jean-Pierre Marielle and easily my favorite character in this movie. Now, a lot of the other reviews of this movie deride Argento for including such a flagrant stereotype in the film. Truth be told, almost all of the other characters in this movie are Jinder Mahal-esque levels of bland. At least Arrosio breaks the monotony. What more do you need to know? Roberto has an investigator working for him, and the killer is still out there. Let's move on.

It should be clear by this point that this movie meanders a lot, but whenever an Argento movie starts to drag, he seems to know the precise moment to spring another murder scene on the audience, as Roberto's agent/friend/what-have-you bites the dust in short order. It isn't that creative of a sequence, so it's not worth recapping in detail. Again, we'd only known this guy for about two minutes before his death, so the impact is lessened considerably. Hilariously enough, Roberto and Nina manage to keep their social life afloat, throwing another party attended by both gory-story obsessed writers as well as Nina's cousin Dalia (the impossibly attractive Francine Racette).

After another very incriminating note and series of photos arrive at the house, Nina finally decides to leave, fearing for her own safety as well as for Roberto's future (since, if he goes to the police, he likely goes to prison for the accidental murder of the stalker and all). Dalia stays behind to watch after Roberto, which results in the hot cousin offering to run him a bath and give him a massage. Since Nina rocks the androgynous Annie Lennox look and is, in general, a shrewish bitch, this sequence leads to...

Yeah. Sex scene. It's one of the most disjointed and unintentionally hilarious sex scenes of all time in the realm of slasher/giallo gratuitous nudity sequence, but Francine Racette is indeed very good to look at. Amazingly enough, she's been married to DONALD SUTHERLAND of all people for the past thirty years. Proof that there's hope for everyone.

From this point on, the movie becomes a bit more interesting and even speeds up its very deliberate pace. First of all, Arrosio is fairly successful in tracking down the blackmailer (although we the audience aren't clued in on the various people he talks to during a handy-dandy musical montage), leading to his death scene, which is very cringe-worthy if you're a wuss like me and cannot stand the sight of a needle entering a body. In a way, I dug the arc of Arrosio's character in this movie - a detective who has never solved a case, and as he lays in a toilet stall dying from whatever the insane killer has injected him with, he seems oddly satisfied that he has finally been right in his profession. Good stuff.

In short order, the movie gives us its true ace in the hole - the stalk-and-slash death of Dalia. While the movie started off pretty emotionally hollow, the death of the red-hot Dalia - a nice girl all things considered, but nonetheless the cause of Roberto's infidelity - hits the audience in the gut with plenty of force. The dread in this scene is actually pretty intense, as the killer first shuts the lights off and seems to cut off all exits for Dalia, leading to a very Hitchcockian series of camera shots as he moves in for the kill.

Wrapping things up, the movie enters its final act, as Roberto buys a gun with plans on waiting around his house for the killer to show up and utilizing some Charles Bronson-style justice. Seems like a sound enough plan to me. Only, since this is a horror film, none of the stuff like this ever goes to plan, leading to another admittedly tense scene leading up to our killer's reveal. And the streak that I'm almost ashamed of continued, as I'm presently zero-for-life in attempting to guess Dario Argento mystery killers, despite the fact that I should have seen this one coming a MILE away.

While I enjoyed this flick, it has more than its fair share of problems. For starters, this movie takes a LONG time to hit any sort of stride, and much of the first hour of it is terminally boring. It dilly-dallies to an almost criminal level, particularly during the never-ending scenes involving the various party scenes and the godawful stuff involving Godfrey. In addition to that, the character of Roberto may very well be the most dislikable of any Argento protagonist. This is partially by design, as a big part of the mystery killer's motivation involves how much of a douchebag he is, but most Argento films give us a colorful and engaging lead to follow around while he goes about building tension and atmosphere.

That build isn't quite as effective for this go-round, especially compared to the earlier "Animals" film Bird With the Crystal Plumage (for the record, I still have yet to check out Cat O' Nine Tails). While many giallo films are about anything but plot, Four Flies on Grey Velvet might very well contain too much plot for its own good. Too many characters are introduced, too many dialogue scenes go absolutely nowhere, and some of the most out there character and dialogue sequences in movie history are given to us as the killer goes about setting up the master plan.

Now for what this movie does right...namely, pretty much everything past the halfway point. While it seemed extremely out of place at the time, the sex scene between Roberto and Dalia is the point that this movie begins to turn the corner and sees Argento as a screenwriter finding the groove that he would turn into his next movie, the almost universally praised Deep Red. As usual, the camerawork in the movie is exceptional, as this movie more than Bird With the Crystal Plumage sees Argento practicing several techniques that would become trademarks later on, including an early example of the "bullet time" gunshot and a phenomenal film-ending super-slow-mo car crash. When it comes to visual style, ol' Dario is almost second to none. For fans of moody film music, the score by Morricone does a fantastic job setting the psychosexual themes of the film, and during the various chase and murder scenes, you'll find yourself tense even if what surrounds these scenes is anything but.

So, in conclusion, Four Flies on Grey Velvet is an early work by a guy who hadn't quite mastered his craft yet. And...it shows. If you dig a little deeper, however, you'll find more than a few glimmers of style, a couple masterful murder sequences and that unmistakable Italian horror movie atmosphere.

*** out of ****. Recommended if you're a fan of Italian giallo thrillers or if you're an Argento completionist, not recommended if you're neither.