Dario Argento’s 1982 giallo thriller Tenebrae follows a successful author, Peter Neal, whose arrival in Rome is connected to a series of gruesome crimes. Neal’s latest book, itself titled Tenebrae, is told from the point of view of the killer, and describes murder as a form of psychological release. This concept is reinforced visually: through the cityscape, a contemporary, geometric Rome, the mise-en-scene surrounding the protagonist, and the uncanny formal elements, together conveying a rigid structure with madness bursting at the seams.

The setting is not explicitly given, but it appears some time in the near future. The Rome on display is one of apartment buildings and concrete shopping malls, the Eternal City unrecognizable with its contemporary architecture. The world on display is of perfect geometry, straight lines and purely rounded curves, of clean order and control.

What’s on the fringes though, is anything but control. On the edge of the action and surrounding the speaking characters are arguments, disputes, even physical fights – observed and acknowledged, but rarely addressed out loud. Couples arguing in a crowded shopping center, a physical fight breaking out in the police station, and other conflicts play out as part of the natural order of things. The loose screws stand out among the rigid, often monotonous settings, but their handling in such a low-key, everyday manner indicates the complacency, or indifference, when such deviances do arise.

In addition to the atmosphere, the atypical and depraved breaking out from the standard norms is conveyed through the mise-en-scene. Neal (who later is revealed to be a killer, not “the” killer), is always escorted from place to place in Rome, from arriving at the airport and plunging into interviews, getting settled in his hotel room, even scoping out the scene of the crime. He is under someone’s supervision, well-intended, but never is shown with a moment to himself. His settings reinforce the sense of constriction, through their geometric, boxlike architecture, as well as typically being indoors, caravanning from one interior space to the next. His only moments of reprieve are through committing violent crimes, as the tension and repression built up inside culminate to a horrifying release.

Violence as a heightened sensation of release, whether as perpetrator or audience, is a knowing question the film directly poses. When the crimes are linked to the story-within-a-story Tenebrae and its author, the conjecture is made about such literature being the catalyst of murder. This is surely self-referential of director Argento and his hyper-violent body of work, and the critique faced with such boundary-pushing and shocking depictions of violence. One of the killer’s tendencies is to photograph his victims, and a character can’t bear to face it; though that same image is readily shown to the audience.

The film’s violent scenes are certainly heightened, but they don’t feel sensationalized or unearned. They are gradual builds, often with an inexplicable, uncanny feeling outside of the rational. In one impressive shot, the camera – initially, presumably from the perspective of a killer – starts outside the bedroom window of a reporter, then scopes up to her roommate’s room upstairs, then continues to the rooftop, crawling over the shingles, then glides back into the building. This cannot be from any human’s point of view, swooping up and down the building, and even though the deaths are ultimately by man’s hand, there is an otherworldly dread building up the terror.

The ancillary players also contribute to the consuming, inescapable dread facing the victims of Tenebrae. For one young woman, the sudden appearance and pursuit of a homeless man chases her into her home, where she then meets her demise – at the hands of another, unconnected killer. For another, a late-night walk down the street brings a violent, aggressive dog pursuing after her, relentlessly hunting her down as prey. Fleeing from the dog, she stumbles into a stranger’s backyard and home, where her violent end will transpire. Unlinked, inexplicable elements deliver victims into the killer’s hands, as though the whole world is after them, and they cannot escape their doomed fates.

The setting depicted in Tenebrae – one of stark rigidity and structure, from which disturbing violence deviates from the sense of order –  feels like a culmination of Argento’s work to date, from his earlier giallo crime thrillers to the supernatural horror of Suspiria and Inferno. Its geometric art design, unsettling side characters, and striking camera work all join forces to build a memorable scenario of dread and horror.