The Stendhal Syndrome UK DVD

Asia plays Anna Manni, a police inspector on the case of a serial killer/rapist. She goes to Florence, where she takes in the sights and visits an art gallery (the Uffizi Gallery). Whilst looking at a painting (The Fall of Icarus by Breugel), she experiences a severe faint, imagining the painting coming to life. This is the titular 'Stendhal Syndrome' (named after the French writer Stendhal, who suffered from the syndrome and was the first to write of it) - a sufferer will faint when exposed to beautiful works of art. The killer (called Alfredo Grossi) meets her whilst she is ill, and befriends her. He rapes her later and rapes and kills a prostitute. She returns to Rome, where she finds herself unable to return to a normal life, and in an increasingly disturbed mental state. Meanwhile, another girl, a prostitute, is killed. Alfredo captures Anna and rapes her once again, and keeps her prisoner, tied to a bed. He leaves for a while, and when he returns she fights back, in the most violent scenes of the film, stabbing his neck, goring his eye out, kicking him, shooting him and beating him with the gun butt, then finally kicking him down a hill, and over a cliff into a river far below. However, is he really dead? The thought taunts Anna and she finds herself even more confused. Her French boyfriend (called Marie) is killed, and she is driven over the edge... To say more would spoil the twisty ending for anyone who hasn't seen the film, so at this point I shall stop.

"World of Horror" - Documentary
A workmanlike, though eminently watchable, at times innovative 1985 documentary look at gialli magician Dario Argento; his films, techniques and equipment, giving an insider's view as seen by Argento protégé Michele Soavi. Dario Argento's World of Horror / Il Mondo dell'orrore di Dario Argento comprises a series behind the scenes glimpses of such films as Suspiria, Phenomena/Creepers, Tenebre and Inferno, an extended interview with Dario himself in which he muses on himself and his work and of-course clips from his oeuvre including his masterpiece Profondo Rosso. It may be rendered a tad dated now, by dint of a lack of later clips (Opera, Trauma, La Syndrome di Stendhal, NonHoSonno), but the behind the scenes sequences are superb; Argento at work, the making of Phenomena and Suspiria and Keith Emerson's scoring sessions for Inferno, whilst the running interview with Argento gives some perceptive glimpses into the man's wonderfully unbalanced psyche and the finished clips are terrific, although unfortunately not letterboxed as is the case with the shallower, also dated and far more violent Luigi Cozzi helmed follow-up Il Mondo di Dario Argento 2/ Dario Argento: Master of Horror. Il Mondo dell'orrore di Dario Argento also features unedited sequences from Dawn of the Dead and familiar to most though it may be by now, remains an absolute must-buy for any admirer of Argento's work and an even more absolute must-see for anyone who's edification is so lacking [you know who you are]. Featuring also are interviews with Luciano Tovoli, Stilvetti, snatches of Bill Wyman and Terry Taylor's haunting piece "Valley" which opens Phenomena and classic Argento iconography encompassing dream imagery, beautiful women being graphically murdered and the crystallised gialli image of the "black gloved killer"- all touched upon and explored in varying degrees of detail, Il Mondo dell'orrore di Dario Argento is simply unmissable.