Deep Red is not the scariest horror movie ever, as my Penn-in-Cannes organizers would have me think. It is merely a dated attempt at horror that John Carpenter copied in Halloween, except Halloween was better. Dario Argento's "masterpiece" is mediocre overall, but it shows a valiant effort that I respect. The shots were framed with purpose and precision as if they were meaningful, but they were not. The camera movements were sloppy, distracting, and over the top. The music was interesting at first and very similar to Carpenter's music in Halloween, but for the last 2/3 of the movie, it became a heinous, dated rock synth piece that was repeated over and over again. The sound quality was awful, the violence was tame, and the special effects were laughable. The acting and the editing were less than noteworthy. The plot meandered and had numerous pointless subplots. Like Carpenter in Halloween, but with worse pacing, Argento tries to increase tension with boring scenes where nothing happens. To the movie's credit, many images are arresting and imprint themselves in your brain. Some scenes are very unsettling and stick with you. But overall, I wouldn't recommend this movie because Halloween is everything this movie tries to be, only it succeeds.IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0073582/