Dario Argento is an Italian film director, screenwriter and producer. His influential work in the horror and giallo genres during the 1970s and 1980s has led him to being referred to as the "Master of the Thrill" and the "Master of Horror".
Suspiria is a 1977 Italian supernatural horror film directed by Dario Argento, who co-wrote the screenplay with Daria Nicolodi, partially based on Thomas De Quincey's 1845 essay Suspiria de Profundis. The film stars Jessica Harper as an American ballet student who transfers to a prestigious dance academy but realizes, after a series of murders, that the academy is a front for a coven of witches. It also features Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci, Miguel Bosé, Alida Valli, Udo Kier, and Joan Bennett, in her final film role.
In Italian cinema, giallo is a genre of murder mystery fiction that often contains slasher, thriller, psychological horror, psychological thriller, sexploitation, and, less frequently, supernatural horror elements.
Goblin is an Italian progressive rock band known for their film scores. They frequently collaborate with Dario Argento, most notably creating the scores for Profondo Rosso in 1975 and Suspiria in 1977. Because their collaborator Dario Argento specializes in creating horror, suspense and slasher/giallo genre movies, scores made by Goblin in these movies often had eerie and ominous tones. CD re-releases of their scores have performed well, especially in Germany and Japan. Goblin returned with a series of live concerts in Europe in 2009 and in North America in 2013.
Demons is a 1985 Italian supernatural horror film directed by Lamberto Bava, produced by Dario Argento, and starring Urbano Barberini and Natasha Hovey. The plot follows two female university students who, along with a number of random people, are given complimentary tickets to a mysterious movie screening, where they soon find themselves trapped in the theater with a horde of ravenous demons.
Claudio Simonetti is an Italian musician and film composer. The keyboardist of the progressive rock band Goblin, Simonetti has specialized in the scores for Italian and American horror films since the 1970s.
Banco del Mutuo Soccorso is an Italian rock band. A popular progressive rock band in the 1970s, they continued making music in the 1980s and 1990s. They were still active, playing live in 2001 and 2008 at NEARfest. Their charismatic frontman, Francesco Di Giacomo, died in 2014.
Phenomena is a 1985 Italian giallo-horror film produced and directed by Dario Argento, who co-wrote the screenplay with Franco Ferrini. It stars Jennifer Connelly, Daria Nicolodi, Dalila Di Lazzaro, Patrick Bauchau and Donald Pleasence. The plot concerns an American teenage girl (Connelly) at a remote Swiss boarding school who discovers she has psychic powers that allow her to communicate with insects, and uses them to pursue a serial killer who is targeting young girls at and around the school.
Tenebrae is a 1982 Italian giallo film written and directed by Dario Argento. The film stars Anthony Franciosa as American author Peter Neal, who – while in Rome promoting his latest murder-mystery novel – becomes embroiled in the search for a serial killer who may have been inspired to kill by his novel. John Saxon and Daria Nicolodi co-star as Neal's agent and assistant respectively, while Giuliano Gemma and Carola Stagnaro appear as detectives investigating the murders. John Steiner, Veronica Lario, and Mirella D'Angelo also feature in minor roles. The film has been described as exploring themes of dualism and sexual aberration, and has strong metafictional elements; some commentators consider Tenebrae to be a direct reaction by Argento to criticism of his previous work, most especially his depictions of murders of women.
Deep Red, also known as The Hatchet Murders, is a 1975 Italian giallo film directed by Dario Argento and co-written by Argento and Bernardino Zapponi. It stars David Hemmings as a musician who investigates a series of murders performed by a mysterious figure wearing black leather gloves. The cast also stars Daria Nicolodi, Gabriele Lavia, Macha Méril, and Clara Calamai. The film's score was composed and performed by Goblin, the first in a long-running collaboration with Argento.
Tenebre is the soundtrack to Dario Argento's film of the same title, first released as an album in 1982, and reissued most recently in 2006 with multiple bonus tracks. The score was composed and performed by Claudio Simonetti, Fabio Pignatelli, and Massimo Morante, three former members of the defunct rock group Goblin who briefly reunited at the request of Argento. Although the movie itself credits the score to "Simonetti-Pignatelli-Morante", the soundtrack album is credited to "Simonetti-Morante-Pignatelli".
Mother of Tears is a 2007 supernatural horror film written and directed by Dario Argento, and starring Asia Argento, Daria Nicolodi, Moran Atias, Udo Kier and Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni. The film has also been billed in English-speaking media as Mater Lachrymarum, The Third Mother and Mother of Tears: The Third Mother.
Fabio Pignatelli is an Italian musician. He is the bass guitar player for the Italian progressive rock band Goblin. Goblin provided soundtracks for several horror films, most famously Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977) and George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978). The band was largely defunct by 1979, but Pignatelli kept the group together, as well as holding onto the name, and the group continued well into the 1990s, with its main lineup restored briefly in 2000. Because of Pignatelli's operation of a band with the name, they were credited as Simonetti-Pignatelli-Morante for the film, Tenebrae, because the other band members, most of whom had also worked with Simonetti and/or Morante, were not involved.
Massimo Morante was an Italian musician who was the guitar player for the Italian progressive rock band Goblin. Goblin provided soundtracks for several horror films, including Dario Argento's Deep Red (1975) and Suspiria (1977), and George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978). Morante died in June 2022, at the age of 69.
Aidan Zammit is a musician from Sliema, Malta. He has lived in Italy since 1985.
Profondo Rosso is a film soundtrack album for the film of the same name mainly composed and performed by the Italian progressive rock band Goblin, the band's first collaboration with director Dario Argento.
Bixio Music Group, a New York corporation, is the American branch of Gruppo Editoriale Bixio it:Gruppo Editoriale Bixio, or Bixio Publishing Group, the first Italian music publishing company. The Bixio Publishing Group, currently based in Rome, Italy, was established in Naples during the 1920s by composer Cesare Andrea Bixio. Bixio Music Group, an ASCAP member since 1992, was established to facilitate licensing of the Bixio Publishing Group catalogue that includes not only musical compositions but also sound recordings by related labels under the Group in the territories of North and South America.
Michel Altieri is an Italian actor, singer and musician. After a career in musical theatre, straight plays, TV, and film in Italy and Europe, he is now primarily based in New York City where he continues to work and teach. Altieri became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2016.
Maurizio Guarini is a self-taught keyboardist, multi-instrumentalist and composer, best known as a member of the progressive rock band Goblin.
Dario Argento Panico is a 2023 Italian-British documentary film co-written and directed by Simone Scafidi. It premiered out of competition at the 80th edition of the Venice Film Festival.
