Four Flies on Grey Velvet [Blu-ray]

Along Came a Spider
First, a word of caution - if you haven't already seen the film you'd do well to avoid Amazon's image gallery as it pretty much gives the game away.

As with the previous two entries in the unofficial Animal Trilogy, Four Flies on Grey Velvet is short on explicit gore but brimming with atmosphere and artistic ingenuity, with set-piece murders primed and mined for maximum tension. It was with this film that Argento began to cement his particular style and is something of a crucible for future ideas. The murder of Roberto's maid in a local park foreshadows John Saxon's fate in Tenebre, and with its sudden lapses in time and attempted escape through the cobwebbed space between two buildings (to a soundtrack of whispers and sighs) it also sows seeds that would flourish in Suspiria. Other visual motifs (crimson curtains, extreme close-ups, inanimate objects suddenly wielded by a seemingly maniacal camera) would be repeated or re-jigged in Deep Red, Phenomena and Opera...

Excellent picture quality but some missing footage (:40)
After suffering for so long with fuzzy VHS bootlegs, I was very much looking forward to this release. It's certainly the best the film has ever looked but after going through every single scene and comparing it to the recent RetroFilm DVD, I found that there are three scenes with missing footage totaling :40. These occur during scene transitions and include dialogue. Also, the speed of the audio seems slowed down. If you listen to Mimsy and Michael, their voices are way too deep compared to previous versions or films. It sounds like they rushed this release once they got the exclusive rights instead of getting it perfect. That is too bad. This could have been the one. It is not. I gave it 3 stars for the picture quality alone.

horror/murder mystery shines on blu ray.
Dario Argento made many classic mystery horror movies in his career. He managed to be make successful movies that were well recieved around the world. this was his third film, the first two 'the bird with the crystal plumage' and this was followed by 'cat o nine tails' , both are available in very good blu rays in the u.s. This one, his third movie , is only available from the uk in this all region blu ray. It will play on your player here without a problem. I went to amazon.comuk to get a cheaper price on this item though. This one has been restored and looks fantastic, it looks like a brand new ptint, as if you were sitting in the theater back in 1972!. Shameless remastered this and removed print damage, they also found some lost elements and put them back in. those elements are from vhs quality film and they are rare. But you have the option to watch the film without the added footage. (which is not alot of footage actually!). This is how I wish all old movies were treated on blu...

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