The Stendhal Syndrome

On the surface, superficial level it encourages by its content, this has loopholes aplenty and a fair amount of cheese. But on a deeper level, Argento's surprisingly masterful use of crosscutting and serious ellipses actually touches on something deeper - about how the individual experiences the world. It may also be protofeminist, with a much more profound and frightening subtext to Afterrape than, say, I Spit On Your Grave. Will get better with repeat viewings and an open mind.

Dario films his daughter being raped. Awesome!

English dub. Not sure how I feel about this. The rapes made me a lot more uncomfortable than rape scenes in other movies. The first half is typical Argento stylish while the 2nd half got a lot more psychological, which is more to my liking. Unnerving soundtrack. Creepyface fish. Fav scene: great opening at the art museum.

Dario Argento's study of a woman police officer who is abducted and abused by the sadistic rapist she was trying to catch, and how the experience affects her psyche. Plenty of it is weird or unpleasant, and Asia Argento is as lovely as ever....but this movie meanders and practically grinds to a halt in the second half. Argento wallows in lengthy scenes of Asia standing around looking confused, and his flair for presenting visually interesting murder set pieces is largely absent.

"The Stendhal Syndrome considerably improves after multiple viewings." - Ed Gonzalez

It's interesting to see Dario Argento try something different in his work, in this case what boils down to a study of a woman set within a story about a serial rapist-killer and a psychological syndrome involving art. It doesn't work sadly, becoming a meandering and clichéd take on the ideas which, for its moments of extreme discomfort in the rape scenes, is not emotionally connectable to. It also lacks Argento's usually stylish direction badly excluding one or two scenes, hurting it as well.

Quite faithful to the style of Argento at his best, but suffers from various liberties taken. Not sure about the plot-development, either.

Em honra dos 80 anos completados hoje por Dario Argento. Acho que esse foi o último grande filme do Argento, ele mescla psicanálise, arte e horror de forma excepcional. DVD Versátil (atenção para o excelente extra da psicanalista que estuda a síndrome de Stedhal).

The movie's okay, but for Asia Argento to have achieved the rank of detective, she would have had to join the force in second grade. Maybe I shouldn't care, but it's all I could think about.

Very twisted and atmospheric story with some great stylistic flourishes. The kinda predictable plot mixed with slow pace make it slightly less thrilling than I was hoping for but it has a lot going on thematically. Asia Argento's performance is very powerful and manages to carry the whole crazy affair. Both story and narrative style deal with psychological trauma and are executed with Argento's most delicate touch. Trashy yet elegant, stupid yet weirdly thoughtful.

66.500

some of the corniest/worst visual effects ever, but Argento kind of makes it all worth despite the limitations. The story is dumb, of course, but it's kind of glorious to watch and Asia is amazing.

Asia Argento is one of the few actresses who can make a movie interesting just by standing around and blinking but she isn't enough to save this ridiculous enterprise.

it's argento. but the music is alluring, and Giuseppe Rotunno shot it, soo it's worth it.

Same elements as in other, more famous giallo - art, murder, rape, psychos and mystery. However, Argentos visual style is not as good as in many other his films. I am pretty sure you could do fine without those lame cheap computer effects.

"The psychological twists and turns the film makes are interesting, but they aren't matched by Argento's usual flair for spectacle."

"...there are enough virtuoso sequences to make it worth a look."

not so good

Messy and nearly unwatchable family affair from the grand ol' man of spaghetti horror.

In here there is quite a many links to the source of this syndrome: in 1817 a French author Stendahl (pseudo for Henri-Marie [!] Beyle) visited in Florence and experenced the same. Dario's story is rich and interesting, but fails to support the movie till the end. The conclusion was neither that original. Story mixes genders (man/woman) and uses common giallo elements: rape, murder, (in)sanity and serial killer.

Very, very weird. It just confirms my idea that there is something wrong with Dario Argento. Not as excessively visual and violent as many of his other films, this focuses more on the elements of suspense. It also involves his daughter being viol...(read more)ently raped multiple times. So, yeah, this one creeped me out. Watch Deep Red or Suspiria instead.