I’d like to take a moment to talk about one film director that I came across in my youth. His name is Dario Argento17 and he is an Italian film maker. He is most well-known for his films, Suspiria18, and Deep Red19. Without a doubt, Deep Red has had the greatest inspiration on my creative process. I’d always been interested in scary movies, but at the time, there wasn’t one that I could really get behind. I always felt some frustration as they’d leave me feeling that “there was just something missing” about them. That is until I came across Argento’s films. I was really taken aback by the originality of his technique. The style that I’d been looking for all along was there. I discovered that without a doubt, I wanted to create things in the manner like Argento did. This is how I understood the components of his technique.
17 Dario Argento is an Italian film director who has been involved with numerous horror films.
18 Suspiria was a horror film released in 1977. It became known for its tagline (translated from Japanese) ‘’Be sure not to watch it alone’
19 Deep Red was released in 1978 in Japan, and was marketed there as ‘Suspiria Part 2’.
A creator can control the “mood,” ”timing,” ”foreshadowing,” and “contrast” to scare his audience. “Mood” can be set by the music one chooses. The music Argento used was progressive rock20. The almost indifferent echo of the stiff and robotic progressive rock sound directly brings out that feeling of terror in the audience and is far more effective than the music used in any other horror movie. And Argento effectively stopped the music at very specific moments in his scenes and did things like using sound effects to change the mood.
20 Progressive Rock is a genre of rock music that originated mainly from the UK in the late 1960s. It adopts elements of classical and jazz music and uses complex compositions and phrasings.
Also, he was meticulous about using certain tricks to increase the feeling of fear. In other words, he was a master of using “foreshadowing” to connect events to one another effectively.
And he contrasted storylines and scenes dramatically to increase the feeling of tension. Having had my sensitivity stimulated so strongly by the works of Argento in my youth, I’ve had opportunities to reflect these inspirations in my work. On the aforementioned “Famicom Detective Club Part II, the Girl Standing Behind,” I controlled the mood, timing, foreshadowing, and contrast. In other words, this title was my homage to Argento’s work.