Opera was my first Dario Argento movie and I am really happy that this was the case. Probably wouldn't have been that interested in Argento if it was another movie of his, because I don't like all of his work; this one however, is in my opinion up to now the best movie I know by him.

Just consider the film making taking the first scene: It starts with a raven eye, and we see the entire scenery as the reflection inside the raven eye: an opera stage and the audience sitting in front of it. This is a special metaphor: Eyes and observing things, be it as a voluntary observer, or as a forced observer. But it's also about seeing things and not seeing other things - with a lot of POV shots. This movie is also about unhealthy relationships, psychopaths and music. A large portion is also critizising the opera due to the fact that Dario Argento wanted to create an Opera but was riddiculed. All this is put into a relatively easy but yet really captivating and thrilling story - we have a masked serial killer that stalks an opera singer and forces her to witness his or her kills.

The movie offers a lot of original ideas that one hasent seen as such before - one for example being the needels being sellotaped to the eyelids, to make shure they cannot be closed. Another interesting thing are the elaborate dolly shots that where hard to film because everything had to be done by hand. This makes this movie great even for todays standards and there is no wondering, why this is considered to be one of the most outstanding movies of the italian horror movies.

It's really worth seeing!