Editorials
[Butcher Block] Dario Argento’s ‘Deep Red’ is a Crimson Masterpiece
Opening with a scene set at Christmas, in a family room decorated with holiday trimmings and a tree, the shadows of two people entangled in a struggle fill the empty spaces on the wall until one is stabbed to death. A child screams and the bloodied knife drops to the floor. It’s a scene that gives a peak behind the curtains of the killer’s motivations before the narrative jumps ahead many years later. Though the main narrative and mystery has no affiliation with the holiday, Christmas is deeply ingrained in the killer’s psyche, making now a perfect time to revisit Dario Argento’s critically beloved film. Not that any reason is needed, of course.
After a trio of giallo films released between 1970-1971, Argento took a break from the genre to direct a comedy film. Deep Red marked his return, and with it came international success, critical acclaim, and a firm grasp of style. It’s not the director’s goriest film, but the kills are gruesome and memorable. The murder of celebrated psychic Helga is slow and excruciating; the final moments that has the killer impaling Helga’s neck on broken glass is demonstrative of Argento’s flair for fetishistic and intimate violence. Helga’s death was witnessed by jazz pianist Marcus Daly (David Hemmings), and he becomes obsessed with solving the crime.
Marcus teams up with reporter Gianna Brezzi, played by Argento’s partner at the time and frequent collaborator Daria Nicolodi. Nicolodi would appear in many of Argento’s horror works during their relationship, and co-wrote Suspiria with him right after this film. During the investigation of Helga’s murders, Gianna and Marcus eventually fall for each other, heightening the stakes. Between their investigation and budding relationship, it takes a while for Deep Red to circle back around to the body count. That’s how well Argento has crafted the story; it’s not until around the 50-minute mark that the killer strikes again.
Luckily, the third act is filled with great death sequences. From a gruesome face boiling to a brutal face bashing against cornered edges, the kills are creative. The crowning glory being the character who gets hooked on a rebar, dragged down the street by a truck, and then has their head squashed by a car. It also helps that the killer has an affinity for toys and a calling card in the form of a children’s song. The mechanical doll that pops out at Professor Giordani (Glauco Mauri) as a distraction tactic is effectively creepy. The special effects were handled by Carlo Rambaldi, a renowned special effects artist who would go on to win Academy Awards for his work on Alien and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. In Deep Red, Rambaldi had to create several mechanical limbs and severed heads.
With vivid red hues, a mysterious trench coat and gloved killer, and creative deaths that brought the pain, Deep Red became a formative entry in giallo. The saturation of intense reds, camera work that refuses to stay static, and visually stunning set pieces, this film played an influence on notable horror directors like John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, and Don Coscarelli. Argento explored childhood trauma, on Christmas no less, with crimson puddles of blood. Suspiria may have hogged much of the discourse on Argento’s career, but Deep Red is a masterpiece.
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
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