Dario Argento: Hack or Genius???

[Mirage52]

I probably shouldn't be the one asking this question since I have only seen Suspiria. However, after reading that a lot of his movies are overrated by many different people, I pose the question, is Argento an oveerrated hack or a horror genius?

My opinion of Suspiria is this - it is widely said that this is his best work. I thought it was total crap. The directing is sometimes nice, and the visuals are good, but the narrative is horrid. The writing may have lost some of the power through translation and it was dubbed, but that too is just bad.

Scenes last too long and end up being totally unimportant. The editing is choppy as well. The creepy ending savors some of what was lost in the earlier scenes of the movie, but overall, it is a waste of time.

If this is his best movie, and I didn’t like it - I am going on the record to say that he is a hack. I realize that I need to see his other movies, and Deep Red sounds like it could be good, but like Suspiria it sounds like all the other movies ignore narrative. If I get bored with a movie, I’ll never like it and Suspiria bored me.

What are your thoughts?

[Morticia]

Thanks for your topic Mirage --
There's already a Suspiria discussion that has a lot of interesting responses in it, and a Argento thread that needs some love.

So please -- ignore the dates and add your thoughts there. (I'm thinking the Argento thread, to get ideas from other people on what they think of him *outside* of Suspiria.)