Reception
For reasons never specified, Fox did not commit to a wide theatrical release of Inferno in the United States. In an interview with Maitland McDonagh, Argento speculated that Fox's decision was made due to an abrupt change in management at the studio that left Inferno and several dozen other films in limbo as a result of them having been greenlighted by the previous management. The movie sat on the shelf for five years and was released straight to VHS in 1985 via the studio's Key Video subsidiary. The following year, it had a belated theatrical release by Fox, playing for a one week engagement in a New York City movie theatre. Worldwide, the film only had a very abbreviated and minimal theatrical release. As noted by Argento, "I think anybody outside of Italy was lucky to see Inferno." Consequently, Inferno was not a commercial success.
Initial critical response was fairly muted. Several reviewers expressed disappointment, comparing the film unfavorably to the much more bombastic Suspiria. Scott Meek in Time Out said that of the two movies, Inferno was "a much more conventional and unexciting piece of work the meandering narrative confusions are amplified by weak performances." In a review that was later reprinted in McDonagh's critically acclaimed Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento (1994), Variety said Inferno was a "lavish, no-holds-barred witch story whose lack of both logic and technical skill are submerged in the sheer energy of the telling", then complained that the film "fails mainly because it lacks restraint in setting up the terrifying moment, using close-ups and fancy camera angles gratuitously and with no relevance to the story." Reviewing the film during its brief theatrical release in 1986, Nina Darnton of The New York Times noted, "The movie's distinguishing feature is not the number or variety of horrible murders, but the length of time it takes for the victims to die. This is a technique that may have been borrowed from Italian opera, but without the music, it loses some of its panache. The film is shot in vivid colors, at some striking angles, and the background music is Verdi rather than heavy metal. But the script and acting are largely routine." However, Cinefantastique described the film as "the stuff of all our worst dreams and nightmares and a tour de force from Italian director Dario Argento Inferno brings his personal redefinition of the genre close to perfection."
Inferno continues to have a mixed critical reputation. The film has a 55% favorable rating on the "Tomatometer" at movie review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, out of twelve surveyed internet film reviewers. But several critics have praised the film. Upon its initial release on videotape, Tim Lucas in The Video Watchdog Book said, "The movie is terrific, much more exciting than most contemporary horror video releases..." Kim Newman, in The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural, noted that Inferno was "a dazzling series of set pieces designed to give the impression that the real world is terrifying, beautiful, erotic and dangerous Inferno is a masterpiece of absolute film, and perhaps the most underrated horror movie of the 1980s."
Read more about this topic: Inferno (1980 Film)
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