Do Panic: Dario Argento’s Cinema

There’s a moment in “Dario Argento Panico,” a new documentary about the Italian horror movie maestro Dario Argento, that made me wonder if I’ve misunderstood why his assertively macabre and stylishly grotesque films so deeply give me the willies. It comes late in the film in Argento’s own words — word, actually — as he talks about what makes his scary movies scary.

“I’m looking for panic,” he says.

Panic: terror’s more dire, immediate, physically inescapable weird sister. The Italian word for panic is right there in the title of Simone Scafidi’s humanizing and absorbing documentary (on Shudder Feb. 2), and it courses through Argento’s filmography.

But I was caught off guard hearing that word on Argento’s lips, because it laid bare what I feel when I watch his films, a sensation I assumed was mere fright. Its real-world parallel is the gut punch I received one night when the lights went out in an elevator I was in, just as it came to a shuddering halt between the eighth and ninth floors. Trapped in dangling darkness, I got scared, and then rescued. But first, I panicked. We all know that feeling, but Argento feeds on it, monstrously.

Starting Jan. 31, Argento fans and the curious uninitiated have a terrific chance to sample the 83-year-old master’s disquieting work when Shudder and the IFC Center in Manhattan present — here’s that word again — “Panic Attacks: The Films of Dario Argento.”

The 13-movie retrospective, which continues through Feb. 8, features the director’s best-known titles, including the 1977 supernatural dance academy shocker “Suspiria” (also streaming on Tubi), the more traditional whodunit “Deep Red” from 1975 (on Shudder), and the less heralded (and unfortunately more cornball) fare like “Dracula 3D” from 2013 (on Amazon Prime Video in 2-D). Not included is Argento’s most recent film, “Dark Glasses,” starring his actress-director daughter Asia Argento, which came out in 2022 to mixed reviews and is streaming on Shudder.