Crystal Plumage

The bird with the Crystal Plumage is a complicated title in English,

but wonderfully cryptic in Italian. It happens to be Dario Argento’s first title.

A classic thriller, one of the first to develop many of the classic ideas of the serial killer franchise. A murder and a witness who remembers there’s one thing which doesn’t add up in the murder scene he saw. Then, a little particular which gets to be discovered late in the movie, betrays the murderer. Plus, a nice twist on the plot’s logic. Nice movie, an early Argento with many of his beloved themes, like the scene where the killer whispers to a likely victim: “You’re not going to come out of this room alive“, and the director builds up the suspense with this cat-and-mouse-in-a-cage scene.

Here’s the trailer.