Behind the Couch

Actress and screenwriter Daria Nicolodi has died at the age of 70. Her death, on 26th November, was announced by her daughter, Asia Argento.  Nicolodi was born in Florence, 1950, and made her film debut in the 1970 war film Uomini contro ( Many Wars Ago ) playing a Red Cross nurse. She came to fame in 1975 when she was cast as savvy investigative reporter Gianna Brezzi, in Dario Argento's classic giallo, Profondo rosso ( Deep Red ). This role would be hugely impactful, not only upon her career, but also her personal life, as she and Argento soon began a relationship and had a child together (Asia).  Nicolodi was integral in the conception of Argento's next film Suspiria (1977), which she co-wrote. A dark and violent fairy tale horror, Suspiria tells of a young ballet student who discovers the academy where she has enrolled is home to a coven of evil witches. Nicolodi had been inspired by tales of witches and black magic told to her by her grandmother, who claimed to have ha...

1977 Dir. Mario Bava AKA Beyond the Door II, Transfert-Suspence-Hypnos, Shock Dora (Daria Nicolodi), her son Marco (David Colin Jnr) and her new husband Bruno (John Steiner) return to live in her old family home – the site of her first husband’s supposed suicide. Recovering from a nervous breakdown, Dora’s already fragile state of mind is pushed further towards the brink of sanity by strange occurrences in the house and the increasingly sinister behaviour of her young son. Dora begins to suspect that her former husband has returned from the dead to continue abusing her as he did in life. Is this the case, or has Dora just slipped quietly into madness? Schock was director Mario Bava’s last film. Co-written by his son Lamberto and Dario Argento’s regular co-writer Dardano Sacchetti, certain segments of the film were also directed by Lamberto as Mario was in poor health. The writers tread a fine line throughout the film and the story is enshrouded in ambiguity and suggestion. ...

1977 Dir. Dario Argento The arrival of American ballerina, Suzy Banyon (Jessica Harper), at a prestigious dance academy in Freiburg, coincides with a series of savagely brutal murders. Suzy slowly begins to realise that the academy is actually a front for a coven of witches led by the diabolical Mater Suspiriorum – The Mother of Sighs – who plans to unleash untold suffering and pain upon the world. With her friends falling prey to evil supernatural powers and no one to believe her seemingly outrageous story, Suzy must face her deadly foe alone… The first film in a trilogy, Suspiria precedes Inferno (1980) and the only recently completed final chapter, Mother of Tears (2007). With Suspiria , Dario Argento and his co-writer Daria Nicolodi created one of the most vivid, nightmarish and hallucinogenic horror films of all time. Deeply influenced by the drug-induced and vivid writing of Thomas De Quincey, Argento also borrows from Lewis Carroll, the Brothers Grimm and Snow White a...