This movie has some of Argento's signature visual style, but it's just plain amateur, with incredibly bland, dislikable characters and a totally aimless story that quickly falls apart. Everything great about Argento's other movies is missing here: it fails at suspense, pacing, character development, and a twist ending. It could be worth a glance if you're curious about giallo history, but if you actually want a good story, this movie is just plain stupid and even insulting to its audience.
A lot of reviews on here absolutely gush about this film, and it's clear that many people love Argento's movies just for their visual style. But that is NOT enough to make a movie good! This movie isn't a slideshow of pretty pictures, it's a murder mystery, and its story is an embarrassing failure. Ignoring its huge flaws does everyone a disservice, including Argento, who sets a way higher bar with his other movies.
The plot is extremely simple: Our hero, Roberto, notices a strange man stalking him. He confronts the man and accidentally kills him while a masked figure takes photos of the murder. The photographer then threatens Roberto, murders the people around him, but strangely doesn't demand any blackmail. It would all be very mysterious, except for two things: 1) the villain obviously has a woman's voice, and 2 of the 3 female characters get killed off. Gee, I wonder who the villain could be. And 2) the movie tells us WAY too early that the villain was a former mental patient, so we know there's no clever revenge motive, the killer is just cuckoo.
A better film such as Argento's "Deep Red" gives us varied little glimpses into the killer's past, so at the end we have this great "aha!" moment of understanding how those images fit together. But in "Four Flies," Argento hadn't learned "show, don't tell" yet. So the killer just gives a cliched villain speech at the end, where she exposits her motivation in the most heavyhanded way possible, but she just tells us the same info we got from the insane asylum scenes earlier! It's not just hack writing, it's botching the most basic stuff.
So there's no setup to the mystery, and the payoff falls flat on its face. Besides that, the movie is mostly a disjointed mess of pointless time-wasting scenes. Our plank-of-wood "hero" Roberto never takes any action. He spends a lot of time saying the same whiny, mopey things over and over and over. But he also throws parties with his lame comic relief friends, and he keeps playing drums with his band. In fact, Roberto is such a brainless moron, he seems to totally forget about the whole "serial killer stalking me and my friends" thing, and he spends a totally carefree, jolly time rocking out with his bandmates while his girlfriend gets brutally stabbed to death.
Mind you, she tried calling him in the nick of time, and he could've saved her life, but he brushed her off because he was having too much fun. Oh, and she got murdered because he left her alone in his apartment, which he knows the killer has already repeatedly broken into. Great hero and great script, eh?
Roberto expresses no remorse for getting his girlfriend killed through his total stupidity, but that's OK because he's the "good guy" and we're just supposed to root for him. Oh, and also he's married (and strongly implied to be leeching off his wife's money) and instantly seduced this other girl the moment his wife's back was turned. That's a charmless scene, where Roberto gropes and paws at the girl despite her angry protests. She rightly calls him a pig, but she instantly falls for him anyway. Literally, there's a jump cut and she instantly goes from acting disgusted to being his obedient pet. It's like a 14-year-old virgin's fantasy, where he has no idea how he could actually seduce someone, so he just skips over that part. And after he's gotten his kicks from this girl, she's conveniently killed off. It's really really pathetic stuff. At points like this, the film goes from merely dumb to insulting and embarrassing.
There are a couple atmospheric chase scenes, and the film does deserve credit for being stylish and a bit surreal in these parts. The scene where Amelia, Roberto's maid, goes to a park and becomes increasingly fearful is the highlight of the movie. But these brief pieces can't compensate for what a sloppy, dumb mess the rest of the film is.
There's a reason this film is lesser-known. A lot of the reviews on here are misleading because they're written by hardcore Argento fans, but this film falls very short of Argento's usual standards. And even ignoring the director's other films, this is just an amateurish B-movie by any standard. If you've seen all the famous giallo movies and you're curious about the weaker ones, then this film would be interesting. But otherwise, you should spend your time on something better.
A lot of reviews on here absolutely gush about this film, and it's clear that many people love Argento's movies just for their visual style. But that is NOT enough to make a movie good! This movie isn't a slideshow of pretty pictures, it's a murder mystery, and its story is an embarrassing failure. Ignoring its huge flaws does everyone a disservice, including Argento, who sets a way higher bar with his other movies.
The plot is extremely simple: Our hero, Roberto, notices a strange man stalking him. He confronts the man and accidentally kills him while a masked figure takes photos of the murder. The photographer then threatens Roberto, murders the people around him, but strangely doesn't demand any blackmail. It would all be very mysterious, except for two things: 1) the villain obviously has a woman's voice, and 2 of the 3 female characters get killed off. Gee, I wonder who the villain could be. And 2) the movie tells us WAY too early that the villain was a former mental patient, so we know there's no clever revenge motive, the killer is just cuckoo.
A better film such as Argento's "Deep Red" gives us varied little glimpses into the killer's past, so at the end we have this great "aha!" moment of understanding how those images fit together. But in "Four Flies," Argento hadn't learned "show, don't tell" yet. So the killer just gives a cliched villain speech at the end, where she exposits her motivation in the most heavyhanded way possible, but she just tells us the same info we got from the insane asylum scenes earlier! It's not just hack writing, it's botching the most basic stuff.
So there's no setup to the mystery, and the payoff falls flat on its face. Besides that, the movie is mostly a disjointed mess of pointless time-wasting scenes. Our plank-of-wood "hero" Roberto never takes any action. He spends a lot of time saying the same whiny, mopey things over and over and over. But he also throws parties with his lame comic relief friends, and he keeps playing drums with his band. In fact, Roberto is such a brainless moron, he seems to totally forget about the whole "serial killer stalking me and my friends" thing, and he spends a totally carefree, jolly time rocking out with his bandmates while his girlfriend gets brutally stabbed to death.
Mind you, she tried calling him in the nick of time, and he could've saved her life, but he brushed her off because he was having too much fun. Oh, and she got murdered because he left her alone in his apartment, which he knows the killer has already repeatedly broken into. Great hero and great script, eh?
Roberto expresses no remorse for getting his girlfriend killed through his total stupidity, but that's OK because he's the "good guy" and we're just supposed to root for him. Oh, and also he's married (and strongly implied to be leeching off his wife's money) and instantly seduced this other girl the moment his wife's back was turned. That's a charmless scene, where Roberto gropes and paws at the girl despite her angry protests. She rightly calls him a pig, but she instantly falls for him anyway. Literally, there's a jump cut and she instantly goes from acting disgusted to being his obedient pet. It's like a 14-year-old virgin's fantasy, where he has no idea how he could actually seduce someone, so he just skips over that part. And after he's gotten his kicks from this girl, she's conveniently killed off. It's really really pathetic stuff. At points like this, the film goes from merely dumb to insulting and embarrassing.
There are a couple atmospheric chase scenes, and the film does deserve credit for being stylish and a bit surreal in these parts. The scene where Amelia, Roberto's maid, goes to a park and becomes increasingly fearful is the highlight of the movie. But these brief pieces can't compensate for what a sloppy, dumb mess the rest of the film is.
There's a reason this film is lesser-known. A lot of the reviews on here are misleading because they're written by hardcore Argento fans, but this film falls very short of Argento's usual standards. And even ignoring the director's other films, this is just an amateurish B-movie by any standard. If you've seen all the famous giallo movies and you're curious about the weaker ones, then this film would be interesting. But otherwise, you should spend your time on something better.