Dario Argento's The Card Player (DVD)

Italian director Dario Argento made a name for himself amongst horror fans over three decades with fantastical, gruesome, and giddy nightmare films like Suspiria, Opera, and The Black Cat. He’s famous for his flair, highly stylized set pieces, and his unflinching eye for detail.

Argento’s eye for detail is very much in evidence in The Card Player, but in order to review it fairly I am taking all the above-mentioned preconceived notions out of the equation because this is, even as the maestro himself says, his most straightforward and nakedly commercial film.

The CSI-like cops-and-mouse story follows an Italian detective (Stefania Rocca, The Talented Mr. Ripley) and an Irish forensics expert (Liam Cunningham, Dog Soldiers) on their hunt for a death-dealing serial killer who keeps the stakes high when he challenges them to rounds of online poker — for every game the cops lose, they see a captive girl lose her life via webcam.

Agento updates his resumé for the Internet age, and he does a great job of working the technology into the terror. While it’s not what his rabid fans might expect, it does show that he has some range and he can do a better-than-average procedural. The characters, while not showing us anything new, are well fleshed out and interesting enough to follow so that when things to happen to them, you might actually care what the outcome is. The standout is Remo, (Silvio Muccino, CQ) a young computer hacker who’s forced into the game by the police, and emerges victorious. (Of course, any victories are small and short-lived as the thriller-paced plot twists and turns.)

There are several inventive death scenes in The Card Player, and some autopsy/cadaver scenes that are reminiscent of any night on network TV — CSI, NCIS, Crossing Jordan, et al — but surprisingly, the actual corpses are far inferior in quality. That’s easy enough to overlook though, as the tension level of the film stays high.

The never-before-seen value-added features from Anchor Bay and the behind-the-scenes supplements are sure to please die-hard Argento fans who want to see some new interviews with him.

•           Widescreen Presentation enhanced for 16x9 TVs

•           Audio Commentary with Profondo Argento Author Alan Jones

•           Featurettes “Playing With Death” including a brand-new interview with director Dario Argento and “Maestro of Fear” with composer Claudio Simonetti

•           Electronic Press Kit

•           Behind-The-Scenes Footage

•           Theatrical Trailer

•           Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound

•           Special 8-Page Booklet (“On The Set with Dario Argento”)

The Card Player was theatrically released in Europe in 2004 and was reviewed at Horror.com previously (click here to read the review). The Anchor Bay DVD release is coming out on August 23, 2005.

= = =

Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson